Banks and credit cards

I should clarify first that I haven't done this yet and that I don't have knowledge about all the Canadians banks, so I'm just posting a tip a friend gave me to get a VISA credit card.

One of the main problems immigrants have to face is the "no credit" problem, and it can probe to be very difficult to overcome if you don't have the money and knowlegde. I have read a lot about different banks, the pros and cons, the personal accounts and benefits they offer, and every single thing people say about them, and I haven't found one bank you can say "this one is the best one" or "this one is the worst one" without finding someone stating the contrary ;) but I'm going to open my bank account with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) or Scotia Bank, since those are the best ones I have found for me.

I got a great tip with RBC to get a VISA credit card, and I'm sure you could get the same deal in almost any other bank.


When you open your bank account, you should get a Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC). These certificates are cero risk, so you won't loose your money with a bad investment, it gives less interests but it can get you a credit card ;)
So you need to ask for a classic visa credit card using this certificate as a guarantee, and assuming you have a $2000 certificate, you could get a credit for around $1800, not bad at all :D

Do you have other tips you would want to share?

Tired...

Today I'm tired, even though it's just monday and I didn't do anything special this weekend, I'm tired. I want to write here but don't have the inspiration...

I have so many things in my head, everything is a long list of things to do before the trip, and things to say, and things to do once we are there, and things I want to do now but can't, even things about the immigration process that need to be written here but don't know how to write them.

I know a lot of you feel like this once in a while, and I think I feel more like this since the whole process started and even more since we have our visas. I only want to read about others but I already read all of them this morning, maybe that it's why I love books so much, I love to be caught in someone else story, to forget about me for a long while.


I specially love Stephen King, John Grisham, James Patterson, Terry Pratchett, V.C. Andrews, J.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis and would hate to leave my books here. What do I do? Well, I have given away more than half, I gave away all the V.C Andrews, Patterson, and Grisham books, and I still have half Stephen King books and all of the others. I don't want to leave my books, they are my scape of reality.

The hardest material thing for me to leave here (people not included) are my books, what are yours?

Driver Licence

I don't have my canadian driver licence so I can't say that the information I'm going to post it's the truth and nothing more than the truth, but this is the information I've been collecting for months now and that's what I'm going to use to get my driver licence once I'm in Canada.

In Canada there are a lot of Licence Types but the ones I'm going to focus on are the G and the G1. The G1 it's the one that allows you to drive "accompanied by a fully licensed driver with at least four years of driving experience", and you get this one if you pass the written test but you haven't taken the road test. Once you pass the road test, they give you the G licence that allows you to drive "any car, van or small truck or combination of vehicle and towed vehicle up to 11,000 kg".

If you have an USA driver licence there is a great chance you can exchange that one for the Canadian one without taking any test, it depends of the State where the driver licence is from as far as I know. If I remember correctly, you can exchange your UK licence too and I'm sure there are lot of other countries that can do it. In fact, this is the official list I found for Ontario: "US States, Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Switzerland".

If you are from any other country, you'll have to take the tests or prove you experience any other way. I've read that you can take your driver licence (from your country) translated to english and an official document where it says the years you've been driving, and they will accept it instead of making you take the test. I don't know how much you have to pay for this.

I'll be letting you know how it goes with me :)