How to open a bank account from outside of Canada

During the last days I have been gathering information on how to open a bank account when you're not yet in Canada. After checking the conditions of several banks the National Bank of Canada and RBC Royal Bank made it to my shortlist so I contacted them via their e-mail forms on their websites:
NBC Contact & RBC Royal Bank - Contact Us
RBC Royal Bank promptly sent me an answer and asked me to send them my destination, arrival date, name, address and telephone number so that they could forward this to one of their branches who would contact me with the documentation to fill out. Five days later I received a mail with instructions, an account application and a signature card attached in PDF format. I had a few questions about the things to fill out on the application and they promptly replied with their answers.
So today I went to the Canadian Consulate here in Barcelona to get certified photocopies of my passport, drivers license and I got a stamp and signature to validate my signature on the RBC signature card. For this I had to pay a small service fee of 14 Euros... nothing for free but at least the assistant to the Consul that I dealt with was very nice and even asked me some questions about the visa procedure for Canada.
Now I still have to get a recommendation letter from my bank here and then I will send everything to the Royal Bank and they will open a deposit account for me upon five days. To withdraw money from that account I will have to be in Canada and I will be able to change to the type of account that best fits me once I am over there.

Busy times ahead

Only 97 days until we leave! I haven't updated this blog lately, but this is what I've been up to:

• looking for an appartment
• trying to open a bank account
• organising the transport of our stuff
• starting to look for a job

Some things seem to be quite easy even if you're not in the country yet. What particularily strikes me is that almost all the people I have been in contact with are very helpful. As soon as I have more details on what I have accomplished so far I will post them here.

Le Québec en photos

A very nice blog, check out these photos of our future home:
Urbanisme II - Le Québec en photos

Yes, I know that Canada is a bit colder

What happens when someone throws boiling water into the air at temperatures like this -40C in Satkatchewan Canada? Watch for yourself:

They are beautiful

Well, maybe that's exaggerated, but it is certainly a nice feeling to finally see the visa in the passport. I was a bit surprised that there is no photo on the visa itself, they even sent back the additional photos that they asked us to supply.