First Impressions

6am, Uk Time. After 18 months of planning, worrying, anxiety and mostly impatience, the day was finally here – moving roughly 4,500 miles away to Vancouver, British Columbia.

I’d packed my whole life into a (most likely overweight) suitcase, shoved the rest of my material possessions into boxes in my parent’s loft, ready to leave for Gatwick. I was planning to meet my new friends Ben and Hayley there, people I’d met from the IEC Canada 2014 Facebook group.

Security cleared, bag checked, £49 overweight fee paid (ouch!), Ben and Hayley met and lunch had, it was flying time. I was pleasantly surprised by Air Transat; having only every flown short flights economy, I think I was expecting more of the same, but it was overall pretty nice – obviously nothing on First Class, but plenty of legroom, good choice of in-flight entertainment and, best of all, absolutely stunning views!

In flight entertainment courtesy of a touch screen-style interface, along with headphone jack and USB connection (handy for charging your phone if you’re listening to music of your own):

Legroom – I’m just under 6 feet tall with fairly long legs,and always struggle on flights. No such worries here:

Oh, and the views:

Sometimes I had to do a double take, just to check that yes, I was in fact going to be living in this country. I still can’t believe it now, I need to look up at the mountains to remind myself.

Once we landed we had to activate our Visas – a very simple process, once we got through passport control we were directed to a side room where there were 3 or 4 people working to process our paperwork. POE and Passport handed over, less than 2 minutes later we had stamped passports and Working Visas! The longest wait was the queue! All-in-all, we were in the airport around 90 minutes before getting on the Skytrain – which, by the way, is very easy to use! Think London Tube, but nicer, and you’re there.

We were all staying at the Samesun Backpacker’s Hostel on Granville Street. I’d never stayed at a hostel before, so was unsure as to what to expect. If anyone reading this is worried as I was, don’t be. The staff are awesome, the rooms whilst not exactly spacious are clean and comfortable, plus there’s lockers where you can store your valuables whilst you’re out – just remember a padlock! They do sell them on the front desk if you don’t have one, though. The first night was great – Ben and I met downstairs for some food and a couple of drinks. There was a pub quiz going on that night, and before we knew it, we were sat at a table of 12 people from all over the world, England, Australia, Germany, Quebec and France. It was a great night; we crashed and burned on the quiz, but the drinks were good, the food is great and it was a fantastic way to start my adventure in Canada.

Jet lag kicked in the next day, and I found myself awake at 5am, despite my best efforts to sleep more! I took the opportunity to grab a shower before everyone else was awake, and happened to see a guy we met on the way to the hostel the previous night, James. We went for an early morning walk over Granville Bridge for a coffee. Early morning is a fantastic way to see the city; its still fairly quiet, and it tends to be a little clearer. Walking over the bridge all we had to do was turn around to see the peaks of Grouse, Seymour and Cyress Mountains jutting above the buildings.

Once we returned to the hostel and had some breakfast (bagels, toast, fresh fruit and tea/coffee), Ben, Hayley and I decided to go for an explore. We headed south again, over the river and along the south shore of False Creek. With hindsight, that was a great choice, we were treated to views such as this:

We followed the south shore along and then came back over the river via Cambie Bridge. We got a little lost heading back to the hostel, but nothing a bit of google mapping couldn’t sort! We stopped for some lunch at a fast food place across the street from the hostel, for our first experience of the famous Poutine! Hayley went for the standard offering, whereas Ben and I got a little ambitious and went for the “upgraded” versions – Pulled Pork for me, Philly Steak for Ben. We weren’t disappointed! It was probably the quietest few minutes we’d had so far!

After lunch we walked up to Stanley Park – Ben and I hired bikes, and Hayley managed to find about 4 different free newspapers, so spent some time reading about what was going on locally.

The cycle around Stanley Park is nothing short of STUNNING. It’s about 5 miles round, and all flat – we stopped a few times to take pictures:

Unfortunately I didn’t take too many pictures as we went around – the wind coming off the sea was pretty cold, but when we were in the sunshine it was nice and warm!

We walked back to the hostel around 3pm, already shattered – as first days go, it was pretty packed! I had arranged to go to view a house later that day, which happily worked out well, so come the 27th March I’ll have a house to live in, and hopefully a job soon after!

Overall first impressions then – personally, I already feel very comfortable here; getting around is easy as the street layout is so simple! I’ve been walking most places, I was surprised how far you can get in 20 minutes! Everyone is as friendly as we thought they’d be, even more so – everywhere you go, you get people asking how your day is going, then always “Enjoy your day!”, which compared to the UK is a breath of fresh air. The city itself is clean, there’s no litter around, and recycling bins everywhere. The only thing that’s really caught me out is the amount of homeless people – they ask you for spare change, but if you say “no”,  then they walk away. The laws prohibit them from following people, they ask once, get turned away, and that’s it. I think it’ll take a little getting used to, but overall the transition has been fairly simple, and I’ve only been here 3 days!

Over and Out.