Recce Trip to Calgary, 28/9 - 5/10 2008

Our week in Calgary and our first in Canada EVER!

This trip was made to give ourselves an insight into Calgary as we were intending to emmigrate to the city in early 2009, having never visited before, or even the country.

With Sophie already having a job offer with the Alberta Health Region, it would hopefully prove a good opportunity for me to try and find work myself, or at least make some contacts. We also wanted to try and set up a bank account, visit friends of ours, look into property and areas to live aswell as having a day out to what would be our new backyard, The Rockies!


So, above is a picture of us on our way from Manchester to Calgary with just a few hours until we land and when we did, we were greeted with bright blue skies and a temperature of 18c. The weather would be very kind to us all week, topping out at a record of 27c!


This is our hire car that we picked up at Calgary Airport which we upgraded to, a Dodge Charger! A little bit of overkill for what we needed, but proved to be very comfortable for the 700km+ driving we did. This was taken in the car park for the Banff Gondola, from where you can see part of the Rockies and also the beautiful autumn colours, without a whisp of cloud in the sky! More to come from here.

Once we'd got the car we drove into the city to find our hotel in Downtown, The Sandman. The hotel was well located, although I did manage to drive down the Tram line (7th Avenue), followed quickly by a trip down a one way street in the wrong direction! Soon got used to it and driving in and out of the city was quite straightforward. The hotel itself was o.k. and the food in Moxies downstairs was excellent and reasonably priced. After settling in at the hotel, we drove to the South West of the city to visit an ex' work colleague of mine and his wife, Haydn and Deedee, who relocated here approx' 6 years ago with their two girls. We had plenty of questions for them and after a superb steak for dinner, they were more than happy to help us anyway they could and we got an itinerary set up for the week ahead. Once again, a big thank you to you both!

On the Monday, we basically got a feel for the city and got our bearings aswell as having a look around a few of the shopping malls etc. Tuesday, we decided would be our 'Tourist' day when we set off for Banff and Lake Louise. Some of the following pictures are awesome, but still don't do the scenery justiceThe drive to Banff.


$19 for entry to the Banff National Park. Money very well spent!


A glacier in the foreground!

Our first view of the fantastic and breathtaking Lake Louise!

Nige's arty shot at Lake Louise. This place is simply stunning!

On the Banff Gondola, going up!

The magnificent Banff Springs hotel below us and Banff in the background.

On the Gondola, overlooking Banff.

Sophie enjoying both the views and the weather.

Wow!

Some of the friendly locals above and below.

The Bow falls in Banff.

Banff high street.

The week also gave Nige time to visit prospective employers and after speaking with a few, he was even happy to fly over on a Spousal's Open Work Permit via my job with the Calgary Health Region before actually having work in place as the opportunities are everywhere! However, after he visited the company of our friend Haydn, Enerflex, he was told that they could offer him a job if he was interested, which of course he was. After discussing it that night back at the hotel, Nige phoned Enerflex the following morning to discusss it further and now he is waiting for their formal Job Offer!

We also took the opportunity to look at some properties in Okotoks (south of the city, but we felt too much of a commute for us with our prospective employers) and in the southern half of the city, namely the communities of Evergreen, Somerset, Chapparal, Cranston, Auburn Bay etc. Evergreen appealed to us the most and you can get a detached 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 1800+sqft home with attached double garage for anything from $400k CAD up (approx' £200k GBP). On top of this, there will also be a basement which once converted, can add up to 45% more living space for that all important pool table, gym or bar, aswell as an extra bedroom and bathroom! Unfortunately, due to no credit rating in Canada, we will need to rent initially for approx' 6 months to build this up so we will be renting something similar to the above for about $1750-2000 CAD/calendar month. Sounds good to us, although not cheap, with our improved salaries, it should be fine financially!

We also managed to set up a bank account with CIBC which should help as this process continues.