Day 4 - Banking, Buses, and Buying A Car

Nate

Here Jamie and I are trying to get the kids back on to an appropriate sleep cycle, and then we give them an exhausting day. 

The day began with us walking a ways to the nearby bank to begin to get everything in the banking world in motion. I truly thought getting money over here would be easier than it is. Back in Canada, TD Bank wanted to charge me $30 to send money to our account in Australia. At the time, I thought, "There must be some other means by which one can get money to Australia, after all, this is the day and age where everything can be done by the internet." It appears I am not completely correct. It appears eTransfers don't go outside of North America, Visa Directs result in huge fees, and SWIFT transactions (as promoted by our Australian bank) cost an arm and a leg as well. 

The next plan was PayPal. But what's this? The PayPal account I have is only for North America? What I am really learning is that a lot of what we do involving finances in the United States is an exception to getting money almost anywhere else. We opened an account for both us and the kids, and the kids (who were given crayons by the lady at the bank) both drew Canada flags, as we explained to the kids, as we walked to the bank, that Canada Day was going on back home right now. Since they knew it was July 2, this really helped them to understand that we are a calendar day ahead of Red Deer, most of the time. 

Their high point of July 2nd, Australian Canada Day? We walked them on their path to school, and who was on a narrow trail between two houses? A kangaroo! The kids were scared and excited at the same time, as just seeing one standing in your way on the sidewalk was something new to all of us. Luckily, it kindly jumped away as we approached it. They seem to behave like the deer back home.

From the bank, we jumped on a bus. I remember once taking the kids on the bus two or three years ago, just to show them what a bus was. It was novel a couple years ago, and it was novel for an hour or so (with the added interest of travelling through a city they aren't familiar with), but Blake came to the point of falling asleep at the end of our day; this conveyed their level of interest. 

We did end up finding a car, but like I said earlier, the trick is going to be getting the money down here. I was able to place the deposit on my credit card, but it is going to take a couple trips if I am going to continue to pay for this vehicle via credit card.