I'm here, and it's all good!! Watch this space I'll update in a short while : )

So I've been here for just over three weeks and I'm happy to report that all is going very comfortably.   (Hehe, this web-site has changed a bit so I can do things like that!!) I'm living with my Aunt and Uncle, Cathy and Howard Dallimore respectively, Howard being my Mum's brother. They live on the North shore of Vancouver, a little way from downtown but closer to the mountains so the scenery is beautiful and the pace of life a lot calmer than it would be downtown. My cousins, Nicola, Sarah and Andrew live close by so I've been seeing lots of them and their families. Nicola is married to David and they have two sons, Michael (8) and Sean (4), and Sarah is married to Glen and they have two sons, Jordan (10), Jason (8) and a daughter, Christina (5). All the kids have their own individual personalities but they're all great, caring kids. It's lovely to be spending so much time with and getting to know the family I only knew through photographs before!

People here in Vancouver are very friendly and polite- so much so that people play musical chairs on the buses as everyone tries to give up their seat for everybody else! I've been warmly welcomed by all of Uncle Howard and Aunty Cathy's friends and have joined the church choir and have bagged myself a spot in the upcoming pantomime. I'm going to be a nun..! Rehearsals so far have been very silly so I'm sure it's going to be lots of fun.

  As for sightseeing I decided to give myself the first 2 weeks or so off from job hunting and carry on my traveling by seeing some of the city. If you've not been to or know anything about Vancouver then the following won't mean very much to you but I've walked around Stanley Park and seen the totem poles, snuck into the aquarium and saw the white whales, been to Glanville Island and it's market, wandered around Gastown with it's clock and Chinatown with its gardens and went to Science world to see that Body Worlds exhibition- the one with all the bodies that have been preserved and stripped down to their muscles and bones; really interesting! I've seen the view from Cyprus Hill but am yet to go up Grouse Mountain; something I think I leave until it's started snowing, which should be quite soon!! 

As for the job- it's only been two days but so far I'm enjoying my new job with the company Bell. They're a communications company that deal with cell phones, TV, internet etc (their web-sites www.bell.ca  if you're interested). I hadn't expected to get it so soon but I got the call and it'd have been silly to say no so we'll see how it goes. There's LOADS to learn which is good as I constantly complained of eternal boredom in my last job so at least this'll keep me on my feet. They're spending a lot on training us and I get a free Blackberry so I'll stick to it for a while, but I'd ideally like to see if I could get anything Psychology related. However, my visa restricts me quite a lot with what I can and can't do so I might just find some local volunteering work. So here commences my year in Vancouver, and it'll probably whiz by! I'll keep updating and hopefully get some photos up too.