be ginning

Estonia, 3rd november, 5pm, darkness has fallen

beginning was this time in the beginning of november. Days in Estonia were getting shorter&shorter ( 5 minutes per day!). and even if it was a daytime, sun usually had better things to do than to shine in Estonia. Instead we got lotsa rain and otherwise boring weather.

Thats when I remembered that my canadian work&holiday visa is starting to expire (20.12.12 was last day for me to set my feet on this land of maple leaves and syrup)

thats me...

So i decided to go there - They had too much nature, too much snow, too many mountains and I had heard too many positive things and met several spectacular residents of that country to let this opportunity to slip away into oblivion.

I sorted my things at work, rented out my flat, sold my car,  found places to hide  my evergrowing pile of physical possessions, got plane tickets tallinn-riga-london gatwick (airbaltic, 117eur, including snowboardbag), got plane ticket london gatwick-calgary (airtransat 485euri, 1 snowboard/sport equipment <20kg is for free!).  i bought tickets ~2 weeks before flight hence they were not cheapest ones, but still not too bad. booked hostel in calgary for 1 week (148eur, including hostelling international card that gives some spectacular discounts in canada).

paperwise: I got myself new biometrical passport (to make visiting US cheaper/easier), international driving license (for insuring car in canada), my car insurance history (to transfer it to canadian insurance), new debit/credit cards (so they wouldnt expire overseas), travel insurance from rsa  (276 eur, 1 year,  all world). i already had letter of visa approval from canadian embassy.

packing...

As usual I started packing evening /night before flight and  so got to sleep just few hours. Big hug and everlasting gratitude to Kristine who took some photos and helped me packing and getting me with everything to airport. I ended up with 30L backpack as hand luggage(13kg)  and big snowboardbag to check in (~23kg). For snowboardbag i added improvised wheels (got old wheeled bag from secondhand for 5eur and just stuck one end of snowboardbag into it) as i remembered that carring it on shoulder would be too much pain.

christmas@gatwick & my luggage (wrapped in plastic is not laura, its me snowboardbag)

So i flew to riga and to london and to calgary (with my beautiful eyes i managed to get 23kg snowboardbag checked in for free for calgary flight inspite of 20kg limit). transcontinental flight itself was not too bad: 9 hours, 2 meals, 1 free beer/wine and unlimited soft drinks and personal mediasystem yeah! i watched 3 movies :)

So i got to calgary on Wednesday evening, after passport control went to immigration and got massive work permit stapled into passport (ridiculous invention).

In shuttle to town i met spanish couple who showed me way to hostel and around 22:00 i was there.

~25 hours it took to get from my flat in tallinn to hostelin calgary

i was in calgary. I was in canada

calgary city @night