Hi everyone! We’re still here..
We knew that the first one would have been a tough week but every day when we got home we were always dead tired… too tired to write a post for our blog.
Now let’s go back to one week ago.
Saturday 21st:
4am: Lyon airport. Emptiness and silence. Then Riccardo&Giulia turn their heads towards a bunch of French in their seventies laughing and screaming while waiting for their flight to Heraklion (Greece), first flight of the day in the entire airport.
8.50am: after 30 minutes of delay the flight is ready to take off.
9.50am: R&G drink a glass of apple juice waiting for the most important part of the breakfast (the food) but they keep waiting for it.
11am: “Yeah! They’re already passing with the lunch boxes!”
11.05am: “We should have taken something real to eat at the airport’s bar”.
12pm: G: “This movie is rubbish, I’m going to take a nap”.
12.05pm: G: “Are you still watching the movie?”
12.30pm: R&G are looking outside because clouds are more interesting than the movie that is on air on the plane.
5.20pm: Montreal welcomes R&G with a “nice” rainstorm and +6°C. R: ”I’d like to have a transportable bed… and it’s… OMG, 11.20am! I don’t sleep since yesterday at 9am. It’s like… 32 hours!”.
To keep it short… we took the bus, a very old bus, from Montreal airport to Ottawa while the rain was still pouring. Yes, we were exhausted but seeing Ottawa’s skyscrapers and old buildings live was shocking. Melanie took us up at the bus station and drove us and our bulky luggage to Hull, on the Québec side of Ottawa river where we’re staying at Elodie and Yannick’s.
As we said it has been a tough week but we’re happy because it has been productive too!
List of our activities:
- We walked around Ottawa to understand its shape and its distances and we confirmed our first impression taken from maps, videos and photos: it’s a big, beautiful and peaceful city. Yep, we said peaceful because in the afternoon of the first working day we were waiting to see “the unbearable mass of cars going back to their houses” and we laughed so much thinking about the beltway around Milan with its kilometers of daily traffic.
- We got our SIN number (Social Insurance Number). A very important code you’ll need to get asap once you’re here in Canada. It’s a national identification number and it’s totally free. http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/sc/sin/
- We printed our resumes and started to give them out in stores, hotels, museums, bars, etc. We keep sending them online too because sometimes it’s the only way an employer want to receive the employees’ applies. Almost everyone has been kind telling us “Awesome, we’re currently hiring!”, “Yeah sure, we’re not currently hiring but we’re going to in a month” or “I’m sorry we’re not going to hire someone but good luck and take care!”. Actually Giulia is going to have her first working day on Tuesday! She got a quick job interview while she was leaving her resume in a store of the most important mall here in Ottawa. So… this wasn’t a lie… These things happen here in Canada!
- We started to look for a house and we’re done with it because we’ve already found one! It’s a modern medium-sized apartment (fully furnished) in a seventies’ building (with an indoor pool!) very close to downtown (5minutes by walk).
- We got our new mobile numbers and as you probably know if you’re gathering information about how’s life here, this kind of things are not as cheap as in Europe.
- We now have two bikes (on loan) to keep us in shape and to move faster. Thanks to Pierre and Clemence!
- We saw loads of squirrels and beavers!
- We discovered great places to eat and we have to tell you: Canada is NOT all about junk food. In one week we found more veggie places than in all the years spent in Milan. There’s a wealth of choices you can’t imagine.
That’s all folks!
p.s. We’re having some problems downloading our pics. We promise, we’re gonna fix it and the next post will have some of them!
Doors Unlocked and Open 