My new bike is a little bigger than my old. Unfortunately, a free ride bike is not free for those who were wondering. Similar to a downhill rig, but pedals well and made for hard technical trails which Vancouver has plenty of. Most of the rides have left my undies brown so far, and yesterdays ride left my wrists sore. The funny thing is most people don't crash on the really hard stuff. It's all the hard stuff in between that looks easy after you pull off something extremely hard.

My new wheels.

Looking towards Kamloops. After living in Vancouver, my initial impression was an ugly desert. After a day I got used to it and liked it. Probably no more deserty than Toowoomba.

Dave Adema was in town to drop his brother at the airport, before playing host to Jeff's friends from Japan and showing some of the sights.

More from Lynn Valley gorge. Somehow Salmon can swim up these streams to spawn.

Unfortunately a camera can't capture the enormity of the landscape, let alone the roar of the river, the sweet smell of the forest, or the hidden shadows.

The swinging bridge at Lynn Valley. Amazing gorge. I'm one of those irresposible people that make it sway to scare people, causing unspeakable psychological damage.

So tempting to steal them for my kitchen table, but I get to enjoy them everyday no guilt involved in the gardens... so there they stay.

More beautiful tulips.

I love the Tulips that are grown here. Across the road around the library and council buildings a really friendly pommy horticulturist ensures the gardens are beautiul.

A painting in the window of the local framing place that I really like. Every time I walk past I usually stop and admire it like a little kid admiring a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' t-shirt.

Some of the cutlery and crockery I had to choose from. Half went to the Salvos.

Canadian money. Some of the six months rent for my unit.

Crazy hat.

In front of Corrina's grammas house, a young girl crashed into a parked car. She hit pretty hard. I'm not sure if she even hit the brakes. This is how far they had bounced apart after hitting. Crazy. I was concerned to ride my bike on the road after this incident. And Corrina missed out on seeing her boys (firemen) in action :)

address

My address is

#308 155W13th Street
North Vancouver
BC, Canada V7M1N5

and phone number is

604 988 4185

Dot points

Hey

Nothing real exciting seems to stick out for me to write about so I've been a little slack. I need to find a computer and upload some pics again for everyone. Anyway, until then I'll do some dotty points of what I've been doing.

- I now have a car (more precisely a minivan). It's a 1992 Dodge Caravan. She's got a bit of go and is fun to drive. If I manually shift gears I can do burnouts in first. It seems in pretty good nick with a smooth motor and just had a rebuilt transmission put in. It makes some clunky noises which I'm guessing is tied to the suspension but I haven't figured it out yet.

- With a car, I now drive. It's pretty crazy driving in city traffic that's all reversed, but a good challenge that I'm enjoying.

- With driving all reversed, it gets confusing at times. Last night I got a parking ticket despite having paid to park and was a bit annoyed. In that annoyed, tired state I ended up driving on the wrong side of a 6 lane road with median in the middle. When I realised, I turned the hazard lights on and proceeded slowly to the next opening. Luckily not much traffic around.

- had some yummy local beer with a good bunch of folk from church the other night.

- Explored Stanley park which is a tree filled beautiful peninsula that lots of people run, roller blade and cyle around. Watched people playing roller hockey, and some guy trying to launch a paraglider with way to little space. I watched for a while expecting him to be pulled into traffic, and then left cos I realised I didn't want to watch someone be pulled into traffic.

- Deep Cove is another beautiful area that I want to explore at some stage in a kayak. I've been toying with the idea of building a pedal powered hydrofoil cos it would be a nice way to get around.

- Realised library cd's are full of scratches, so after getting really annoyed with a book on cd have resorted purely to jazz where you can't really notice if it skips.

- Put a deposit on a free ride bike and will hopefully be riding it tomorrow. Also got knee/shin guards.

- I've just spent 1 hour on a computer in the 15 minute area of the library (but noone's here to take my place so I'm not guilty, maybe guilty but don't feel guilty)

- Found out that egg shells are porous, and that the lining inside an egg shell is unique among all biological tissues since it doesn't stretch much before tearing (unlike lips which stretch much when you pull them)

- Went to a bike company I was keen to work for and realised I wouldn't want to work for them. They are real low key and don't advertise the presence of their office at all so its amazing I ended up there. I just happened to start talking to a dude when I was riding across a bridge and he gave me his business card and said to drop around. He's one of four people that work for the company. Crazy odds.

- I enjoy making soup with chick peas (well actually I enjoy eating soup I've made with chick peas, and chick peas by themselves)

- Am about to send a nasty letter (Ben nasty so not real nasty) off to the people that gave me a parking ticket. The parking lot had numerous signs that clearly state that you don't have to display your parking ticket. My offense notice was for not displaying my ticket. Got photos. My only nastiness was saying I would be charging them by the hour for any more of my time they waste, and offering framed photos of their signs for their office. It just frustrates me cos other people in the right probably wouldn't challenge them and just pay the fine.

I think someones about to jump on this computer. Bye.

Vegemite

Just had toast with Vegemite for brekky..... mmm.

I've been in Kamloops since last Wednesday night hanging out with Dave, his wife Esther and daughter Alexa. Dave works at a minesite here and was on exchange at RME last year for 3 months sitting at the desk next to me. Besides convincing me Canadian's are a good bunch he gave me my first Canadian geography lessons and was the main influence in my choice to visit Turkey.

I'll be walking down to the bus station soon, but thought I should pop something up on what I've been up to. A few firsts.... my first drive on the wrong side of the road at night. Kamloops is about 4 hours from Vancouver. Dave let me take the wheel for the last 2 or 3 hours, and promptly fell asleep with vague directions what highways I should be aiming for. A little scary but good challenge.

Since getting here, I've been hurting trying to keep up with his action filled lifestyle. It's good for me though. We helped pour concrete Friday morning before a game fo tennis, Saturday was golf, than a mountain bike ride, and some more tennis, and then yesterday after church we had a round of golf. I really enjoyed the golf (surprisingly), with a little tuition from Dave I was actually hitting the ball heaps better and more often than I'd have imagined.

Besides the sport, also played a few games of Tavla (backgammon... which Dave flogs me in. Apparently Hoejam is turkish for teacher, so I was calling him toejam) and a really cool game called Settler. I'll have to chase it up in Vancouver. Overall, it was fantastic catching up with them and getting to see them in their home environment. I'll be back, and hopefully I can take on the Tavla Toejam title.

Lucky Charm

Hey!

Well, I'm just about all settled in. I ended up getting bunches and bunches of free stuff (including all the crockery, cutlery, and cooking stuff I need). Tonnes of stuff. It wasn't just the old managers spare stuff, but all the things left behind by 35 years worth of tenants. Crazy amounts. If the saying a dollar saved is a dollar earned... I've done alright in the last few days, but had to work for it. There was a big trailer load, and from half a days work I only got through half. For another $50 I got a queen size double bed, big tv and stereo system. I have no need for 2 tv's, so if anyone needs one....

Even with all the free stuff, it's still cost a bit to setup... buying linen and cleaning products. About all I need now is some chairs for the table and a lounge chair. Once its set up I'll get some photos up for people to check out. The bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and half the lounge are livable, just a bit more vacuuming and sorting but the longer I'm here the more I like it. It's almost a little too big. I'm wondering if I should convert half the lounge room into another bedroom or a workshop.... hmmm. If anyone wants to come, there's more than enough room.

North Vancouver's interesting. Besides being beautiful it's quite multicultural, while the smell of pot in the street seems a little more common than most places I've been(no link intended between the multicultural and pot). I get the feeling old Mary didn't manage the place too well. Besides the general disrepair and dirtiness of the place, I've heard from a few different tenants, the building I'm in has a few 'crackheads' residing there. I was talking to the new manager Elias and he'd just been to court this morning to serve four eviction notices. He started work Friday and is a bit overcome with the enormity of the project he's taken on. I think it's fantastic for me. I get a good suite at a pretty good price, knowing its dodge, and then he comes in and will work towards cleaning it all up. He's already cleaned up heaps of the junk lying around. Him and his wife Nadia are real nice. He was telling me earlier today that I'm his good luck charm. He's looked after other buildings and was going to give this one the flick when he saw the state of it, but then he said, 'when we met you, we thought, there's still hope for this place'. Nice to know.

April fools day :(

I know it's a bit late, but Happy Easter to everyone!!

It feels like forever since I've written anything on this blog, just that nothing very exciting has been happening. Just the usual everyday sort of stuff most people get up too besides the work... actually it reminds me of being a uni student again. I'm not sure what that says about me as a student. Just the wandering around semi aimlessly with loose goals of what I should be trying to achieve each day but not too concerned and getting side tracked, loosing track of what day of the week it is... the fact I only realised it was April fools after midday was sad :(

The main thing I've been trying to achieve is getting a house... however it's a bit hard to speed that up when it's not in my court. Today though, I finally got the apartment in North Vancouver I was hoping for. Yippee. What a long drawn out affair that's been. If the bloke said straight out, it'll take a week, that'd be fine. But the constant 'I'll call you tomorrow' and then not calling annoys me no end... gggrrrrr. Anyway, it's all good now. The new manager and his family moved in today as well and they are quite lovely. Despite being a bit shabby at the moment, I really like the apartment and think I'll enjoy it there. Nice and big.

Filling in the week, I'd also been looking at cars, just waiting for one thats 'just right'. Unfortunately it's not too clear in my head what 'just right' is... do I want a small car that's cheap on fuel but has no space for me to sleep or pack bikes, or a big van which'd be cool to cruise in but expensive to run and be annoying around town. At the moment I'm leaning towards a Mazda or Subaru station wagon (reliable from all the reviews I've read), but then whether I can find a good one at the right price. I'm rambling quite a bit, but that is the extent of my week.

Corrina's pretty flat out with uni assignments... I do not envy her one little bit. So many assignments and readings hanging over her head with no end in sight. Scary.

Tomorrow should be fun. A bunch of cleaning and then I get to stat setting up my home, yay!! There's a bunch of free stuff for me to go through of the old manager's... hopefully there's some good stuff among it all.