First days in school

I (Rudi) and my brother were nervous in the morning because we had no idea how it will be. When we arrived we went to see the head teacher, she wanted me to go into French immersion, as I am a fluent French speaker and it would be great for the other kids. French Immersion, is a program where English kids learn to speak French from Grade 1. The teacher assigned two people to show me around for the day. The first day went perfectly although the level of French was low but everybody was friendly, no bullies! The play ground was gigantic compared to France.

A typical school day:
From 09:00 to 09:05 there is some music to start the day, then there is French or math and every Friday there is ‘arts’. Arts, is a time when you have to make posters for the school. After that there is recess. From 10:40 there could be maths, English and history. Sometimes we get music, for music you have to compose some music; before I arrived they learnt how to play guitar and other instruments. We also get P.E (physical Education), at P.E you have gym in the ‘assembly hall’ which is big, or you can do some sports outside. Then from 12:00 to 13:00 it is lunchtime (eat and play), after that there is period of 30 minutes to read a book from the library. Every day the music plays in every classroom for 10 minutes to exercise, the children and teachers jump around in the class, very funny. A bit more work and it is finished at 15:00 but we normally finish 15 minutes earlier and can play outside till 15.00.

Rosie, ‘The Tarantula’ is from the principle, the spider lives in a cage in the library. As a punishment, the spider will crawl up your arm and everybody seems to behave well.

Playland

Tuesday the 15th, the teacher told me they were going to playland on Thursday the 17th. The excuse was that we had to go there to study the effects of roller coasters. A parent took me to playland and I went with a group of 3 (including me) + parent, we went on most of the rides. It was fun studying the effects of ‘g’ force.

Friday fun day
On Friday the 25th there was fun day. During fun day you find a friend or a parent to go with, then you go to all the classes, every class has a different activity, like pillow fight and tug of war. You could buy ice cream, popcorn, drinks etc… you could also go home by 13.00 o’clock

My brother Kes, making bubbles at Fun Day

Papa and Kes eating icecreams

News paper article
During my second week at school 2 people came one was a photographer and another person, an actor. The other person made us do a game; there are 3 bases, the actor read a sentence about health and food, one base was for people who think it is good another base is for people who think it is bad and in the middle a base for people who don’t know. Then we did some other things. They put a photo in the North Shore News Paper of me sitting in the classroom.

Today we had the whole day a First Aid lesson, with all the Grade 6 kids. A lot of fun and interesting at the same time.

Difference in languages.
Here are some examples of Canadian and English words:
Toilette – washroom
Bonnet – hood
Boot – trunk
Rubbish bin – garbage can
In Canadian French the words are different as well, it seems they use the old French, like chaussures are called souliers.

Sailing:
I’m going sailing with school to learn how to sail near the end of the year.

It is very easy here to make friends at school; most of them normally live close to the school, which is useful if you are bored. I already have one good friend and we see each other almost every day after school, we walk the dogs together and play. I can go skiing after school in the winter since it’s finished at 03:00 PM.

Rudi

“Who’s been sleeping in my bed??”

Everyone talks about bears in your back garden in North Vancouver, but being so close to the city and in residential areas, we figured this was just a case of North Americans exaggerating.
Having just got back from walking Buzz, we entrered our cul-de-sac and a little black furry thing scurried across the street about 40 metres in front of us. This was closely followed by two rather larger versions moving slower, followed by a shout “get out of here!!’ of the neighbour.
Maybe the locals were right, sadly we didn’t have a camera.

Later that day we went to see the house that we had bought and had a good chat with the seller. It seems we were lucky to get it ahead of lots of other interested parties. However, their biggest problem was with the bears. They keep breaking the fence down and running off with the garbage can. Is it really a good idea to live next to the woods? Actually, make that a forest.

Later in the day, Rudi came home from school and Ton persuaded him to take Buzz for a walk with her. They walked out the door and Buzz exploded into barking. Rudi rushed back in, his face all white. The bears were outside our front door! The landlady ran after them as they were eating her apple stock and had bashed up the garage, but she also held off when mama bear charged her. We got some great pics of baby bears in the tree, mama bear scoffing apples, but no Goldilocks and no broken chair.

 

Ten days into canadian life

Sunday 6 May was the big one. We looked and had looked at, lots and lots of houses. However, over some 6 months searching on internet, plus 3 visits from myself and Tonnetje, we had not found what we were looking for. But then, a house came up on Limerick. The bedrooms were smaller than I liked, and both myself and Tonnetje had said that we would only take a house that was perfectly finished off. This house was in need of lots of repairs, and after ordering an inspection, it seemed that we needed a new roof, a drainage system for the garden, new drainpipes here and there, a new boiler, etc etc. the house wasn’t too bad, but needed some decoration. But the price was low for North Vancouver, and after budgeting in the repairs, it seemed a good idea. Next to the Lynn Canyon forest, private garden, cul-de-sac, 5 minutes to the ferry to downtown, close to schools, shops, 3 minutes to the highway, great views. Yes, we wanted this one, but how much????
However, the market is so strong in the area, that the system had been ‘overthrown’, and the asking price was only a barometer. Offers were invited, but without knowing what anyone lese was bidding. This had led to houses going on the market at 829K$, then selling for 990K$! And this was becoming more and more common. The agent would put in a low price, draw in masses of offers, and hence inflating the price. So what would we bid? After much debate all day we moved from 770K (asking price 749K) to 780K. The agent tabled an idea to let us offer 5K over the highest bid, but the agent didn’t buy it. 5 minutes before the deadline I upped our bid to 790K – utter madness, but we liked the house.
The clock ticked by, past the 7PM deadline when we knew of at least 2 other offers, past 8PM as I walked the dog, and I told Tonnetje that means we didn’t get it, otherwise we would know. At almost 9PM the realtor called; I told him that I had figured we wouldn’t get it as it ha taken so long, but he contraditcted me and confirmed we had the house!

From our backyard, you walk into the woods

No real euphoria from me as I felt we had bid too much. In addition, we now had lots of work to do. By the time Geoff came round some 20 minutes later I had grown more appreciative of the situation, and concluded that we would get a very nice house for 830K-850K$ (£390K/553K€). not cheap, but in North Vancouver this is currently a good deal. We saw houses for more than this that we didn’t like at all, also much smaller. And compared to Pibrac the price per m² was not much difference, and compared to UK it is a bargain!

First week

The animals are settling in and we have found a great trail to walk Buzz. Bit by bit we are buying all the stuff we need to live. At the moment we are hunting for mobile phones, PC and printer, vacuum cleaner (which is 3 times the price of a European one!), folding bed for Kes, who sleeps on a mattress on the floor at the moment etc. etc. We have visited 3 garages to test drive a car, Chrysler, Honda and Toyota. I think we will go for the Toyota Sienna, Mini Van. So much to do in our first days in Vancouver. A car is vital here and a second car as well, which will be a little run around car. As well as getting organised we fitted a visit to a bear festival in and picked up useful information, what to do when you encounter a bear.

Today I wanted to register the children into school and apply for a SIN number (social security number), but Tony had taken our visas to the bank, so I will try again tomorrow. I have not decided on the school yet, a difficult decision, as we do not know where we will buy a house. Yesterday we have seen half a dozen houses with the realtor. There were a couple of really nice ones, but wrong location or just not practical. One was a real tree house, which Rudi loved! We have also seen some horrors. Wednesday we will visit a house, in a very nice location, right next to Lynn Canyon, a big forest with lots of walking trails. It is reasonably priced for the area and we already fear what it would be like inside.

Ton 

After 7 full days in Vancouver I have to say that it was an eventful week. Every day is packed out with things to do, some fun, some interesting, some painful, and some dramatic. Life has changed radically, although will probably settle into some sedate rhythm eventually.

On Friday it was off to hire a car, as usual, being a cheapskate, I went for the cheapest one. Fortunately, they didn’t have any small cars so we ended up with a PT Cruiser of Chrysler. Nice car, from the outside, but once driving, it is a typical gutless automatic that you find here. Still, it will do and we are mobile.
We found a nice trail to walk Buzz. Got some serious shopping in. days are long and we go to bed exhausted.

On Monday I went off to Harrison Hot Springs to discuss the building permits with the administrator at the town hall, followed by a long talk with my partner Gary.

Tuesday was a fun day. Tonnetje was asking when we were going to get a small car to run around in. What she didn’t know was that I had organised the purchase of a Mini Cooper. I just told her that I would take the kids downtown to see some play areas and shops, thus she could have the afternoon off. After sorting out all the paperwork etc, we then met up with her at a shopping centre; I got Rudi to take a photo as I handed her the keys. She was gobstruck!! Very funny moment.

  

On Wednesday we had our first setback. Following the family euphoria of the arrival of the Mini Cooper, we let zeg the cat out for the first time. He came back, but then went out on his own at night and didn’t come back. Tonnetje was in tears as she saw the end of the cat as he must have got lost. This was not helped by torrential rain, but after touring the districts, we concluded that he cannot have gone far. Tonnetje went out late at night and eventually heard some meowing. Despite my slumber I came out as well and we both began to localise the cat high in a tree. Zeg tried to come down and then got stuck. After some waving of a big stick at the branch, then down came Zeg and inside for lots of eating and drinking. Tonnetje has now locked the cat flap until we get our own house, hopefully soon.

On Saturday we had our first family visit to Harrison Hot Springs and our park Tugboat Junction. I was interviewing staff and going over the development of the park. The staff are all very young, 15-16 years old, but generally very enthusiastic.

Tony

Rental House

We have rented the top floor of a house in North Vancouver, with 3 bedrooms, kitchen and 2 bathrooms. The landlady lives downstairs with her 3 children. She is just divorced and can keep the house by renting it out. We decided to rent this house, because the animals were welcome and it’s in a street with lots of children. In the backyard is a big trampoline and a tree house, from the yard you walk straight into the woods with a running stream. The children of the street walk in and out of the garden and all play together. Hopefully, this is a good opportunity for Rudi and Kes to get to know some children.

The landlady left furniture in the house, as we would arrive with nothing. She actually left more then we need, she does not have the space to put it anywhere else. When we arrived she was still cleaning the bathrooms and there was still mess around. As we were grateful to have found a place who would take us (2 kids, cat and dog), we didn’t really care. Also we did not have to sign a contract for a year, which suits us, as we are hunting for a house to buy. The ideal situation would be to find a house before the container arrives in 5 weeks. Keep on dreaming, I guess…………….;