Snow, friends, and immigration

Life in Canada is good. Very good. It's now November, in fact almost half-way through, and I'm getting excited. Why? Well, on my way to work this morning the suns rays shone down on my face, and the skies were clear for the first time in a week. In the distance I could see the results of a week of rain in Vancouver - the North Shore Mountains are now coated in snow. Here that will mean one thing - the ski and snowboard season is almost under way.


Being rather partial to the latter of those activities, and thus craving the slopes ever since my final evening up on Grouse Mountain back in April, the sight of the white gold to the North is one that got me very excited. I knew that the 2010 Winter Olympic Venue, Whistler, was due to open this weekend, but when I received a text this lunchtime from a friend telling me that the local mountains were also opening for business within the next 24 hours I almost spat out my sandwich. Cheese and Salami shrapnel however is a small price to pay for being able to go riding for the first time in seven months. How time flies.

I've already bought myself a pass that allows discounted rates for the duration of the season at Cypress Mountain, so that will be my first port of call. Soon I'll get to Whistler, but some patience will have to be enforced beforehand.


Another thing that I've been looking forward to greatly is the social aspect of snowboarding. This time last year I lacked many friends who were as into winter sports as I am. I had only a couple of 'boarding buddies, so now having made a number of new friends in the intervening 12 months who are as crazed about riding as I am I can forsee immense group trips to the mountains. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm also going to enjoy teaching Tissa to snowboard. There are good times ahead.

So aside from strapping myself to a piece of wood, fibreglass and plastic, then throwing myself down a mountain at high speed, whilst enrobed in oversized and brightly-coloured attire, what else have I been doing?

Well, working a lot is the answer. Since I got back from my brother's wedding in Armenia, I've been catching up from my time off. It's not all doom and gloom though. I've now completed nine months of employment at Mink, thus I can now apply for the next stage of the immigration process.

As I've learnt over the duration of 2009, immigration to Canada is extremely time-consuming, and sometimes stressful. I like to think that I'm not easily knocked off balance these days, but immigration is one thing that does cause me a burden at times. It took a full six months to get my extended work permit, meaning I'm now legal in Canada until the summer of 2011, but my goal now is gaining landed immigrant, or 'Permanent Resident' status.


With Canada being almost entirely built on immigration these days, there are an untold number of ways to emigrate here permanently. A week ago, the day after I turned 24, I sent off my application for the immigration scheme I want to be on. Now I'm playing the waiting game. Theoretically I should have a response within a month or two, so once again I need to be patient.

Also I've recently been joined in Vancouver by an old friend whom I have shared many fond memories. Anyone who has known me for a while will know of my University buddy Luke. Back in 2006/7 we spent a lot of time hanging around on Luke's roof, playing PS2, being drunk, taking pictures, or generally driving aimlessly around the New Forest back in Southampton. Finally, in the summer of 2007 we embarked on something meaningful, driving around Central Europe, visiting hot spots such as the Nurburgring Nordschleife, the Bavarian paradise of Munich, and the historic city of Salzburg, with its baroque-era architecture.


The last time I saw Luke was in March 2008, and Luke and his good friend Felix I'd met back in the UK had flown on one-way tickets to Vancouver with the aim of buying an R.V. before driving south, to Central America, where they plan to teach English.



The day of arrival dawned, and so after heading to the airport I sat in Arrivals for a few hours, watching all the people the London flight stroll by. Around this time Luke and Felix were collared, and were grilled by immigration authorities regarding why they only had one-way plane tickets to Vancouver. Apparently there was no rubber glove usage, and eventually we were all reunited. Bantering about good times, bad times and ratherdrunken times commenced instantly, and the three of us spent a joyous time wandering around Vancouver, buying an R.V. which was lovingly dubbed 'Clive' before driving it up to Whistler for the day as a test run.



12 days after they flew in they drove out, aiming for Seattle and beyond. I have no idea where they'll end up, and I don't think they do either, but what I do know is they'll have a great time getting there.

Three continents, 12,000 miles, 10 days, and one wedding

Salzburg, Austria. It's summer, and the waters of the Salzach river shimmer in the afternoon sunlight. Locals go about their business, and tourists wander the narrow streets of the old city. I'm standing with my Univesity friend Luke on one one of the many cobbled streets close to the river. Across from us is the house that the world-famous composer Mozart once lived. The two of us are in the middle of a couple of weeks of driving around central Europe, a journey that took us from Portsmouth in England, to the tiny village of Rauris in Austria, via France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany.


That was two years ago - July 2007, and that day was the last time I saw Tom, my brother, and Andy - his best friend, as they embarked on what was the early stages of their global cycle ride - Ride Earth.

Much has changed since then. Tom has cycled 11,000 miles - a journey that has seen his thigh muscles bulge to epic proportions. I, on the other hand, came scarily close to getting something apparently called "a career" a couple of times, had a few trips away to various places, before making my move to Vancouver in June last year.


In the intervening 26 months since I last saw Tom his life has changed in ways that he would never have imagined when he set off. Cycling through the Middle East, journeying across the Sahara desert, catching Malaria, finding unchartered villages, sharing a boat across the Gulf of Aden with 300 cows, and having heat-induced nose bleeds at 56 degrees centigrade in Oman are just a few of the things he's done recently, but those are all eclipsed by his chance meeting with Tenny in February 2008.

She is the reason I've been on three continents and travelled through 12 time-zones in the past couple of weeks. Tom and Tenny are getting married, and so I've flown to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia for the wedding.

My journey was not a straight-forward one. I travelled, for the first time since last summer, to England, giving me a chance to see my 91 year old Grandmother, and many of my friends whom I hadn't seen since I left.


The day of departure dawned, and after a Ricky's fried breakfast in Downtown Vancouver with Tissa, Thomas and Sophie, I started my journey home. I was greeted with overcast skies in London as I was reunited with my parents, and we headed for home.

Being back in England gave me a chance to go over my decision to stay in Canada. It had been a long time since I left, and although I had many fond memories from the place I grew up, I felt that after I finished university it was time to move on. Relocating to Canada was a whole new challenge for me, and when I left to start my journey, I didn't even consider the possibility that I might not want to come back. Now, I couldn't even entertain the thought of coming back to England long-term. Vancouver is an amazing city, and in the months I've been there I've gone from being a random guy in a new city with a bag, a bank account, and a 12-month work visa, to having a whole life out here - great friends, a job that I enjoy which sponsors me, a brilliant active lifestyle, a girlfriend, an arrogant Russian cat, and the opportunity to stay in a place that I love so much.

I decided that being back in England was nice, but only for a visit. It was great to see my friends, but having seen what else is out there it was time to leave my hometown in the past.


A few hours later, having spent as much time as possible with friends, and being reminded of the green and pleasant lands, rolling hills, dales and old stone buildings that occupy my part of England, my parents travelled back to Heathrow. Shortly after we touched down at Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan. Tom was waiting for us, and so outside the terminal building the Allen family was finally reunited. After cramming five people and six bags into a very small taxi we headed for the apartment we had arranged to rent for the duration of our stay.

My first impressions of Yerevan were indeed ones of Soviet times. We sped through the epicentre of Republic Square, with it's grand architecture, housing the National Art Gallery and History Museum, as well as the Marriott Hotel. And a post office.


We arrived at our apartment, located in the centre of the city. It was then that I was also reunited with Andy, who is now living in Tbilisi, Georgia, and best man at Tom's wedding. I hadn't seen Andy since the same day I'd seen Tom, and the three of us together again reminded me of times playing football in Andy's home village of Stoke Albany, relaxing in the surrounding fields, and making ridiculous home movies about finding musical enlightenment with garden hoes and ski masks.


The following day I started to get an idea of what Yerevan is about. The feel of the place was decidedly Russian. It turned out that the main city centre was designed by one man, with many of the main central streets designed to line up together, so that landmarks such as the Opera House, and the aformentioned Republic Square, are visible for miles around.

After my first walk around the streets in daylight something else became apparent - I am in fact a walking circus attraction. Armenia isn't your regular tourist destination - in fact most people I've spoken to don't have a clue where it is, and here societal fashions seem extremely regimented. Almost all young folk, male and female alike seem to comform to a strict dress code. Whilst 99% of men I saw on the street wore smart long-pants, pointed shoes, and had crew cuts; I generally wander around in shorts, T-Shirt and flip flops, so with my lack-of-haircut and general ragged appearance I caused quite a stir on Yerevan's busy streets. On more than one occasion someone would see me, double-take, grin, grab the nearest person, and point and laugh. Being a cause of amusement or bemusement was something I got used to very quickly in Yerevan. Fortunately it's not something that bothers me.

Another thing about Yerevan which is extremely apparent is the sheer quantity of unfinished buildings and untended gardens, pathways and roads. Armenia is not nearly as afluent as Canada or the United Kingdom, and things tend to go unfinished. The Cascade, Yerevans immense white steps which are set into the south-facing hill on the north edge of the cities 'downtown' area is another project which remains incomplete. The project was started in the 1970s, and includes a series of waterfalls which run down the middle of the impressive set of stairs from Haghtanak Park and the Monument Neighborhood down to the smart Boulevard, which houses a number of higher priced cafes and restaurants. Although still an extremely captivating site, there is still a lot to do, although recent privatisation of the project means that things may, or may not, progress faster now. Regardless of this, The view from the top of the Cascade is awe-inspiring with the dominant Mount Ararat towering over the city, dwarfing anything else in sight. Many buildings were in a similar state, and sidewalks and gardens were often not maintained. However, this is in fact the case in the majority of places in the world. English and Canadian people just aren't used to it.


Tom and Tenny's wedding however, was a complete and successful affair, and was more than worth the 12,000 mile round trip. To finally meet Tenny, my new sister-in-law was worth the trip alone. Tom has truly found a match, and someone who is fun loving, laid back, and a joy to be around. The wedding ceremony itself was also something I looked forward to. The service was conducted almost entirely in the ancient Armenian language, so many of the locals could not understand what was being said. As well as that, there were no rehearsals. This made for a flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants affair, but an experience that was a lot of fun.


Tom being Tom, there also had to be cycling involved. Armenians as a rule don't see cycling as a viable form of transport, but for the drive to the church my brother had arranged his friends at the local cycle activist group to bring along a rickshaw bicycle taxi, to transport bride and groom. Following the strange looking convoy of cyclists all in bright orange shirts through Yerevan's centre was an experience in itself. Locals pointed, pedestrians stopped in their tracks, and many grins were cracked.


Following the service, the wedding party descended on the Arma Hotel in the hills overlooking Yerevan, for the reception. The geography of this place felt a lot like West Vancouver - a place where some of the most expensive real estate in the world is located, and I thought about how much accommodation here would cost if Armenia was suddenly transported across the Atlantic to the West Coast of Canada. It's strange to think - the view from here was spectacular.

The reception itself was a lot of fun also. Wedding receptions in England are often fairly formal affairs, where it takes many hours, and many whiskys later for the guests to open up and have fun. Not so here. The Armenians and Iranian's - who populated the entire guestlist aside from the Allen family party - love to have fun and dance, and here was no exception. Between courses the dancefloor would swell with people dancing to Armenian, Persian, and Western music. Much Vodka and Whisky was drank, the tunes got louder, and the stocks of food depleted.


Unfortunately things came to an end too quickly. My week in Armenia flew by, and soon I was back on a plane to London, where I spent one fleeting afternoon catching up with a couple more friends, and wandering along the banks of the Thames, before catching the next flight back to Vancouver the following morning. It was a great trip, and one with many memories that I will cherish forever. Landing in Vancouver again I was met with bright sunshine and a friendly bus driver who chatted to me about my trip all the way home. It's good to be here.

A visit to the UK, and a wedding in Armenia

So my second summer in Vancouver is almost over. The sun is still out, but the heat is gradually receding. The trees outside my work are slowly losing their leaves, and it's less than three weeks until I set foot on UK shores again for the first time in 15 months. It's going to be a flying visit, but one that promises to be packed with intrigue. I'll spend two days in the UK, catching up with as many people as possible, before heading to Yerevan, Armenia for my brother's impending wedding to Tenny, before flying back to Vancouver, via London, a week later.



Armenia is somewhere that before Tom's engagement I knew precious little about. As far as I knew it was a country near Turkey and Iran, and that was about it. Since then I've learned a lot about the place, the people, and the region.

Armenia is a tiny country located in Caucasus mountain realm of Eurasia between Western Asia and South Eastern Europe. It borders Georgia to the north, Turkey to the west, Iran to the south, and Azerbaijan to the east. The Soviet-influenced capital of Yerevan, with it's skyline dominated by the commanding Mount Ararat in neighbouring Turkey, is a large city with a population of over a million people, and the place that Tom has spent a large chunk of his time over the past 18 months.



Armenia is a place that has experienced tragedy on an epic scale less than a century ago. As Europe was dealing with the plight of World War I, large scale genocide was occurring further south in Armenia - at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, now known as Turkey. Although not as well-known as the Nazi-inspired genocide that occurred during the Second World War, it is thought that up to 1.5 million Armenians died between between 1915 and 1917.

Relations between Armenia and Turkey have remained strained ever since, with Turkish authorities often not recognising the past events, and presently the Armenian-Turkish border is permanently closed. The Armenian Genocide Museum has since been opened in Yerevan to help educate people about the events that happened almost 100 years ago, and this will be somewhere I look forward to visiting.

Although the wedding of Tom and Tenny is happening in Yerevan Tenny herself was actually born and raised in Tehran, Iran's capital. Tenny's family are ethnically Armenian, but have lived in Iran for many years, with Tenny spending the first 24 years of her life in the country before moving to Yerevan, where she met Tom in early 2008.



Their relationship has been blossoming ever since their chance visit that fateful January evening, and to finally meet my new in-laws, and have the Allen family back together again for the first time since mid-2007 is going to be worth a journey that spans three continents alone. The Armenian-Iranian-English wedding should also be an interesting blend of cultures too. I don't really know what to expect.

I've also met someone recently who has also added an extemely Iranian tint to my life. Working at Mink has allowed me to meet hundreds of new people on a daily basis, and with Vancouver being such a diverse place, the people I meet are from all over the globe. One day which turned out to be quite pivotal was when I asked one first-time customer at Mink where she was from. As it turns out, Tissa was born in Vienna, but settled in Vancouver five years ago. Her family though, is Persian, having moved to Austria from Iran back in the 1980s.

Our chance meeting at Mink turned out to be the first of many, and after getting on extremely well, and realising we had a lot in common, things have progressed. My relationship with Tissa has allowed me to meet even more new people - new people who I can call friends in their own right, rather than just friends by association, and it has made my second summer in Vancouver extremely enjoyable.



Since then we've spent many a day and night at friends houses relaxing, talking, playing drinking games, singing along to Frank Sinatra, listening to Pink Floyd, or whatever else. We've swam in rivers, slid down waterfalls, been to the beach in the day or at night, eaten meals out, driven to Whistler, and ridden Vancouver's new Skytrain line.



Something else I've been introduced to recently is Persian cuisine. Tissa's family is extremely close-knit - a lot more so than what I've been used to back in England. Huge family dinners, or what you could call banquets even, have been a regular occurrance recently with Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and close family friends all in attendance, as well as the direct family members. I've met many many new people in Tissa's family at these dinners, had a lot of fun, drunk my fair share of alcohol, and gorged myself on plentiful and delicious Persian food. This type of cuisine, with many different types of rice, meat, sauces, herbs, and fruits has proven to be a real hit with me. Unfortunately I can't pronounce the names of most of what I'm eating, but I'm working on it.

Ultimately, this summer has been a huge success, and the next major event I have to look forward to is my trip in a matter of days. There is going to be a lot of flying involved, and with that comes a lot of jetlag, but I can't wait. Bon voyage.

Life in Technicolour

It’s 9am on another sunny Vancouver day, and I’ve just finished my bowl of Cheerios. I’ve got a few minutes until I leave for work, so I check my emails, do some washing up, and chat to Thomas, who has also just risen. Suddenly an unexpected knock comes at the door. We don’t know who it is. “Hide the cat”, whispers Thomas. We aren’t supposed to have pets in our apartment - it might be our landlords. I make a beeline for Handsome, who decides he has probably done something bad, and makes a break for it. After a few seconds of manic chasing around the living room, jumping over chairs and sofas I eventually have a rather bemused Handsome in my arms. Thomas tentatively answers the door.



“Letter for Allen Benjamin”, I hear a voice say, and so I join Thomas to collect a brown envelope with the unmistakeable markings of the Canadian government printed on the front. Suddenly apprehension hits. This could be my visa decision. I feel the packaging. My passport. Postman leaves as I hastily rip open the envelope to find a short, one page letter enclosed along with my Passport. “Your visa application has been approved, and your new document will be sent to you shortly”, it reads. Relief.



It had been six months since I made the decision to stay in Canada, so ever since then the prospect of being either unable to find sponsorship, or finding sponsorship but being refused a visa due to the current economic climate, loomed large. I’ve been very content with life out here, but always had the niggling doubt in the back of my mind that one day in the not-so-distant future that I’d have to hurriedly pack my bags and get a flight back to England. Now, a huge weight had been lifted.

Fast forward a few days and I had just cycled home from work. Thomas and our other friend Dave are sitting around in the living room. Sophie is at work, and so the other two are about to go bowling. Me? Well I was tired, and was planning on having a relaxing evening in. They leave, I stick the television on, but a few moments later the phone rings. It’s Thomas. “Come on down”, he says. There’s another letter waiting in our mailbox. A few minutes later I’m downstairs. We live on the eight floor, so the mailbox is a trek. I’d been checking the mailbox every day since getting my approval letter. Finally, it seems, my visa has arrived.
I am greeted with another brown, Government Issue envelope. Once again I tear it open. It is indeed my new visa. All I need to do now is staple it to my passport, and I’m set. But wait - the expiry date. It says July 2011. I was expecting only a year, but Canadian Immigration & Customs have given me two. I knew I had a two year Expedited Labour Market Opinion certificate stating that I was needed in this particular job, but I was expecting to have a one year visa, and have to reapply for a second on next year. Apparently not. I guess being English makes you entrusted.


The feeling I’ve had since that moment has been amazing. I’ve always had my doubts I’d be able to stay in the country, but now I have the piece of paper that allows me to live and work in the place that I love. Over the past weeks and months since I applied for the new visa I’ve been unable to make any plans more than a few weeks in advance, as I would never know if I was going to be around then. Now, this has all changed. Now I can get everything I’ve wanted to get in life arranged. And I know I can do this long into the future. Yes, I’ve been in Canada for just over 13 months now, and that has flown by, but another two years is a long time. Time to do so many things, and time to plan, plot and arrange life. Time to live.

It may seem like a small thing, but not being able to arrange to take a trip with friends, or save up for a new snowboard for the next season has been frustrating. Now I have a total feeling of release. I have no weight on my shoulders – something that I haven’t felt for quite a while. I have been extremely settled in Canada, but there had always been some feeling of uncertainty, or something holding me back. Now, that feeling has gone. I can now look forward to my future in Canada, the prospect of permanent emigration, building up my life here. I am completely at ease.


Next on the list of things to do is to head back to England. My parents had been waiting for my visa situation to be resolved before very kindly booking flights back to the UK, but now everything is arranged. My brother Tom’s wedding (see www.ride-earth.org.uk) is happening in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital in September, and so I will be making the epic voyage from Vancouver to Armenia via a couple of days in England. I can’t afford to take more than around 10 days off work, so I only have a short time in the UK, before I head over to see Tom for the first time in over two years, and meet Tenny my new sister-in-law, and her family. We have spoken on the phone, and over the internet, but have never had the chance to meet. Now, I am relishing it. The chance to visit a new country – one that I knew very little about until Tom’s chance meeting with Tenny in Yerevan one cold evening in early 2008, is going to hold a lot of intrigue for me. It will also be the first time my parents, my brother, and I have all been together since July 2007, when we sat in a square a few short metres from Mozart’s house in Salzburg, Austria, and ate lunch together. At that time, Tom had just begun his voyage on bicycle, and had no idea what his future held. Me? I was driving around Central Europe for a few weeks with my University friend Luke, and had no other plans formulated, having finished my degree a few short weeks earlier. Now, I’m living in Canada, and Tom is getting married in Armenia. Who’d have thought it? Life is Technicolor. I love it.

A Year On

So a year has passed since I came to Canada. In theory I should be back home, looking back on my 12 months abroad in Vancouver, and telling my friends back in my hometown about my experiences. My visa expired a week ago - printed on it are the words "Must Leave Canada by June 9".


Well I'm still in Canada, and still working at Mink Chocolates. Fortunately this is legal, because I can still be in the country and continue to work whilst my work permit application is processed. After a number of phonecalls to check the status of my papers, I was informed that my situation should be resolved by the end of June. The whole process has been extremely arduous; I first started looking into the sponsorship progress back in January - almost six months ago, and only now is there some light at the end of the tunnel.

It is amazing that a year has already passed. Last week I said goodbye to Helen, my flightbuddy from Heathrow last year. Her 12 months is also over, and she was about to head back across the Atlantic to England, to save up for her next big adventure. All of my friends from Jericho Hostel have now gone. Lynda & Andrew, my Aussie buddies, have both gone off to pastures new, with Lynda heading back home via the UK, and Andrew driving across Canada in a GMC Yukon. All that's left now is me.

I made a trip back to the Hostel recently, where I spent my first weeks in Canada, the surroundings of Jericho Park, and the local beaches. The Hostel itself has changed dramatically since I was there. It has had a generous amount of restoration carried out. New coats of paint adorn the walls and fittings, the kitchen and TV room have been refurbished, and everywhere generally looks clean and fresh.

Visiting there brought memories of last summer flooding back. A whole new country, new people, a new city, daily trips to the beach, playing soccer with the locals, Hide & Seek, sitting forlornly in the kitchen at the end of June still wondering where I was going to live, trying to communicate with a guy from Chile through pictures, the huge Canada Day party - just endless fun times. All that seems distant now, but the photos we all took, and the memories we have remain.


It seems strange now to think of how lost I felt when I first started wandering around Vancouver. Anybody would be when arriving in a new place, an it is now great to see the pre-Olympic development gathering pace, and is nice to be able to get around the whole city without even having to think about where I'm heading. Vancouver seems very much like home now.


So by the end of the month my future will be resolved. One place I do know for sure I'll be going to is Armenia. On 15 September I'll be flying there with my parents from Heathrow for my brothers wedding - now I just need to know if it'll be following a flight from Vancouver. If so it will mean 32 hours flying in 10 days - pretty tiring, but it will be worth it. My brother Tom, my parents and myself have not been together now for two years, so being reunited, at Tom's wedding no less, will be very special. Tom is currently in Dubai, awaiting news of his Iranian visa application. He travelled to the Arabian peninsular from Djibouti on the East coast of Africa in a wooden boat with 600 cows. Since then he has negotiated Yemen, Oman, and finally the United Arab Emirates. He is now very close to being able to take a ferry to the southern coast of Iran, before taking a sleeper train to the capital, Tehran. There he will be reunited with Tenny, his fiancee. I am very excited to finally be able to meet her, and to have a new sister-in-law.

With Tom's global cycle ride in my consciousness so much in the past couple of years, I have taken it upon myself to embrace this eco-friendly form of transport. To think when we were both younger Tom and I hated the bike rides our parents took us on. Now one of us is cycling the globe. It is an extreme change, but a very good one. I've also become very much into cycling over the past year. That will probably come as a surprise to people who know me in the UK as the guy who always bought and sold cars, but I've tired of that.


Now, I cycle to work and back every day on an old 10-speed racing bike. It's very enjoyable, Vancouver caters for cyclists very well, and it has the additional bonus if providing me with great exercise. It's also cheap. Life is good.

Here's to waiting

In two weeks time it will have been a year since I landed in Vancouver and started my Canadian experience. My year, from apprehensively meeting with my flight buddy Helen at Heathrow on June 10 2008, to staying at the Jericho Hostel, to beginning my sponsorship quest at the start of this year, to sitting in the living room of my apartment typing this with our cat asleep on the sofa, has gone by far too fast.

The past year has been the best of my life so far. I've got so many memories from my time out here with the friends I've made along the way, and it all started one afternoon in March 2008 when I wondered what I should do next with life. That fateful day was when I typed 'Vancouver' into Google image search, marvelled at the skyscrapers, trees, parks, water, beaches, mountains - all in one photo. I applied to join BUNAC's Work Canada program on the spot, and I haven't looked back.


With my visa almost being up, I would have originally been running around the city, seeing all my friends, buying presents and souviners, and saying my goodbyes. However, I am not ready to do that.

Back in March I sent my passport and sponsorship paperwork to Canadian Immigration services to apply for a new work permit, tying me to my current job at Mink Chocolates. Yes, I would be spending the next months of my life making Lattes, Mochas and selling expensive, but extremely high-quality chocolates to Canadian business people and tourists, but I'd still be able to stay in Canada, and live life in this paradise of Western cities.

Well, I'm still waiting for my paperwork to come back, but this kind of thing normally takes a lot of patience. I'm not convinced that my new visa will be back before my old one expires, but I can only wait. All I know now is that I have no flight home (it came and went in April), and Immigration has my means of getting out of the country (Passport) so whatever happens I'm stuck here for a while. I also know that I have everything necessary in order to be issued with a new work permit, so there is an extremely small chance that I will be refused one. So here's to waiting.


Over the weeks since I last wrote I have also had a number of visitors from back home. Katherine, one of my oldest and best friends, and my travel buddy from our Ghana adventure last year joined me in Vancouver for a few weeks. She had been having her own Canadian adventure - working at Panorama Ski Resort in Eastern B.C. With her season having finished, she made the 10 hour coach journey across the Province to stay in our Vancouver abode.

It was great to be reunited with someone I'd not seen in almost a year, and brilliant to hear all about her experience of working a ski season, and to meet her resort friends. Unfortunately for me, she returned to England yesterday to live there a bit before her next big adventure, but we at least had the opportunity to go snowboarding together - our first trip since 2005, and generally hang out.


Also, my long lost parents are currently out in Vancouver. Being my parents, they don't do things by halves, having flown to Los Angeles a few weeks ago, boarded a cruiseship bound for Alaska, and docked in Vancouver two weeks later having stopped in many ports up the coast of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. I met them outside my work a few days ago and we enjoyed a drink together - the first in eight months.

This is my folks second visit to Vancouver, and so they have done a lot of the tourist sites already, seeming happy to relax at home, and around the city. We've sampled more delightful Vancouver cuisine. Yesterday's dinner was Vietnamese, and today's lunch Ukrainian, so we've had a wide variety. Tomorrow I will be reunited with my mother's spectacular culinary skills, as she prepares Roast Lamb and Apple Crumble - I can't wait.


So, with it now being the end of May, the sun is coming out. Every morning my room is bathed in sumptuous golden light, and our south-facing living room, with it's patio doors almost filling the entire wall making for a great setting for some breakfast on the eighth floor balcony. It truly is a grand setting we live in.

I also recently took a flying visit to the British Columbia capital of Victoria, on Vancouver Island. I say flying in the literal sense, as I flew there on a float plane. My flight buddy Helen is fortunate enough to be working at West Coast Air, who fly all around the Vancouver area in float (or sea) planes. Fortunately for me, she can get 'buddy' passes so for a very reasonable $30, we flew return to the old city on the Island. The flight was the most beautiful, if extremely short, flight I've been on, with the city, and the Gulf Islands between Vancouver and Victoria, only a thousand or so feet below us. British Columbia truly is a stunning place. I love being here.


So my plan, should my work permit processing all go smoothly, is simple. I love being in Vancouver, and with another year at least in the city, I will be making the most of life here. I am, though, planning an extremely short trip home in September, due to the not-so-small news that my globetrotting brother is getting married. His wedding, however, is not taking place in England, but Armenia (see the Ride Earth website), and as a result I will be flying to the capital Yerevan, with a few days sandwiched in England in-between to catch up with friends and family. I hope to be there for two or three days, but we'll see. Watch this space.

Is that for here or to go?

It's been almost ten months since I made the trip to London Heathrow, and boarded a plane for Vancouver. Now decision time has arrived. After an initial day or two of apprehension when I first landed here I realised I'd stumbled upon a truly exceptional place.


My few weeks at the youth hostel on Jericho Beach have given me many fond memories, and the months after that which I spent living in a shared house on Granville Street provided me with many more. The people I met in those first few months were the ones who accompanied me everywhere I went. We wandered around Downtown, climbed mountains, went to the beach, cycled, and generally absorbed life as a newly landed Vancouverite.

Back in November I moved into an apartment with my close friends Thomas and Sophie. Thomas is from Glasgow, and Sophie from Lutterworth - only 30 minutes from my home village in England. We all met during the summer, when I was working at Business Objects, a Yaletown-based software company. We had since become extremely close and decided that it would be silly not to move in together, considering how well we got on.


We took on 'Bar Handsome' - as it has become known, as a totally bare shell of an apartment, aside from the basic kitchen and laundry facilities, but have since filled the place with all manner of furniture and equipment, both expensive, inexpensive, and things acquired through recycling purposes. Basically we've turned Bar Handsome into a home, and we even have a Russian Blue (meaning he's Grey) kitten - Handsome - to add to the mix. Our place is on Floor Eight of an eight story (plus penthouse) apartment complex. We're fortunate enough to have no less than three balconies, and with the building being the tallest in the neighbourhood, we have a commanding view of the surrounding area.

So, now living in a place I can finally call home, with me now being a single man, and with my work visa due to expire in June, I started to think about what's next. Do I go back to England and get a job? Do I move somewhere else? Do I travel down to South America? Do I join my brother in his cycle ride through Sudan?


There were many options on the table, but in the past few months, I've decided that Vancouver seems the right place for me at this point in time, and moving away from a place I feel at home in does not seem like the right thing to do for now. As I've previously mentioned, Vancouver attracts me in so many ways. The multiculturalism, the geography, the activities on offer, the people. It all adds up, and makes me smile every time I think about the place I currently live.

I have made some amazing friends during my time here, met people from places which before I got here seemed so far away. Where else could I go in the world where my workmates were from Kazakhstan, Canada, Belarus, Dallas, and England? It's a pretty eclectic mix, and isn't something I think I'd find back in my home town. My flatmates have become my family out here. We have fun whatever we do, wherever we are. It doesn't have to cost us anything - and it's great.


So, with this in mind I began to look into the ways of staying in Canada. My current visa is not renewable, so I would need to look into alternatives. Getting married to a Canadian isn't really an option, so my only realistic way of staying is to gain sponsorship through my employer.

As luck would have it, Marc - my boss at Mink, provides sponsorship for Alesia, who is Belarussian, and Ben, who is from the United States. An inquiry to Marc as to whether he'd considering doing the same for me came back positive, and so the wheels were set in motion for me too.

As a result, my British Passport, and associated immigration paperwork is currently at a Canadian Immigration office being processed, and it should, in theory at least, come back to me with a nice, fresh work permit inside, attaching me to Mink Chocolates. I have another roughly six weeks before everything has been funneled through the work permit system, so here's to waiting.

Aside from working on extending my stay in Vancouver, there have been a few other things I've been up to. Firstly, my good friend from England, Jordan, has been out to visit me for a couple of weeks. It had been roughly nine months since I'd seen my friends from home, so it was a great feeling to have one of them out in Canada with me.


Jordan has an interest in snowboarding, but had never been before, so it was a great excuse to take a trip or three up a mountain, strap on a board, and fly back down again. We visited the local mountains; Grouse, and also Cypress. The latter is where Jordan did his first piece of riding on a real mountain, aside from a hill near his house when it spent a week snowing back in England. Fortunately he picked snowboarding up quickly, and so we made the extremely necessary trip up the Sea-to-Sky Highway to the legendary Whistler-Blackcomb.

The day involved leaving the house at 5:30am to catch the Snowbus, but this was a small price to pay for an excellent days riding. Whistler is a two hour bus journey from the city, but is head and shoulders above anything available in the local area. The view from Whistler peak, punctuated by the native Canadian Inukshuk, was awe-inspiring. It was like being on top of the world.


As well as spending time with friends, I've been trying yet more new cuisine. I often sample the delights of the Middle East, with Shawarma and Falafel being a mainstay of my diet. I enjoy many Sushi-based meals, but one evening recently I embarked on a Russian expedition. I have a number of Russian-speaking friends out in Vancouver, and so with many of them being fellow immigrants they enjoy good old fashioned home cooking. In the same way I crave a proper greasy fry-up once in a while, these guys enjoy Borsch, Vodka and Crepes. So that's exactly what we had the other night.


Borsch is an Eastern European soup with the primary ingredient being beetroot, giving it a red sheen. Ours had a whole range of different vegetables included and was frankly delicious. Naturally, being surrounded by Russians, there was a fair amount of Vodka consumption also, and Russian style crepes were there in abundance.

With time ticking away, spring has finally arrived in Vancouver. The clocks have been moved one hour forward, the air temperature is gradually heating up, and cherry blossom is forming on the trees. I for one cannot wait for summer to arrive. I love making the most of the surrounding mountains, but being able to cycle everywhere in the sunshine, wear shorts without drawing looks of amazement, and go to the beach are things I now crave.

Vancouver is a place of endless possibility, particularly in the summer, and with the prospect of a second summer in the city looming, I'm feeling positive about the future. My parents are set to make a second trip to the city to visit me towards the end of May, and I will also be joined by another old friend in the city in a month or two. I think summer 2009 could be fun.

Snowboards and Chocolate

On the afternoon of June 10 2008, my first day in Canada; my flight-buddy Helen and I wandered lost around Downtown Vancouver. It was a grey and overcast day, we were both tired from a 10-hour flight, and neither of us really had an idea of where to go. Nevertheless we decided that random, improvised exploration was a good idea. After taking in the sights of Canada Place, staring at the under-construction Olympic Exhibition Centre (it’s still not finished – but it does have a grass-covered roof), and watching the float planes take off from Coal Harbour, we wandered back into the city. Looking back I have this vague recollection of turning to Helen at one point and saying “hey look - a chocolate café.” We went in, had a quick perusal of the wares on sale, and left with a mental note to be back again soon – to actually buy something.


Little did I know that Mink, the Chocolate Café we’d stumbled upon, would eventually become my primary hang out in Vancouver. Shortly after this chance encounter, I met Lynda and Andrew at the Jericho Beach Hostel, and became very close with them. Following Lynda’s own discovery of Mink, and eventual employment there, I would spend many an afternoon sitting at the Mink bar chatting to the guys working there when I had nothing better to do.

Now, nine months down the line, I find myself on the other side of the counter that I stood at back in June, helping sell the array of Chocolates and coffee-based drinks that Mink has to offer.


For the duration of November and December, I was employed at the reception desk of Ceridian Canada, a HR and payroll company, up on 73rd Avenue. My daily commute took an hour each way, but two months of solid work was great for my dwindling bank balance, but when my tenure at Ceridian came to an end at the start of January I was left unemployed once again. Day after day I would call around the job agencies I was had been working with, and went on board with a couple more, but to no avail. During this time I would spend a lot of time hanging around at Mink, sitting on my borrowed laptop, on the free wireless they had.

Three weeks of January came and went, and the only work I had was a few days working as a typist for a Business Writing firm. This was good, as I could work from home (or rather Mink) on my laptop, and it paid relatively well. Unfortunately, I was still getting nowhere with employment on a full-time basis, so one day I spoke to Marc, the owner of Mink, about a job there.

Thanks to all the time I’d spent there over the past few months, I was well-known to Marc already, and after an interview I started behind the counter. I’ve been there a few weeks now, and I love the job. It doesn’t exactly pay too well, but I enjoy talking to our customers, a lot of whom are regulars, and hanging around with a bunch of friends I already knew. Ultimately it’s a job I actually look forward to going to in the morning, rather than dreading it.


Having a regular, full-time income has allowed me to engage in some more recreational activity. I did come here to enjoy myself after all, and this being the Canadian winter, the natural thing to do would be winter sports. My sport of choice is snowboarding, so with all my ‘boarding gear purchased I just have to pay for lift passes when I want to go, which makes things much cheaper.

Thus far I’ve only managed a few days – I’ve been to Whistler Blackcomb, Mount Seymour, and Grouse Mountain. The runs on offer vary widely, from the world-class terrain of Whistler, to the short, sharp trails of Seymour, but the views from each are absolutely stunning. Last week I went up Grouse Mountain with my Belarusian buddies Alesia, and Dasha. They had never been on snowboards before so I helped them with a bit of tuition, before heading off when they went home, to ride alone for the rest of the afternoon, and into the evening.


The view of Metro Vancouver from the top of Grouse is truly beautiful. To the east you can see Vancouver stretch out into the distance, to Coquitlam, Port Moody, and onwards south-east towards Mount Baker, over the United States border. Look straight ahead of you and you can see Downtown Vancouver with its skyscrapers, Stanley Park stretching out to First Narrows, The Lions Gate Bridge, and the Peninsula that encompasses Kitsilano, Jericho and UBC. Look further to the west and the hills of Vancouver Island are clear to see on the horizon. All the cars in BC have “Beautiful British Columbia” slogans on the license plates. It truly is.

After a few runs down Grouse I got the lift back to the mountains peak, and sat for a while, to wait for the sunset. I was joined by a friendly bunch of fellow ex-pat photographers from Poland, who were also waiting for the sunset. We all sat around for an hour or so, and finally the sun began to fall behind Vancouver Island.


The view became even more beautiful at this point. As the suns rays dimmed, the lights of the city came on, as south-western BC was bathed in the final, golden shimmers of evening. Watching the flickering of the city lights from up in the clouds was a truly magical experience, and was awe-inspiring to be able to sit and take it all in with my own thoughts. British Columbia truly is a beautiful place. I don’t want to leave.

A new year, and a new start

It’s a new year for Ben in British Columbia, and with it comes a renewed wealth of opportunity. 2008 was an interesting one for me. I visited three continents, lived on two of them, and ended the year roughly 7,000 kilometres away from my sleepy Northamptonshire village, living on the west coast of North America. However interesting my year seems though, I can’t really compare it to the year that Tom, my brother, had.


He started 2008 in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, the tiny former Soviet nation sandwiched in the Caucasus bordering Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Tom originally arrived there as part of his global bicycle ride attempt, Ride Earth, and planned to stay just three days, before heading southeast, into Iran. As it happened he was stuck there for an extra few weeks, due to the delay of a sleeping bag he was expecting. Fate, it seems, kept him in Yerevan, as one evening he bumped into Tenny. Nine months passed (no, it isn’t that sort of nine months), and he was still there, renting a cramped, Communist-era flat in the heart of the Armenian capital, editing websites in his boxers, spending many hours and days of quality time with his new Armenia-Iranian girlfriend, and planning to continuing his cycle ride with her.


Now it’s November - a few short weeks before Christmas, and in the Allen house in Middleton, Northamptonshire there’s a knock at the door. It’s Tom. He’s home. And Tenny is with him. They’re back in England for a short time only, having travelled back by a combination of hitch hiking, train rides and ferries over the course of 16 days. They came from Tenny’s family home in Tehran, Iran - having previously cycled there from Yerevan. It took a train ride from Tehran to Istanbul, another train from Istanbul to Athens (before the riots started), a boat up the Adriatic to Venice, and from there they hitched most of the way home. After spending Christmas in England, Tenny is now back in Tehran, having flown home a few days ago, and Tom is hitch hiking back to Istanbul to collect his bike, and carrying on, taking a very route scenic back to Tehran. You can read the full story on the Ride Earth website. It’s an interesting story, I highly recommend it.

But anyway, back to my year. It has definitely been an interesting time. Having returned from my trip to Ghana in February I sat around and pondered what to do with life. I’d done various shorter trips abroad in the months since finishing University, but something was missing. I decided, eventually, that I needed to move somewhere else – to experience what it feels like to live thousands of miles away from home in a totally new environment, where it would just be me – a whole new start, and a whole new challenge.

Eventually I came across Canada – and the ease in which young English people with a lack of desire to pursue a career could obtain temporary work visas. At the time I knew nothing of Canada apart from it being close to the United States, and it was big. Pretty limited then. Having chatted to my folks on this winters afternoon about the possibility they told me that Vancouver, on the west coast, was supposed to be extremely nice.


Cue Google Image Search. “Damn”, I thought, as I stared at aerial photographs of skyscrapers, sea, beaches, parks and mountains – all in one shot. “That looks cool” With that, a trip to the library followed to get a book on the city. Five pages was all it took – I applied for the program that same afternoon.

In hindsight, it was the best thing I ever did. It has been an eye-opening, culturally fulfilling, broadening experience. As I said, I knew nothing of Canada at the start of 2008, so coming here, learning about how varied the landscape is (sea, to mountains, to prairies, to lakes, to arctic tundra), how it is the second largest country in the world (geographically – after Russia), how you can fit the UK into British Columbia roughly four times, and how it’s a buzzing, cosmopolitan feast for the senses, due to being almost entirely made up of immigrants from absolutely everywhere, has been amazing for me.


My opinions on globalisation, immigration, and diversity are all for it. I think it is an extreme positive when people from other backgrounds and other cultures come together – and Vancouver is a melting pot for that. The city welcomes it with open arms, positively encourages variety, celebrates different cultures, lifestyles, and opinions coming together to form one, diverse, liberal society. In Vancouver there is something for everyone, and I feel totally at home as part of it.

So what have I been up to recently? Well, Christmas has just been and gone, and with that came an epic dump of snow which battered the city for two full weeks. Vancouver isn’t generally considered a snowy place – due to a jet stream from the South Pacific keeping temperatures, and thus snowfall, to a reasonable level, but a few days before Christmas Day, the city was treated to a blizzard of biblical proportions. Being totally unable to cope, the city ground to a halt. Buses were unable to run, cars were buried, shops and businesses closed, and people were unable to get to work. It was chaos. Brilliant chaos. We took the opportunity to go sledging – something I’ve personally not done for about 15 years, and Vancouverites celebrated their first white Christmas since 1998.


Our Christmas Day was pretty memorable also. My flatmate Sophie had her family over to visit from England, and after a few days in the city, they had all driven up to the Olympic ski resort, Whistler, to stay at a chalet over the Christmas period. Thomas, my other flatmate, and I, drove up on Christmas morning to spend the day there. The highway up – known as the Sea to Sky, was extremely treacherous, given the current conditions, but after three separate pant-browning moments on the way we arrived.


I have to say Whistler is a truly spectacular place. I visited before, at the end of summer, with my folks when they came to visit, but in winter it is something else. After having breakfast at their chalet (a seriously beautiful chalet I might add) we wandered up to Whistler village. The whole place was a hive of activity, transformed from the quiet, relaxed atmosphere we experienced in September. We went up Whistler Mountain on the gondola, revelled in not-a-cloud-in-the-sky weather, and took the new “Peak 2 Peak” gondola across to Blackcomb Mountain, and stared at the valleys, and surrounding mountains. Awe-inspiring.


After that I could not help myself, but to spend the afternoon snowboarding down Blackcomb, with Sophie’s dad, brother and sister. I’d not been on a board in about two years, but it was worth it, and everything came back very quickly. The afternoon flew by, we got to the foot of the mountain, went back up again, and before we knew it, it was time for Thomas and I to drive back to Vancouver. We had a 20 pound turkey in the oven, and two friends (Aussie Dave, and Sara from Toronto) patiently awaiting our return – for Christmas Dinner.


So now, the holiday season is over once more. A new year has begun, and that means a whole new start. The ski season is in full swing, the days are fresh, but very cold, and I have all my snowboard gear together. I think 2009 could be another interesting year.