The not-so-jolly Roger

A combined-effort post by the Poodles:

It doesn't matter how much we prepared and researched stuff before leaving, there are unfortunately a lot of things that can only get done once you have landed..... and some only after divine intervention. Or after getting Tom Cruise to admit that he's gay. And we all know divine intervention would happen before that...

The Canadian government departments have been really efficient and widespread, so there was no need to travel far or pitch a tent in the waiting lines. Unless you're a pervert and enjoy pitching tents in public. Hey, whatever floats your boat... Getting our SIN numbers (not as exciting as they sound) and medical cards were a doddle, and we were really dreading the processes, because we were having flashbacks to Home Affairs in SA.

Signing up for our bank accounts was a pleasure. Our banker is really friendly and has walked us through the whole process. He also suggested restaurants, places to see, and how to earn air miles to go home to visit Australia. Doh. It does, however, take long to issue bank cards which is a bit of a problem, but not a train smash. We are, after all, South African, and know how to steal other people's bank cards in the interim.

Getting access to public transport and learning how it works was relatively easy, as was signing up on the phone for gas and tenant insurance. Buying and assembling IKEA furniture is tricky the first time, but makes you feel like a real winner when you finish something (even if it takes 7 attempts and 12 hours to assemble a toilet seat).

But...... Here is where it all falls to shit. Dealing with Canada's largest mobile network company called Rogers. They probably called it that because they like to roger you. A lot. You heard it here: Rogers is the devil.

We have heard countless people moaning about them constantly, but those people also moaned about the public transport and everything else, which didn't turn out to be that bad. So we thought: how bad could the biggest mobile network really be?

The answer is: farking bad!

We have had at least 10 visits to their stores (totaling more than 10 hours spent in the actual stores - and they don't serve cocktails, so you wouldn't want to linger). This was to simply get prepaid data on our iPads, prepaid on our phones and internet for our PC.

The biggest (supposed) stumbling block is our lack or Canadian ID. This didn't bother the rental agency, the bank, or indeed the Canadian Government..

After many, many attempted workarounds where the largest mobile provider attempted to "fix" my laptop (using the little sandwich shop next door's wifi no less) we were forced to concede defeat like Napoleon at Waterloo....

So this means, we can get the iPad data at double the cost, the iPhone data at triple the cost and half the functionality , and apparently it is impossible to get internet on our laptop. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe the internet "stick" have powers we are unaware of. Maybe, with us not being Canadian, they're scared we'll use the "stick" to mobilize our army of Moose-hating robots.

We're waiting for next month when our Permanent Resident cards arrive, to hear that blonde, balding men can't get internet, until they shave their legs or learn to cha cha. And Poodle can't dance. So there goes the robot army.

Sent from my iPad


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