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.

Time flies when you're having fun

Wednesday marked six months of living in Vancouver.


What can I say really? It has flown by, well and truly. Having said that, living in the hostel down at Jericho Beach does seem an age ago, but the memories are just as clear. Our days consisted of getting up late, sitting on the beach, eating Banana Bread, watching Euro 2008, meeting new people, playing soccer in the park, and catching the 44 Downtown.


Things have changed a lot since then. I've had endless jobs, periods of financial security, and periods of financial ruin. I've had two bikes, one puncture, two trips to the 'States, one bus pass, three plane rides, one train ride, endless bus rides, one Racoon bite, many good times, and a few bad times - but ultimately I have had an incredibly fulfilling time here, made so many new friends, and made memories that I will cherish forever.


I've found Vancouver to be such a friendly, welcoming place. The people here are from all walks of life, all corners of the globe. Some are rich and some are poor, but everyone is equally friendly. Until I came here I'd never met anyone from places like Jordan, Hungary, Iran, Serbia, Eritrea and Bolivia; but in Vanouver the people are from everywhere.

With this cosmopolitan atmosphere comes a wealth of choice when it comes to food and drink. Just yesterday I sampled the delights of a South Indian restaurant for the first time - a contrast to what we would call traditional Indian dishes in England. Gone are the Kormas, Tandooris, and pieces of chicken. What we ate was far more vegetable based, with potato, pickle, yoghurt, extremely light fried bread, rice, and dishes that contained pots of a large variety of different foods to mix with your bread. I had no idea what most of it was, but I sure did enjoy it. I ate a lot.


I've also sampled the delights of Lebanese food. It seems similar to Greek, with fried chicken, rice, houmous, pita bread, salad and spicy sauce - and it is truly exceptional. Sushi is another favourite in Vancouver. It can be found in abundance here, it is of the highest quality - and is also extremely cheap. My experience of Sushi in England wasn't great. It was edible, but at the same time it was overpriced, and didn't taste anything like as good as what I've sampled here.

As well as this, there's plenty more world foods on offer. Everything you could want you can find almost anywhere in the city. Try Malaysian, Chinese, Kenyan, Thai, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Italian, Mexican, Brazilian. Whatever you want is here. No stone is left unturned.


So, my feelings for Vancouver, a place I have come to adore, remain. I find the outlook on life here so positive, the people upbeat, strangers more willing to chat, people generally being happy. I still have plenty of time left, and in that time I will try and cram in as much as I can - be it visiting another Canadian city, going to the Rocky Mountains, spending the weekends snowboarding, making a trip to Vancouver Island, or just relaxing in the city - all money permitting. I, for one, cannot wait.