Communication between Canada and the US is harder than you'd think.
Yesterday I discovered this downfall of being an international student in Canada. I have known for a while that obtaining a reasonable phone plan for calling to the US would be difficult but I had no idea all that this entailed. Over the course of the afternoon the process was elucidated for me (kind of). In short, to obtain a cell plan here you must have Canadian credit. Having lived my entire life in the States, I don't have credit in Canada. Logically, one would just run an American credit check on me. Alas, it seemed impossible to run a US credit check on me, although I do have credit in the US. After two hours standing in the cellphone store with a sales representative on the phone to various customer service numbers they were able to manually sell me a phone (I'm not sure exactly what that means except that she had to write out my contract by hand in a form). In the end I opted for a plan that is for calling within Canada locally. To make calls to the US it seems simpler, cheaper, and safer (monetarily) to use a calling card. I did spring a bit of cash for a monthly text allowance to the US however. I am nervous a bit about this cellphone thing because I know that they slap you with fees at every turn. For example, my "free" phone had a $100 warranty attached to it. But I guess I will just have to be meticulous with my calling this month, see what the bill looks like, and make adjustments as necessary.
I was also attempting to get internet from this company yesterday but after the long process of just obtaining a cellphone the store was past closing time. So I have to wait until Tuesday to even order my internet. Until then I am getting well acquainted with the baristas at the cool little coffee shop around the corner called Java Jive and enjoying my nicer-than-necessary, semi-free phone.
