It’s taken three weeks, ten return bus rides between Toronto & Hamilton, twenty seven home visits, over 30 kilometres walked and one custom written web application to map Craigslist entries onto Google Maps but I have finally, FINALLY, found somewhere to live!

Canada unfortunately doesn’t have a great way of finding real estate options. There’s no realestate.com.au or Flate Mate Finder instead you have a whole heap of crappy websites relevant to a company that owns a couple of apartment buildings (sorry, “condos” as they say) or the basic listing style of Craigslist or Kijiji (some retarded Craigslist rip off that eBay recently bought).

From what I found, and what others told me Craigslist was by far the best in terms of number of listings so I went with that, trawling through page after page starting in the lower CAD$500 to begin with. Let’s just say that CAD$500/month isn’t exactly up to what I’d call “livable” conditions. I’m not being a snob here, I’m just saying that if I’m paying you for somewhere to live and you’re giving me a basement the size of a kitty litter box and I’m sharing the house with 6 other people I’d like to know what the other CAD$490 I’m giving you each month is actually for!

Quite obviously my search began to escalate on the fiscal scale and as each week passed and each day turned into another depressing venture I quickly broached my “live-in-Canada-and-not-work-much” limits entering “find-a-real-job-you-bitch”. Now looking at apartments over CAD$750/month I at least guaranteed I’d be living somewhere that had a laundry that didn’t require coins to operate and there’d be no more than 3 people in the house/apartment.

At the end of my tether and only a few days to go before the end of June (they only rent starting on the 1st or if you’re lucky the 15th of each month here) I pushed CAD$800 and looked at what are considered “upper class” condos in downtown Toronto. My last visit entailed trekking between four different options and quickly began liking what I saw, pools, gyms, party rooms on the rooftops of 30 story buildings, and nice new apartments with floors that your feet didn’t stick to as you walked through the kitchen. Unfortunately, the fact that I liked them meant that so did a million other people and I often found myself coming up against others in a war for the available space.

My charisma not being a particularly strong point, especially when I’m exhausted from walking in this freakish Canadian weather all day, was not going to help me. Luckily the 2nd to last place I looked at contained two delightful gents who seemed to be on the same wavelength as myself. One a graphic designer and computer science grad, the other a film grad, into their sport and a PS3 in the lounge. The clincher, once I was in, I offered to buy Metal Gear Solid 4 for all of us to play!

Thanks jebus that’s all over! Now it’s off to New York for a week of fun with Dansie, Jimmy & Aimes.

So while most of you are under the impression that I haven’t been doing anything other than drinking and sleeping here in Toronto last week I popped into the office’s of MGImedia to catch up with Amber Mac and CommandN co-host Will Pate filming a new episode. Unbeknown to me I was to be dragged in at the end to tell a rather embarrassing story of one of my first days here in Toronto when I went shopping… you’ll see.

It’s OK people, put down the pitchforks and dowse the torches I’ve finally gotten around to documenting my reactions to good-old-Steve’s announcement on Monday for the 3G iPhone (Apple’s worst kept secret ever). This is how it’s going to work; I’m going to run through the bigger features of the phone and basically pick at stupid tiny mistakes just like every other blogger out there in teh internets using my trademarked sarcasm tone. You know you love it ;)

3G over EDGE
In Apple’s haste to launch the iPhone last year they pretty much forgot the rest of the world and built the phone using around it’s US-centric core market (as usual, but fair enough) meaning that if you were to use the thing in any other country you had data speeds of a mule. Granted the phone wasn’t actually supposed to be available outside the US (for the most part) but besides 3G being better and faster it actually opens up the Asia-Pacific market as well as more of Europe. Personally they should’ve had this in the first place if you ask me.

The App Store
For those of you who’ve unlocked your iPhone already you’ve probably got a great app on it called “Installer”. Well Apple have basically ripped it off and chucked in some DRM and a costing structure to provide a more “approved” style of application deployment. It will be interesting to see just how many people still unlock their phones now that this has come about (other than to use it on other networks) and just what will happen to the booming developer market utilising Installer. I’m sad to say it but I think it will disappear pretty quickly, but who knows hey?

Exchange (ActiveSync) Support
This is a biggie and RIM (the Blackberry dudes) will be shitting themselves now. It was bad enough that the iPhone last year encroached on their market share without having Exchange integration where as now they’re looking at a massive dip should everything actually work the way it’s supposed to. If I had shares in the poor Canadian lads I’d be jumping ship rather quickly, it’s not like they didn’t see it coming, we all knew Apple licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft some time ago which explains their soon to be released touch screen based Blackberry Thunder. Good luck RIM, you’ll need it!

MobileMe
“Exchange for the little people” as I like to call it. Forget that crap .Mac that Apple has been blatantly screwing people over with for years, this might actually be worth the US$99/year! MobileMe essentially syncs address book, calendar and email between your phone, web and computer. Better yet it’s fully supported over Mac’s & PC’s which shoves another hot poker in RIM’s ass. On top of that they’re bumping up their only DAV storage (iDisk) to 20GB and then you have the other stuff in there still like web hosting still, but no one really cares. Oh and what’s with “MobileMe”, the marketing guys take a few months off when you came up with that one?

GPS
Now this is what I really wanted. I have no use for GPS really but I’m a sucker for the technology, it just makes me all warm & tingly! Whilst Apple’s implementation of GPS in the new iPhone is basically locating you on Google Maps and geotagging photos wait until 3rd party guys really get things going. True there’s yet another social network that already have an app out (loopt) but give me car navigation, star maps and all that junk. I can’t wait!!

Black & White
Apple has a long history with white products, the iPod was one of the main reasons that Apple are still around today and they owe the colour a lot of praise for that; however, in recent times the colour white has been used more as a marker to separate consumer based products from professional. With that in mind I think it’s a pretty smart move for Apple to offer the choice. You’re student will generally like to stand out with the latest fashion of white while your law firm exec is most likely going to take the more perceivably accepted black approach. Also they’re only offering the white on the more expensive version, again another trademark (and clever) Apple move.

What’s missing
1. A 2nd video camera, for those six people out there that actually enjoy using video chat on your 3G phone you can’t do it. Personally I could care less but I’m sure you’ll hear lots of bitching about it.
2. There needs to be more memory! Yes it’s bumped up to 16GB, yes you get better battery life, and yes the thing’s supposedly cheaper but 16GB? Come on!! Minimum, MINIMUM 32GB please!
3. MMS or “Picture Messaging”. So the American’s might not use it much, the rest of the world does. I guess we’ll just have to resort to 3rd party apps again that have crippled functionality when it comes to that department for the time being.

Well I think that just about covers it all. I know there’s things like battery life I didn’t talk about much but I’m fine with the current life and it’s boring, so there. You’d have to be from another planet to not understand that I’m getting one the day they’re available on July 11th I mean come on people, it’s the iPhone 3G!!!

Now I’m hardly the type of guy to complain (stop laughing) so rather than relay my lovely, fun-filled plane ride half way around the world I thought I’d point out a little discovery I’ve made here only one day into my Canadian journey. It’s hot; it’s mother frakin’ hot; so fraking hot that I’m a tad worried that I might have gotten off in the wrong country or something?!

To all those people that constantly took pleasure in reminding me just how cold it was going to be here in Canada I say “You were wrong bitches!”. Now I take no pleasure in pointing out this fact, nor am I enjoying the fact that today Toronto bear fruits to it’s hottest June day in recorded history! Thank you global warming! Maybe that Al Gore guy is on to something after all?! Hmmmm…

It wasn’t that bad really (33 degrees with 47% humidity), I wore jeans after all, but that may have had something to do with the fact that I only bought one pair of shorts with me and when I pulled them out they kinda needed a wash. That in mind I waded through the steaming heats and went downtown to the Eaton Centre to buy a new pair of shorts only to come back with new shorts, a belt, a new jumper, a prepaid phone (it was cheaper to buy a $70 phone that came with $50 free credit than a SIM separately for $40 and $50 credit) and a bag of Doritos! Ahhhh what a day.

Well that’s all so far folks, I’ll leave you with this photo showing off the view from my quite lovely hotel room…

Deciding to pack up your bat and ball and move to Canada (and work there) is by no means a simple task. In fact, had someone actually made me aware of the seemingly never-ending list of tasks that I’ve been required to perform in order to get me over to Canada I think my lazy arse would’ve just stayed in bed and watched Weeds DVD’s for the next six months instead! Now, now, that’s a little exaggerated, it’s actually not that bad, but as I’ve gotten closer and closer to my departure date (now two days away) I’ve ridden a steepening learning curve and had there been a blog post such as this one it may have made the journey a tad more easy.

Things you’ll need…

• A current passport (which expires at least 6 months after you plan on returning)
• To be under 30, or turning 30 in your year of departure
• Money. At a minimum you’ll need $165 straight up to apply for the Visa, but on top of that you’ll need $4000 to prove you’re not a hindrance on the Canadian economy when you arrive in their fair land.

Step 1 - Apply for your “Working Holiday Program” Visa
This is actually probably the easiest thing you’ll have to do. You see there’s a wonderful little agreement between the Australian and Canadian governments, not that much unlike that with the British, that allows and Australian citizen (under 30) apply for a working visa. To apply all you need to do is log on to the Working Holiday Program website (http://whpcanada.org.au), fill out the necessary form and they’ll be in touch with you shortly to snaffle your $165 application fee.
A few things to know about this particular Working Holiday Program visa…

Step 2 - Sell everything you own
You might not want to sell absolutely everything, it all depends on exactly how long you want to stay away, or if you even plan on coming back at all! That said, there’s plenty of ways to sell all your stuff. For me I created “The Great Ga-RAJ Sale“, a website that listed everything I wanted to get rid of and let people (friends & family that I spammed constantly until they bought something) place their names against items they wanted. Alternatively, if you’re not quite a big a geek as me, you have plenty of other options such as eBay, The Trading Post, and other boring ways… go on, make a website; you know you want to!

Step 3 - Book your tickets
Booking your airfares to another country again, isn’t a hard task, the trick is getting a good price! We all know airfare prices go up and down according to seasons and holidays so your best bet is to try and head over during the off season and avoid major holidays like Christmas for example. The other thing to keep in mind is that if you’re unsure exactly how long you plan on staying you’ll need to book a ticket that has an adjustable return date. Most airlines offer these types of tickets but quite often they’re limited to only a matter of weeks or not at all if you’ve bought a ticket on sale. I chose to go with a ticket that was valid for change anywhere up to a year from my departure date for a nominal fee. Be sure you get yourself a good travel agent, it can save you hundreds, if not thousands!

Step 4 - Find a job & somewhere to live
There’s this wonderful thing called the “Internet” in the world today, just in case you haven’t heard of it, it allows you to do things like look at job and housing listings in another country entirely! Cool hey!? Well, before you actually head over I suggest you jump on the computer and check out a few websites that well get your Canadian life on track.
Craigslist http://craigslist.ca/ (accommodation, jobs & more)
Workopolis http://workopolis.com/ (jobs)
Kijiji http://www.kijiji.ca/ (accommodation, jobs & more)

Step 5 - Get over there, get sorted
Whilst I may not actually be there yet there are a couple of things that are on my list of things to do that need doing once I arrive. For example, you’ll need to apply for a Social Insurance Number (SIN), Canada’s equivalent to Australia’s Tax File Number, more or less. Then there’s setting up a bank account, getting a mobile number, adding the word “ay” on to the end of every sentence and building up an intimate knowledge of every Canadian hockey player and team since the second world war. You’ll be a local in no time!

It’s all pretty easy really. There’s some minor bits and pieces that may add to the complexity of your journey but nothing that’s really going to spring out and surprise you, well that is unless you’re Diabetic like me and you need to go through the three ringed circus that is caring syringes on a plane! So not fun!