Tag: Ellen Wiggins

It was this day last year that we found out we got our visas to come and live in Canada! We’d just arrived in Vancouver for a holiday three days earlier, and we were on our way to pick up a car so we could go drive to Whistler. We stopped at Grounds For Coffee… Continue reading One Year Later

We have a home! Mostly anyway... We moved in on Monday 23rd. On the Friday and Saturday before that we hired a car so that we could drive around collecting furniture that we found on Craiglist. Craiglist is pretty legit here with loads of people selling their old (but decent) stuff, or sometimes even just… Continue reading Home

On Thursday morning we embarked on our apartment hunting journey. Sidenote - we've had conversations since we've been here about phrases in English vs Canadian and agreed that if English words or phrases make it hard to be understood we will need to adopt the Canadian version. Relevant to this story, we've learned to say… Continue reading Apartment Hunting

When we applied for visas to get into Canada and work for the year there was annoyingly little information about the process or even the visa itself online. We knew that we needed to be aged between 18-30 at time of application, be for a commonwealth country and that you needed to have the funds… Continue reading Mission: Acquire Work Permits

With the whole idea of going to Canada for a year it’s always on your radar that you’ll be leaving people behind and have to say goodbye. We had a leaving do a few weeks before we left. We wanted to do it before everything got crazy hectic and also before my best friend’s wedding… Continue reading Forget “Sorry”, Goodbye Seems To Be The Hardest Word.

In the last four weeks we have purchased in excess of 30 plastic storage boxes. Our storage space is getting more and more full, but somehow the flat doesn't look much different! When you actually look at the rooms, it's clear that we've done a lot, but the first impression is that there is still… Continue reading Packing Up – Clearing Out

I figured starting at the very beginning would be best... I first visited Vancouver in September 2011. I was 20; wide-eyed, and eager to visit a new country, accompanied by my mum. My mum's cousin - my godmother - was living in the city at the time with her husband, which is why we decided… Continue reading Why Canada?