Eh?

In short, all is well in the land of the CND.

In long;

We got in on the train at about 11:30 - 40 minutes late thanks to some errant freight trains. Customs took a while because we had so much luggage (we were moving, after all). They didn't really search us at all, but we had to go to immigration to get documents for the kids, which took until about 1am or so. We got a taxi home and put the kids in bed. Unfortunately, poor Odin woke up in the middle of the night in his new bed and had no idea what had happened (he had fallen asleep in the taxi) and I found him clawing at the front door and screaming for Mommy and Daddy in the middle of the night. (He's was fine the next night.)

We love our new apartment. The kids have a huge room with plenty of floor space to play, and we bought them some great furniture which is working out great. Our room is pretty small, but very simple (all we need is a bed and a dresser, we have nothing else in it) so it's nice. The kitchen is good, we have lots of closet space and a huge laundry room for storage. The dining room has a linoleum floor - thank Zeus! We don't have to worry about spills! It's quite big and fits our bookcases in it with plenty of room to walk around the table (the kids even drive around it in cars they can sit on and push around). The living room is absolutely huge, and we have more windows than walls. There's room for all our furniture (which looks stylish and is amazing, thanks to Mom's generosity and Ikea) and still plenty of floor space and room to stretch or dance around the apartment. We also have a nice deck which views one of the many parks/playgrounds around here, though right now it's filled with cardboard boxes that need to be torn down. (See also the short video tour I shot of our place.)

We've spent most of our first few days getting acclimated to the new surroundings. We've found all the local spots we love. There's a giant grocery store a little under a kilometer walk south of us, along with a sushi place, a coffee house, and all kinds of other stuff like a mini metropolis. A little while further is the UBC farm which has a Farmer's market every Saturday (did that today). Just north of us a few blocks is another grocery store. Add that to the main grocery store we bus to down the road, and we have three of them. It works out well because each one is good for different products and seasonal items, so we can always get things at the cheapest price around by going to the right one at the right time. There are also numerous convenient stores, restaurants and eateries, and attractions within blocks of us. (Yesterday alone on one walk, we passed by a pizza place, sushi shop, Indian curry house, bubble tea house, and four others, all in the same general area.)

Right now we're trying to work out some of the more important details, like where to take the kids for a pediatrician, which bank we should sign up with, and how to get on the Canadian tax system (apparently we're entitled to an annual check just for living here, even though we've only been here a few days, because we pay sales tax like everybody else).

There are tons of parks near by for the kids, lots of fun to be had walking around campus, the UBC Hockey Rink (for the Thunderbirds) is across the street from us (I promised Odin I'd take him to a game), and we even have a forest a block away with hiking trails:

From Jul - Sep '11

The air is great here, the people are so nice, the buses work great, there's lots to see, it's amazing. Prices are a bit high depending on what you're buying, but you get used to it, and there are other trade-offs to make it worth it. We're discovering just how much we love it here, and we're all really happy about it.

I put a ton of new pictures in the Apr - Jun '11 album, as well as a lot in the new Jul - Sep '11 album, including some videos. Enjoy!