I have lots of ideas brewing for future posts--namely my review series, which I'm super excited about--but I haven't gotten the chance to crank out that bowl of Alpha-Bits just yet because I've been too busy celebrating!

Celebrating what, you ask? Well, Canada Day, of course!

I don't have much of substance for this post, and I had considered not making a post at all. But then I pondered: "how can I not post about my first Canada Day!?" More importantly, though, I have a suspicion that my American following doesn't know much, or anything, about the holiday. Not that I'm going to give you a Wikipedia run-down of it (I would encourage you to do that yourself), I thought I might just share a little bit about how I spent the day.

If you're looking for just the logistical information you need to know for getting your biometrics done, see the sections "The next step in the immigration process," "My experience," and "Service Canada."
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Ottawa is a beautiful, fascinating city. Long before I ever dreamed I would live there, I used to look at photos of Canada's picture-perfect capital and envy it:

​But much like any other city, and also as a consequence of having an American perception of what a city is and should be, what you see is not always what you get.

The first time I met my father-in-law, he asked me if I was a fan of the Syracuse Orangemen. I didn't correct him (the Syracuse University athletic program dropped "men" in 2004 to become the gender-neutral Syracuse Orange), but I did reply to the affirmative. Growing up in Upstate New York, there was nothing to be other than a Syracuse Orange fan. 

What surprised me, though, was that my Canadian future father-in-law said, "Me too!"

I was curious as to how he could be a fellow Syracuse Orange fan, though, since not only were we standing in his kitchen in Kingston, Ontario, a town which is home to one of the most prestigious universities in Canada (Queen's University), but also, his daughter, who would one day be my wife, was at the time a student at the University of Ottawa. What connection could he possibly have to my hometown that could override his own? Well, this college graduation season when everybody is feeling nostalgic for their own alma maters, I thought I'd explore this question.

Looking for a quick mental math shortcut? Head to the "shortcut" section.

As I was writing my first post, I kept noticing it get longer and longer. This was partly on purpose, because this blog is really going where few have gone before in terms of details in the logistics of immigrating to another country. There are folks out there who are missing out on a lot of crucial information and that is a gap I feel the need to fill.

That said, I recognize that a lot of my reading base starting out is going to be my friends, family, and casual readers, who may not be too interested in immigration acronyms, or how long it takes a radiologist to upload a JPEG of a chest x-ray to an Australian server.

So, I've decided to fast-track another series here on the blog that should (hopefully) lighten things up: my quick guides for Americans!

​A few months ago, when Sydney and I filed our application for Permanent Residence, I decided to give a sneak preview of what the process was like. I posted a series of videos about all the things we had to submit. I promised that I would come to the blog and give a more broad rundown of that process, and one day (hopefully soon) I will, but it's not over just yet! For now, I'm going to go through the individual steps of the process more thoroughly. This post will be more detailed than most, as I explain my experience with Canada's medical exam process, My hope is to reach some other folks out there who may also be going through it and are looking for guidance. For TL;DR head to the "Final thoughts" section.

One of the many universal immigration steps is the immigration medical exam, or IME. I wasn't able to find a list of what countries do and do not require a medical exam in order to move there, but I have to assume that it's a pretty good number of them. A Google search found that they were required by at least most of the big guys: China, India, (recently) Russia, the United Kingdom, and all the countries on the eMedical platform (a consortium and online program that stores immigrant medical data), including the United States, Australia, and of course, Canada.