First let me start off by saying that I am not a writer of any sort. I started this blog because I need to vent. At times I may be angry and frustrated so I may say things that I do not mean just because I am venting, so please do not take offense if you happen to catch me in a bad mood.

I am an American citizen. I lived the last 35 years in the United States. I am a seasoned traveler and have visited over 20 countries throughout South America and Europe. I am telling you this so that you don't immediately think that I am a "stupid American" who has never left his backyard and is bitching because he was expecting Canada to be just like the US.

The reasons as to why I moved to Montreal are not really of importance here. However I will say that the turning of the economy made my working environment harder and harder to deal with. Micromanagement by executives and layoffs primed me to take this big step when the opportunity presented itself.

I am now a Canadian resident. I have a permanent resident card. I came to Montreal and bought a house and thus began my adventure.

So, the first thing that is different between Canada and the US is that there is no such thing as a fixed rate mortgage. The mortgage rate can change at certain intervals depending on what type of mortgage you get. It could be every 5 years, 7 years, and so on. OK, so that is no big deal, I suppose I can deal with that.

Now, Quebec has something called a "welcome tax" when you buy property in the province. It is my understanding that this is only in Quebec. "Welcome to Quebec! Now give us $5,000.00!" It can vary from a few hundred on up to thousands. They have some sort of mathematical equation that they use to figure out how much it is. I am sure that it was developed by Albert Einstein in his latter years and the sheer mechanics of developing it led to his eventual death.

So, after all that is done I am excited that I have a new house and there are things that I want done with it, like installing appliances and air conditioning. Unfortunately I did not know that right after settlement there was a period of two weeks where it is against the law to do any kind of labor work on homes. So the first two weeks of having the new home nothing got done. Oh, and in addition to the two weeks, all the labor workers still get entitled to vacation time. Why, you may ask, do labor workers not use that two weeks to take a vacation? Welcome to socialism! Why take two weeks when you can have four!

So I am in my new home and excited about buying accessories. I need everything, furniture, rugs, picture frames, etc. What is the best time to go to the store to buy all these accessories? One would imagine during the weekend. So on Saturday I check out the local stores such as Zellers, Canadian Tire, and Ikea. All the stores close at 5 PM on the weekend. 5PM??? Of course, why would anyone want to be able to shop later than that??

I decided that it would be easier to just place an Ikea order online, I've been to Ikea a hundred times and know what they have. So going online I find that several of the products are not available for purchase online or by phone, only in person. Going to the Ikea US site every single item is available in surplus and available. I wanted a dark brown/black couch table. The website will let me choose the exact same table in light wood, but the dark brown one requires a store visit. It is the exact same one in EVERY WAY except the color. Both are in stock at the store, however I cannot buy the dark one online. Why?? Searching the website provides no clarification. Maybe having darker furniture requires an age limit and they need ID?

So, I go to the other stores online, like Zellers and Canadian Tire, and they state that they will no longer offer online shopping. Why? Searching the internet I find that they will not offer online shopping because of "increased cost". Ok, so charge me more, rather than to stop offering it-that is what a US store would do! Capitalism is a good thing.

So my house has one location to hook up internet, and that is downstairs in the living room. I want my desktop in my bedroom. I decided to get a powerline ethernet bridge, which is a handy little device where you plug one adapter next to the modem and the other next to your computer and use your homes electrical wires to transmit the internet signal. Pretty neat, huh? Netgear offers the best of its kind. Going to Netgear I see they are readily available at Target, Amazon, Walmart, among others. Not here, unfortunately. There is not a single store that I have found that has this item. Well, I go to Netgear Canada and place the order. Great! No, not so great as I get an email that the item is on back order. Yet in the US I see that the item is "ready to ship". Same product, same company, so what's the problem???
I did find some people offering this product on ebay or some unknown stores that don't look too reputable to me.

So, now I am planning to rent a U-Haul van and drive my ass over to Ikea to get the age restricted furniture for my house. I am not sure how to get the ethernet bridge, maybe the black market??

All in all, I love my new home. I am not regretting my decision to move here in any way, and I am not griping about the Canadian or Quebec people in any way. They are in the same boat as I am, I am sure as I type this that there is someone else scratching their heads as to why they cannot get that dark table online. The only difference is that most of them just accept it because "that's just the way it is". Since I know that it is "not the way it is" back in the US, I am left feeling frustrated and a little bit homesick.