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.