Canadia At Last

20 September - Arrived at the airport and got through customs and immigration without too much trouble (have to say that the immigration officials were complete arseholes - not to me, but they were incredibly rude to some Asian and Arab families - not quite sure what to make of that). Got a bus into downton and met an Australian on the way - from Perth, very Australian but quite nice - good to make any contacts I can at this point in the trip. He got off before I did but I found the hostel quite directly. So far my experience of Canadians (apart from immigration) has been superb - they're all super friendly and very helpful, i'm sure there are a fair amount of arseholes amongst them but thus far i've been lucky. Also, despite warnings the weather today has been great and the streets are really easy to navigate. It's not very exotic but it's very clean and very pretty - we'll see if it deserves The Economist's accolade of most liveable city in the world. Turns out i'd booked the hostel for tomorrow night (i made the booking at midnight last and got the dates confused) but there was no issue. Pretty crappy room but it has electricity, a bed, a fridge and even a TV (and an awful painting on the wall and an unidentifiable smell but they should both fade into the background reasonably quickly I hope).
Lots of homeless around here unfortunately, all have got bizarre accents - iafter reading 'Call Of The Wild' (which everybody should do) I have made the presumption that they are Newfoundland accents - will seek confirmation in the coming days.
Ran out to the shops to organise a few things - got a SIM card for my phone (the majority of the phones in North America are CDMA but there is a GSM network as well), unfortunately prices are rather exhorbitant AND you have to pay to receive calls as well as make them so i'll have to watch myself on that one (looks like Skype will become even more valuable over here). In any event the number is 7782394827 but if anyone is pining to hear my voice they better keep it quick.
Also whilst out I tried a Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut - the virtues of this brew were extolled to me by Patrick Collins (not the one we know and love unless you also know and love his Canadian cousin as well) but I have to agree with Matthew Gray's assessment, which is, almost as good as McDonalds coffee (the doughnut wasn't great either) - but, it's an institution over here so who am I to judge (did read a bizarre article about the decline of tea in Britain in the Wall Street Journal on the plane where the journalist seemed to think that decent coffee was invented in America by Starbucks ... how deprived these great nations are).
But, looks like i've scored a few goals since i've got here - tomorrow i'll start the search for a more permanent residence and then ... I really don't want to think about it, but ... I'll start looking for a job.