As you could understand from previous post I set up for another adventure and knowledges to far land behind the Atlantic ocean and I will continue to write here something about this experience for you to understand a bit how it works and looks like over here.
Before end of the June I give my farewell to my colleagues and work at Brno and I know that I’ll miss them and then spend some time with my family and friends and in the middle of July I’ve been on the plane heading to Vancouver. The flight took about 11 hours but the flight with Condor was not as pleasant experience as it mine first long distance flight with Korean Air. I cannot say that service on the board of the Condor plane were bad or complain about food quality but I missed this personal multimedia panel in front of me so I could watch some nice movie to kill some time. I would definitely try to use other company next time. However, the flight was all right and thanks to great weather and my seat next to window I could see Greenland from above even though I still did not get why they named it Greenland as to me it appeared to be more white and black but coastline was just amazing as you can see on the following picture.
After landing I confirmed that the phone which I bought in Australia and used it at Europe as well does not work because it miss those Nort America frequencies. When I picked my backpack and about hour waiting in the queue at Canada Immigration Office I went from airport to place of my friend friend where I could stay first few days. She described me how the get there pretty well and the public transport of Vancouver is pretty good anyway I had few little problems as when I wanted a ticket for train I was unable to get it with my card because as I found later my card here is taken as credit not debit and machine accepted maximum $20 notes and I had just hundreds (it’s actually pretty rare to see higher notes then $20 since ATMs and exchanges give those only as well).
At a first day she helped me to gain SIN (social insurance number) which is needed for taxes as we have birth number in the Czech Republic or TFN in Australia and also I bought new phone (Google Nexis 4 if someone is interested 🙂 ) and SIM card from Wind so I could start to search for some accommodation and work as I did not wanted to occupy this friend place for long.
Due to movement of people there is quite lot of space for both but there is also more people interested so it’s not so easy. Let me start with accommodation. I went to three places and the last one wont this competition, the price is fair and surrounding neighborhood is just amazing. I’m here just temporary and I’m going to move soon again but that was my plain anyway as I was looking just for something to look around and see how it works here.
To put some light on the situation I will briefly told you the story. In close neighborhood was a fire and my flatmate is going to rent whole her house to family which is living in that part and now is cut of electricity and water and is being reconstructed and she is going to move to her boyfriend at Toronto. I live here also with Natalia and she is doing post-graduate stadium at SFU and we rented together our next accommodation at two bedroom basement which is closer to SkyTrain – those automatic trains going to some directions of the city and probably the fastest way how to get around.
Because I already started with the public transportation system I would like to tell you a bit about it now. Here in Vancouver is system of three zones which are quite huge and tickets you could buy are sorted by those zones and once you validate them they have also time when they expire (one zone ticket is valid for one and half hour). Monthly one zone pass is now for $91 and in the afternoon after half past six and during weekends and statutory holidays is everywhere once zone only.
They have also good network of buses which also showing and saying stops and some trolleybuses and then trains and also a ship called SeaBus going to the north part of the city.
So far I’m discovering the city and surroundings and I can say that it’s pretty nice one and they are doing a lot to make Vancouver the greenest city of Canada. Although I’m lucky since now is one of the hottest summer for last years and it’s really nice outside about 24 degrees and sunny most of the days.
I managed to get to Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia where is a parliament and at that day there was also some kind of street festival with lot of performances and some open air exhibition of Hot Rods. The city is smaller and situated on Vancouver Island so you have to take ferry or seaplane or helicopter to get over there.
Also I hiked a bit in mountains at North Vancouver and on Sunday I tried the feature of my phone and here you could see how it looks like from top of the Crown Mountain (1 501 m).
Those mountain are just awesome and because of the weather I had just great three weeks.
At the and I will just boast myself that right on second week I got a job in nice restaurant in the Downtown, it sits opposite to terminal for cruise ships from all around the world and from there is also nice view to the north and mountains and it is in Vancouver Convention Centre. I guess it’s a star place for restaurant and people are going there also for a good food.
As in Australia they have here different licenses for such places and as this one have liqueur primary license there is nobody below 19 (drinking age in BC) allowed to enter the premises. I have standard minimal salary of $10.25/h but I will get also some share of tips of the week and so far I had just few shifts so it’s hard to say how it will go with the moneys but I like the place a lot.