Alberta, Edmonton and Rocky Mountains

You wanna go to Canada, they asked? We'd have there something for you, they said. Easy job! Yeah sure, why not, has been my answer.

What I didn't know - the entire preparation and process takes forever. Web based trainings, certificates, inductions, work permits ... After getting the visa thing done in Toronto I flew into Edmonton the next day.

And there it continued: alcohol and drug test, Canadian registration office to get a social insurance number, buying safety boots with a special Canadian label which doesn't mean they are different to those 3 pairs I already have...

Work was hard, 12 hours per, weekend included. Kinda exhausting and nothing else to say. But successful at the end.

And finally there was some time for the fun part. Not much, but better than nothing. And if being that close, I took the chance to get around. Jasper National Park.

Quick stopover in Toronto

It was 6 pm already when I arrived at the Toronto Pearson International Airport. As I have never been here, I needed some minutes to check where the nearest exit is. I looked around, and found an express train going to the Toronto city centre. Too bad I got my hotel booked on the other side of the airport, quite close though, but as I have to go around the entire area, it would take forever. I took some kind of airport taxi, way too expensive for the 20 minutes ride, but as a tourist, you are trapped in those cases. And here I was, in the middle of nowhere. Too far away from everything. Well okay, there was a Subway “restaurant” just around the corner, but I was too lazy and tired, even for that.

Didn’t know that jetlag could be a good thing. It made me wake up early, not able to fall back asleep. Which is good, in a way. I got my stuff packed, went down to the lobby and found an airport shuttle bus running every 20 minutes or so. A few moments later, back at the airport, I checked in my luggage and took the tranfer train towards downtown. I got off at Union Station, walked along the CN Tower, the Air Canada Centre (sadly, I missed the playoff game of the Raptors by only one day), the Harbourfront, the Old and the Toronto City Hall in direct comparison. After that, time was up, and I had to get back to the airport, the same way I was coming from. Not much time to discover a city, and probably not the best time of a day to do so as well...