Photo’s will follow soon!

We are in Calgary. Both my cousins live there. Well actually, Mathew lives in one of the suburbs, but it is expected that Calgary will confiscate this in the near future.

The reception is very warm. We feel most welcome. Within no time Mathew has the barbecue going. We spend half the day with Mathew and his wife Elaine in Calgary , then we have coffee at Maaike’s and Terry.

We visited the top of the Calgary tower and that gives a splendid view over the city. For Dutch standards the sight is unreal. The space is enormous. There are 1.2 million people. The vast majority lives in a house with a front and back garden. We are at 191 meters high and the town stretches as far as we can see.

Canadians move physically and career-wise to were the work is. You can really notice that they are from stock that decided to pack up and move to Canada. Let’s have some examples( they are by no means complete):

Henry:

Had a business in renting out signposts;
Became a wholesaler of gravestones;
Ended up with developing housing projects.

Mathew:

Did sales in a clothes shop;
Moved to a business renting out cargo trailers;
Got into a business transporting dangerous goods;
Trained to be an electrician;
Became a shuttle driver for Mazda;
Ended up in real estate management

Terry (Maaikes husband):

Started in bookkeeping;
In his 30’s went back to school
Became a civil engineer
Ended up building half the houses in the street where they live.

Leo (Mathew’s brother in law):

Moved from The Hague to Canada when he was 28;
He was a plumber but had a problem with getting work;
Was employed by an insurance company;
Moved to setting up his own insurance company.

These are examples for career switches. Beside this, work-driven they all moved all over Canada and the USA. For us as visitors it offers a great benefit. Canadians are very well familiar with quick acquaintance. Everybody is interested in you and willing to start up a conversation. Maybe you can help each other. That makes being here so much fun.