New life, here we go

We're sitting in a net cafe couple of hundred meters away from our flat, checking emails, and blogging of course. This morning it's rains, and the mountains seems to have pretty much disappeared into the mist. One neighbour on the other side of road is keeping his surfing board on his balcony, and another one already has a christmas tree in their living room.

Yesterday's trip was pretty much a success all the way - flight was long, but nice enough... we got some sleep, Dragon read 1,5 books and I got half way to Trace by Patricia Cornwell. Immigration was totally not a problem - there was no queue and Dragon had all the papers ready, so it was really just a formality. Although we had been warned that it could take hours and they might ask really personal probing questions, the immigration official was really nice and just chatted and joked with us - I think the most personal question he asked of me was if my husband playing on the console all the time was affecting our relationship! (The answer of course is that I knew what I was doing when I married him - and that of course games are bringing the bread to the table so I can't really complain anyway.)

The temporary flat we have is small with three really tiny rooms and a kitchenette in the living room, but it's got all we need for now. We went to a local supermarket last night to get some basic groceries - and it turned out to be a Safeway... mind you, I never shopped at Safeway "back home in England", but still. To my surprise, quite a few brands were familiar - for example tea was all Tetley's and Twinings (I went for a local brand just out of principle), but there wasn't loose tea on offer. Packs are huge, for example juice mostly comes in two liter cartons. And for reference - they do used coins for trollies as Gareth said, but they did all the weighing of the fruit and packing for me... so I can live with that.

News on TV don't talk about Europe, and I didn't realise until now how hungry I am for news. First news I checked was of course if Rocco Buttiglione had been chosen as a comissioner, and was happy to hear that the whole commission had been withdrawn. And Kilroy is in trouble again... sigh.

But that's it for news from Vancouver for now. We'll be probably checking out the city a bit today, and I'll try to post some photos if I can (GPRS connection seems to randomly fail - it worked this morning but doesn't at the moment so I can't post a photo I took of the apartment block we call (temporary) home... but later, if Gods of the internet allow me).

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