A place I want to call home (at least for a bit)

I'm falling in love with this city... as much as you can fall in love with a city. Today was the first completely clear, not a cloud in the sky day, and boy oh boy was it beautiful. The big clean blue rivers that wind and invade the city, the snow caped (and also capped) mountains, big open streets along with the nice trees, along with pretty good public transport, cute girls riding downhill bikes around town, cheap food and bikes mixed with a lot of immigrants (emigrants... I'm not real sure of the difference- can someone tell me)..... so nice. It's funny asking directions here. For every second person I ask I have to revert to Turkish communication skills. Not what I expected but I like it.
I've fallen in love with North Van. From where I'm staying at Corrina's grammas in Burnaby, I head west on the skytrain for about half an hour before catching the sea bus across the river from Vancouver to North Vancouver. The sky trains are cool. As far as I can tell, there's no driver on them. During the day they might be 4 carriages long and then peak hour they get longer, but the best bit is, they're about 2 to 4 minutes apart so you hardly have to wait. The line stops at the sea bus, a big catamaran that seems to go both backwards and forwards equally well so they never turn around.
Back to North Van though, it is spreads across the base of three mountains, Grouse Mountain, Mount Seymour and Cedar Mountain. Grouse mountain has a visible ski slope at the top with chairlifts and I'm not sure about the others but they are all big and amazing and the lower parts are covered in amazing free riding and downhill mountain bike tracks. Typical runs are about 25 - 30 mins with difficulties ranging from gravel roads through to narrows (trails consisting of 4 inch wide bits of wood a couple of metres off the ground) with everything in between, so I'll be kept amused. The suburb is quite ... quite... not sure what the right words are. There's a bunch of coffee shops and restaurants from the Quay and then up Lonsdale Street, art shops and small theatres. Pretty relaxed feel. Loads of snow boarding and mountain bike shops (I think 9 mountain bike shops in the one suburb). It's cool. There's an amazing second hand shop full of cool gear for everything ice, snow, biking related at really cheap prices compared to Australia. I wandered a fair way yesterday looking at apartments and I stumbled on this shop. I came away with a really good little hardtail, helmet, and lock for about $350 (pre stupid tax which I always forget about) and then rode an hour and a half home. I'm getting used to riding right hand side of the road.
I went back to North Van this arvo and was shown through about 7 different apartments. I'm looking for a 1 bedroomer. They were consistantly all bigger and dodgier than I expected. Not real dodgy, just weary carpets, 70's kitchens with old school ovens and fridges. I eventually found one that I think is just right. Slightly dodgier but the most amazing view of the mountains from both the bedroom and lounge. Also the cheapest, AND the managers are about to retire and were going to ditch some of there furniture, so if I get the place I'll be along way towards being setup (there's at least a TV and video already in there). They are lovely and I'm bit sad they won't be there as my neighbours. The other thing is it's leased by the month, so I'm not locked in, even though by law they're not allowed to raise the rent for a year, which is fantastic. If I get the place I'll see if they're willing to donate paint and I'll do some fixing up.
It is big, so everybodies invited to come and visit. Fingers crossed.