Mobiles, bank accounts and cars oh my!

These are unfortunately all things that you need when you plan on living somewhere for more than about a month. Especially when you want to get paid and public transport isn't an option.

Mobile accounts turned out to be easy. Given you generally pay around $100/month and that doesn't include a new phone it'd want to be. Remember when Telstra was the only real phone company? That's what it's like.

Bank accounts are also easy... so long as you pay around $15/month. Joy. I guess you're paying for great conveniences like drive through ATMs.

Cars are cheap here. Not as cheap as the States but cheaper than Australia. This would have been awesome if someone would give us a loan. If GM or Dodge or someone cool had given us a loan we could have gotten something obnoxious like about 60% of the other people in this town.

I hope the girls here like big cars, because I feel like they are probably missing out on something in the bedroom.

Toyota it turns out has access to the Internet (unlike all the other car companies) so can offer credit to expats. So we did what 39% of Canadians did and bought a Rav4. The other 1% are shown in the above photo.

Driving on the right hand side of the road is terrifying. Add snow and trucks and it becomes something out of a nightmare. That unsettling feeling you get when you wake up from a falling dream, is similar. Even though you know you're doing the right thing it feels wrong.

I'm a bad driver at the best of times. When driving on the other side of the road I'm either putting on the windscreen wipers, mounting the curb or driving in both lanes. One time I couldn't work out if there was one or two lanes... until I was overtaken by a truck. The shame! After about a month I'm probably considered safe, and am always thrilled to hear other "lefties on the right hand side" stories.