Welcome to Canada

So, we landed this morning at Toronto Pearson International Airport. (YYZ) It was a remarkably uneventful plane ride; it only took about an hour. Since we were on the early morning Saturday "shuttle" flight between Boston and Toronto, I think we must have been with the business folk that make the trip regularly, or the handful of families that took a weekend trip.

In immigration, where we applied for and received our temporary work permit visas, we were the only people there. Two immigrants... twelve Canadian Border Service Agents. The Border Service Agents had to fight over who would be handling our case. The funny thing, of course, is that this is Canada. So "fighting over" us consisted of looking at each other nervously out of the corner of their eyes, as if to say, "Who's gonna have to do it?" Finally, Debbie our heavily armed and kevlar-vested BSA called us over to issue our permits. The rest of the agents went back to playing their PSP games and texting their boy/girlfriends. Debbie's questions were fairly straightforward, and at any moment I expected her to ask the question everyone in immigration seemed poised to ask: "Why are you moving to Canada??" To be fair, they probably don't see a lot of well-dressed, white American men asking to move to Canada on a more or less permanent basis. On the other hand, it was the airport immigration office, so they might not be used to seeing anything else.

The customs officers seemed equally puzzled by our desire to enter the country with all of our belongings in tow. Actually, what they seemed more puzzled by was that we didn't actually put all of our belongings in the cargo hold of the Embraer Jet that brought us to Toronto. They are clearly used to short-term visitors, and to searching small suitcases for produce. Our furniture, books, winter clothes, etc. were, in fact, on a large truck somewhere between Boston and Ottawa. The other customs officers were clearly bored, and came over and talked our ears off while the customs officer in charge of our case learned (by trial and error, I'm pretty sure) how to use the computer to process our entry.

In the end, it only took about an hour once we got to the airport. So, all said and done, it took us about 2 total hours to immigrate to Canada. I would be willing to bet money that it takes much longer than that to get into the United States. I mean, the last time I flew into Dulles in Washington, D.C., it took me at least that long to get off the plane and through customs to get back into my own country.

So, I'm a little tired after my first day in Canada, but we did explore, and I did take some excellent snapshots of the area around the house I'm living in for the next three months. Enjoy...


Two houses down and across the street there is a large plaster sculpture of an Indian elephant. It apparently makes it difficult to mow the lawn.

At the end of the street, around the corner, this lovely structure meets your eyes. If it had a garage, I'm sure it would be painted with the flag of Greece. When you look up an address on Google Maps, it will very often give you photographs of the neighbourhood to look at. When you type my address into Google maps, this house is the very first picture that comes up.

Whew... I will be ok. There is a Taco Bell nearby.