This is like...a whole other country

I will admit that when we moved here, I was primarily prepared for language- and culture-based changes from living in the DC Metro area. A lot of what has surprised me, however, has been things that I took for granted as part of the service you receive when you get a cell phone plan or a bank account.

We searched around with all of the mobile phone carriers and were unable to find either a Canadian or US company that would work without enormous fees on both sides of the border. I haven't figured out a way to have a US number that our friends in the States could call to avoid long-distance charges that would forward to a Canadian number, but we at least have Canadian cell phones now so I can give out a phone number that won't be going away when we move out of temporary housing.

The odd part of all this is that Caller ID (which comes on every phone I've ever seen in the US) costs an extra $8 here. This means that you can't just assume someone can call you so you'll have their number, because if you haven't paid extra, the phone just says "Unknown."

The next thing that was odd was that our bank account didn't come with a check card--you know how you get the thing that looks like a credit card and you can run credit or debit with it, right? Here you just get an Interac card, which works like a debit only you have to pay $1.50 every time you use it, and you can't choose to run it as credit instead of debit, or use it at credit-only businesses.

Heck, we opened a checking account, and now I'm wondering if I need to make sure that we're getting sent actual, physical cheques. I was expecting to find that banking was different because the word is spelled "cheques" here, but instead it's feeling fairly different. I kind of know the rules, but if I take things for granted or assume something, I might get screwed, and nobody will think to warn me!