Ok, so for those of you who have beeen emailing us asking for an update, well, here we go... we've been here 3 weeks more or less, so I'll try and cover as much of it as I can without boring you too much!
First off, the day before we flew out, I got sick, I was in bed the night before shivering away, sweating profusely, all very pleasant stuff. It was looking like it was going to be a fun flight! We flew out that Sunday night, so during the day I pretty much just lay low, took any sort of drugs I could get my hands on, and by the time the flight came around I wasn't actually feeling too bad. The flight was pretty uneventful really. I watched "Lars and the Real Girl" which was quite a funny movie, a bit odd, but worth a look. Fortunately I wasn't shivering or sweating much to Julia's satisfaction, who was probably worse than me with a bad cold, and almost no voice left.
When we arrived in Vancouver we got a taxi to our hostel, which as it turned out was a complete dive! Not to mention it had one of those killer staircases which was very steep and narrow, which wouldn't have been a problem apart from the fact I had my 32kg bike box to get up 2 flights of stairs. By the time we got that up I realised I was definitely still sick, collapsed on the bed and slept for hours.
Did I mention our hostel was a dive? Well I can't quite stress that enough. Noisy as possible. The first night there was a jazz busker outside the window (which was open thanks to no air conditioning), what sounded like a 747 engine starting up over and over, loud loud people on the street and outside our door with the one inch gap at the bottom talking in the laundry opposite all night. The interesting thing was that it is right on the edge of Gastown, which is kind of a trendy, touristy area, but its also on the edge of the homeless epicentre of Vancouver. Walk one block the wrong way and you are in a very scary neighbourhood. The homeless situation here is interesting. There are heaps of them thats for sure! And they aren't shy! I haven't travelled a whole lot, but I don't think I have ever been in a city where there have been so many (Julia tells me Vancouver supposedly has the highest population in North America). Vancouver must be a great place to live! If you're down town you really can expect to see them on every corner. It will be interesting to see how they handle this come Olympics in 2010, I'm sure they wiill be keen to put out the best image they can.
So after 4 days at our dodgy hostel we moved into a cheap hotel which was a lot better. We actually got some sleep which was nice. The main goal for the first week was obviously to find somewhere to live. As it turns out Vancouver has 0.3 % vancancy rate, people advertising a flat or similar are regularly getting 50 people turning up on the first day to rent their place. Crazy! So after spending hours and hours of online time and trying to find a place to live we were quite discouraged, and living at a hotel we were burning money! Anyway, we applied for one place which I really just rang to say that I tried, I seriously didn't think they would even take a 2nd look at us or call us back. Seriously, we would ring places 1 hr after they had been listed and they would have gone already! Anyway to cut a long story short, we are now in a really nice apartment on Vancouvers Nth Shore right next to the downtown ferry depot. Its pretty bling. Still not quite sure how we got it, but we just seemed to get on really well with the owner and we signed it all up on the spot, we didn't even have to supply any references or anything like most people were requiring. So we have a view of the harbour, can see the mountains, sunsets, it even has its own mini movie theatre which you can book! (doesn't have a gym which is a bit of a let down....not that I'd use it in reality anyway).
Our apartment on the right. (Julia says she doesn't like this picture cause it makes us look like we're in the boon docks - we're not - its right near all the shops/restaurants etc... but there is alot of construction!)
The view from our apartment, Vancouver city in the background.
So it was a huge relief to get somewhere to live, especially somewhere so nice! Over here they pay rent by the month and you also need a half months rent as the bond, so that was a bit of a sting to pay that lump sum all at once. But we are here now so that's great. And luckily the 'outrageous' vancouver rental prices aren't as bad as Auckland rental prices!
One of the best things is that everything is within walking distance, both Julia and I have a 5 minute walk down to the ferry which we take to work, there is a fruit and vege market (voted best in Vancouver) and shops all close too. Having a nice apartment which was completely void of any furniture was a bit weird, fortunately the Sallies (3 blocks away) had a 50% off sale so we picked up a sofa for $25, our landlord gave us a dining room table, some friends we made at a church gave us a whole lot of plates and cups etc, and also their thermarest's to sleep on until we get a bed. 2 weeks later we still haven't gotten a bed, so have become very accustomed to the feel of a thermarest (which are actually suprisingly comfortable). Anyway, hopefully we will get a bed soon!
Ok, so that's all for now, I'll write some more soon, with more exciting things like going up to Whistler....
To be continued...
(There were some birds which Julia wanted to take a photo of...)
A few more pics of the sandcastles.... they really were quite good.
