9th
October
Leicester University graduate and past KAMP USA participant Nick Bearman,
aged 21 and from Norwich, has recently taken part in Work Canada. His
adventures started in Toronto on the 20th September 2006.
Arriving
After what seemed like months of waiting, I was finally at Heathrow waiting to get
on the flight to take me to Toronto! Ever since I took part in the KAMP USA
programme two years, I had been toying with going the idea of going to Canada for
a longer period of time so I could hardly believe it when day finally arrived and
I met up the rest of the group, twelve of us in total, at the airport.
Before the flight, we chatted about what people were wanting to do in Canada, how
long people were staying for and where people were going to go. A lot of people
wanted to travel around Canada and parts of the US at some point, and a couple of
them were heading off to other places a few days after we arrived. My must sees
included the Rocky Mountains, Vancouver, San Francisco and the immigration official
suggested I go to Banff, so I’m hoping to go there too!
Same language, different culture
The first few days were spent combining the orientation, sightseeing and figuring
out how Toronto worked so we could get around. The orientation was probably one
of the most useful two hours I have had in Toronto. It was organised by the SWAP
office, BUNAC’s partner organisation in Canada, and covers how to open a bank account,
the telephone system, cell (mobile) phones, Social Insurance Numbers, tax, the public
transport system, resumes (CVs to you and me!) and (most importantly) job and house
hunting.
When
we arrived at the hostel, we had a wander around Toronto and then had a group meal
at Milestones. There were twelve of us in total, so quite a big group but the restaurant
managed to fit us in! See the picture to the right – from left to right Cheryl,
Mark, JD, Jaina, Jamie, Sam, Owen, John and Rosie. The meal was very nice, and gave
us our first encounter with the North American art of tipping. It’s normal to tip
10-15% on top of your restaurant bill, more if the service has been very good. We
had a few drinks in the bar back at the hostel and discovered one (of many) annoying
differences between the UK and Canada - alcohol is generally much more expensive!
Being
tourists
Our first few days were spent doing some tourist stuff such as the CN Tower, wandering
around China town taking in the wonderful smells and unique character of the area,
and visiting the Eden Centre, the big shopping mall in Toronto. We also managed
to go to the last baseball game of the season, watching the Toronto Blue Jays and
Boston Red Soxs do their stuff. We were on a real budget, as none of us had jobs
yet, so we were going to get the cheapest seats available – the ‘500s’, or ‘nosebleeds’
as they are called in baseball lingo because of the height. The views were actually
pretty good and a ticket tout gave us two tickets for the 500s free so it only cost
$8.95 between us or less than £1.50 each!
After staying at the hostel for five days, I was getting fed up with living out
of a backpack and sharing a room, so finding somewhere more permanent to stay was
at the top of the list of things to do! The SWAP office had various suggestions
for places to look for houses, including the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star,
which had pages and pages of listings. The office also had various pin boards of
houses to rent and available jobs. It was there that three of us found a very nice
house about 15 minutes subway north from the centre of town, which we took the day
after looking at it.
Work was also another must do, but that will have to wait until the next instalment!