Canada: Step 1

I moved to Canada in February. I knew literally no one when I arrived here, and this is no exaggeration. Life circumstances have meant that I've never had to find roommates on gumtree/spare room etc, but obviously moving to a new country where I was starting to consider the girl who worked in 7/11 who I'd over excitedly talked to about the fact they sell cadburys chocolate here (FYI it's not the same, it's rank) the closest thing I had to a friend, moving in somewhere with strangers was clearly the best option.

So I did what all Vancouverites for some inexplicable reasons seem to do on these situations, I used craigslist. My knowledge of craigslist was pretty limited before I moved here. My impression of it was something along the lines of that if you're looking for a short-lived life craigslist is your best bet for finding someone who is willing to step up and help you. That sounds super!

However, once I'd manned up and told myself that moving to a new country was all about the challenges and if that involved being horribly maimed and possibly killed then so be it. I then had to get past the fact that craigslist is the crappest website that has ever existed. When I was 11 and the internet FIRST started, I made a website in my IT class, it took me half an hour and if memory serves right was a documentation of how much I loved my cat, Scott. This, was better than craigslist. And yet despite the fact it looks like the internet with a permanent hangover and is basically drawn in crayon, everyone uses it. So I used it too.

Now like I said, I've never done this before, so I did a bit of googling to get some tips. And obviously, it was the housing equivalent of googling "I have a cough what does this mean" which was that I was probably going to die. No matter whose ad I had responded to, the chances were I was going to be killed. But the best thing to do was alert someone you love, someone who cares about you that you're going to see a strangers house and that if you're not back in 45 minutes, call the police, call the army, whatever, ACTION is required. This is a challenge when the closest you have to someone who might care about you in  the entire city is a crackhead who thinks you look like a soft touch.

However, as should be fairly obvious from this post, I did not get horribly maimed or killed. Thanks for nothing, internet! Step 1, complete.