I am sitting in the new apartment on Haro street, in downtown Vancouver. The location is amazing, the apartment is great, the city is beautiful.
I wrote the beginning of the blog on the plane over the Atlantic, so here it is, and I will continue below:
So I am sitting in the plane over Greenland at the moment, but the Green land cannot be seen due to thick, thick clouds beneath me. I did see Scotland though, and that looked pretty icey and mountainous, not at all the green rolling hills I had expected. I have so far watched two movies, Enchanted and Juno, and am probably going to watch a third, seeing that I have about 20 to choose from on my own little private screen.
So far the trip's gone well, not taking into account the fact that three men stopped the baggage check-in line for about 15 minutes this morning (I made the flight so no worries), a passenger fainted on my first leg to Frankfurt (which was late, and the passenger was fine), and that an old grey man had occupied my seat when I got to the place I had specifically hand picked out for myself while checking in online yesterday. I wanted to sit by the aisle and be able to get up and walk whenever I wanted, but now I'm stuck by the window cause next to me sits another old, Russian or something, man whose knee hurts so he needs to keep his leg stretched out into the aisle the whole time. Oh well, that's being young I suppose, you have to make sacrifices so that you can say you have the right to sit wherever you want when you grow ancient.
So yeah, my other flight was late as well, and so I spent about half an hour sitting around in the waiting area watching the stuff-movers move stuff into the plane. They still say we should be in Vancouver on time, so all's well. This plane is by the way by far the coolest one I've been in – the personal touch-screens are great, but there is also a whole separate downstairs area with five toilets. Downstairs! In a plane! I find it pretty fun. So I've ran down there twice just to stretch my legs and try to figure out where all the stuff is that I saw them stuff into the plane.
I don't know if I have to fill out the declaration of goods-thing they always give you when you fly to Canada, seeing that I don't know whether to write in the "Visitor" or "Resident"-sector. I figure resident, but then they want to know how long I've been gone for, which would mean when I, as a resident, left Canada. And that sure doesn't apply. I figure I don't need the paper, but I'd better not throw it out, just in case.
So yeah, I have about five more hours of flying ahead of me, I feel fine, although they are not giving us enough to eat. I had a small portion veggie pasta, but that was hours ago already. I also really want to walk around the plane, but I can't keep asking the old Russian man to get up. He by the way only has a crossword-puzzle magazine for entertainment, poor fellow. He keeps glancing at my computer like it's some weird kind of fancy machinery that only really fortunate people own.
Well, now my arm is starting to really hurt, it is not easy to write in this small space, I tell you for sure. Maybe I will read one of the two books I bought at the airports, although they don't seem too interesting. Shit, now my knee is hurting too.
The landing, which is what they call immigrating, went well and without pain, but the line to get to the immigration officers was long and it took about an hour and a half for me to get into the country. Teresa and Ron were kind enough to come and pick me up from the airport, so the trip downtown went very smoothly. Once here I dropped off my suitcases and went out to buy food.
I went to sleep around 8.30 pm, after 24 hours awake, and awaited Chris' arrival. Around an hour later the buzzer sounded and there he was. I can't describe the feeling of seeing him again after two and a half months - let's just say I wasn't completely certain of whether or not I was awake.
We spent all Sunday, his only day off all week, together, walking around Vancouver, getting some stuff for the apartment, enjoying the rain... Yes, the rain! It rains a lot here. I knew it would, but it's always different to actually experience this climate than just hearing about it, because it's never really rained before when I've been here.
Tonight I slept around 10 hours or so, waking every two or three hours. There is an orchestra of birds outside our bedroom window. Earplugs are needed. I got up at 6, had breakfast, and went back to bed for two more hours. I have been feeling oddly jetlagged ever since arriving - and people claim it's easier to go west. After waking today I went out and was efficient. I got myself a Canadian social insurance number, and bought more stuff for the apartment. Then I came home and cleaned up the place, and put away all my clothes in hidden compartments along the walls. The place is pretty big for only being 400 square feet - it feels waaay bigger than our 500 sq f place in Toronto, but I do think I have now utilized every single place available for stowing clothes.
