You can definitely get a student visa in Germany with a language course. Pretty sure 15 hours/week is the minimum. There was a Korean guy in my class in Berlin who was just using it as an easy way to get a visa who only came to class 1-2 times/week (it was every morning for 3 hours).

I am looking into Portugal and can let you know how it goes. Malta and Estonia are also open to US citizens coming to live. I'm pretty sure I researched Czech and Poland already and decided it was impossible.

Thanks guys, Portugal would be awesome and only 15 hours/week of class in order to get a student visa to a better country would also be a worthwhile option.

Definitely keep this thread posted on Portugal please Sly.

I drove across today on the way to Vancouver. Have a 2-seater sports car that was pretty full with stuff for the small storage size (golf clubs, computer, monitor, couple of suitcases, case of beer , etc.). Just told the truth that I was coming for a month to play poker and golf. Had $5k in US and a few hundred Canadian which I told him when he asked.

As expected the border agent said go inside, agent who I saw inside was semi-giving me a hard time, not sure he quite understood why I had to come here to play poker (explaining the actual situation), though he did mention he'd heard of one other case, and that some of those people (plural?) weren't let in. Think he wanted to just make sure my story was okay and that I was leaving like I said.

He eventually let me go in, albeit with the condition that I have to leave in 30 days (which is when I'm leaving anyhow)) - they staple some document inside your passport. Not sure how it affects my re-entry when I try and go back after having been gone for 3 weeks, but we'll find out. Wanted to leave my car here and fly to the States and back (he said you're not allowed to do that?), but now will drive back, and fly when I try and come back to Vancouver in late July.

Not sure what that all means for the best way to cross (and not have them fear that you'll permanently "bum-out" in Canada), I just hope it'll be easy to fly here and back for a week or two in the future.

P.S. There may have been a hockey game tonight...?

Forgot to mention that I did bring bank statements, Ameritrade printouts, mortgage statement, first page of tax returns, etc. And both the first guard (I think) and the one inside asked me what I did for a living, and I told them poker.

i have a plan on standby if/when bodog and merge leave the us market; im actually surprised no one else has talked about this. i will pack the wifey and kid and whatever we own in to our rv, tell BP we are traveling for an extended period in canada, and then just stay until i decide to come back. obviously if i get approached by law enforcement after 6 months i could get deported, but in that case could just plead ignorance. the only thing that i would need to get around would be explaining my living situation to the sites. fwiw, i have already lived on the road for a year in the rv (in usa), and had no problems.

I just got my FTP account switched over to Canada with the help of FTPDave.
Emailed bank statement, cellphone bill, and scan of passport.
Was done very quickly.

When you're in that bad of a need for cash I'm not shocked that they get people switched over that quick!

did you need to show a utility bill or proof of Canadian residency or just the canadian bank statement? Or maybe your cell phone bill was going to a canadian address? Also, how long do you think it will take for you to start cashing out on FTP?

I just checked out vancouver for a couple weeks and really liked it. I am now looking to move there for a couple months, primarily to cash out my FT roll, play some online, and enjoy Vancouver. Recently have been reading up on all the hurdles I need to get over to get this done.

Both my bank account and cellphone are Canadian, and both statements showed my Montreal address.

Cool thanks. I have a friend that lives in Vancouver and I was thinking about moving up there but didnt want to have to switch the utilities in my name and stuff like that if I didn't have too. Keep us posted on how difficult it is for you to cash out. GL.

I'm getting so pumped for the move! What do you guys think is the best way to handle currency conversions? I have a lot of bills that I'll still be paying in USD as well as the new CDN$ bills to pay, and I have blind optimism that there's a cool way to make everything work out, but I'm not sure what it is. I will probably be playing in USD games, and get my cashouts through an ewallet and then to a Canadian bank. Will I have to have a USD account at RBC or will things autoconvert at some point along the way? Then I'd have to convert back to USD to pay my USD bills? aaaa

I have two BMO accounts, one in CAD and one in USD linked together.
They'll convert currencies with no added fees.

Unfortunately, as a guy with Canadian bills, US bills, and Korean bills, I can let you know there's no great way to handle this. Contact the people you owe money to. Some will allow payments from a non-US bank if there are US branches, some require the money to be in an actual US bank account.

The most I can say is: Try to limit the number of times the money changes hands. If you have a small US bank or a small CAD bank, it's super common to transfer the funds through an intermediary bank. Same for e-wallets to small banks AFAIK. Every time that money changes hands, someone takes a cut. (For instance, to get money from Korea to Canada in my wifes account, the transfer fees for a simple bank transfer exceed $150, for my US account it's about $40, and if I had a large bank back home, it'd be around $18.)

It really adds up. Here's my plan:

Get a Canadian bank account with US branches. Pay as many bills as I can through that, and have the poker money put into that account through bank transfer or wire transfer, depending on the size of transaction.

Send money to the US account from there to pay my "stubborn" bills that won't take anything other than a US bank account, preferably in large enough chunks that it will cover several months worth of bills with one transfer.

As far as I know, that's the best way to reduce the damage.

no added fees sounds great but its really not... say u have 1k american and u bring it to a canadian bank...average rate ive seen is .95. So you get 950 canadian dollars. Ok now I wanna convert it back to US dollar since its time for me to go home for Santa Claus. Best rate Ive seen is 1.0057, and this weeks rate was 1.0031 or something. That comes out to about 952 us dollars. Thats a difference of 48 dolllars from jsut changing currencies at the same location lol. If you convert your money you can bank on loosing about 5 cents per dollar.. It dont seem like much but if say you convert 10k your loosing 500 us dollars, and nevermind if you have to convert 100k your gonna loose about five thousand dollars just from converting your money lol.

My advice is to only convert as much as you need for expenses. The best rate Ive seen has been from pokerstars actually lol. So if you can hold off on your expenses you might as well open a bank account with a small amount of us money and then request a check from stars and save abotu 2 cents on each dollar.

If you have a Bank of America account in the States (with $$ in it obviously), you can withdraw up to your limit each day from Scotiabank ATMs for about 0.9% total cost (through their Global ATM Alliance). You can call BofA before you leave and ask to have your limits raised to facilitate being able to convert a lot this way, I think they'll do it for 10 days.

Obv. pain in the arse if you aren't staying near a Scotiabank ATM, but a cheap-ish way to get a good amount of CDN to spend or deposit at another bank.

I went through Black Card Support, got a reply, re-replied myself, and got final confirmation of residency change in under 3 hours. Just sent a scanned copy of my California DL, and a copy of my CIBC bank statement - that doesn't show my address, so I had the teller print an additional "account page" with today's date stamped on, and the combo (account page + statement) was sufficient.

Welcome to Montreal. In time for the F1 race as well as the Jazz Fest in June/July lol. Hopefully I will have PM priveleges soon. Good luck BigPoppa

Thanks


Love Montreal so far, though I feel like an ass for not speaking any French. Let me know if you want to go out for a beer sometime.

Montreal is one of the best cities in the world, imho. You will continue to love it.

In all serious, can you please tell me why you feel that way?

I'd be interested in checking it out. At a minimum, I'd like to take a mini-vacation there.

They have Poker Stars there, that's a huge plus.

Thanks

When I was a bit younger, I used to rent out apartments during the summer from Mcgill University students going back home while classes were out. I've probably spent about 8-12 months of my life residing in the city. Montreal is almost like a cleaner New York City, with less of the pomp are circumstance that most of us are likely not to really care if we have, and has alot of what NYC doesn't. There are areas of the city where you can easily access that provide a slower paced and less urban styled life on a day to day basis. There is a Six Flags, there is a casino, and countless festivals. The city is a very culturally diverse city, and like NYC, this leads to lots of high quality choices of restaurants. The week surrounding F1's visit to Montreal pumps a jolt of life into the city that generates more business for the city's economy then Christmas does. The bars are great, the people are friendly, and you never really run out of stuff to do. Walking down St. Catherine St. is like experiencing a more fun version of Broadway. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Maybe my wife and I (plus our two dogs (we can't go anywhere without our dogs)) will check it out this summer!

Thanks

Would love to. Can't PM you tho. Get in touch with me on gmail and leave me your cell phone and I will call you. That is the only way I can think of to get in touch with you for now ??? Don't you love the French asses tho lol

Please check out #650 to #653 in this thread for more information

The women of Montreal have the nicest asses I've ever stared at, and I've stared at asses all over the world.