sheff2van : sheffield -> vancouver

- it was a bit ironic watching 'An Inconvenient Truth' whilst at 30,000 feet

We went to see the school that the boys will be going to today. They are starting on Thursday, so we'll have been in the country for just a week. It'll be good as they'll be able to start getting to know some other kids and we'll be able to get on with sorting out various bits of bureaucracy.

The school is named after Lord Strathcona (will have to look up who he is) and is on the edge of Chinatown. For Vancouver it's a fairly old school, but not as old as the archetypal Victorian school that Rowan was going to before.

Once we move to our apartment it'll be walking distance, but for now it's a walk, a trip on the seabus and a bus journey. It'll be great commuting to school by boat but I guess the novelty will wear off in a couple of weeks....

There's more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Strathcona_Elementary_School

We got a booklet for new immigrants when we arrived. It's got the words of the national anthem on the inside cover:
"O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
The true North strong and free.
From far and wide, O Canada
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee."

I know that some people change the first line to 'Our home on native land', but what stands out for me is 'free' being repeated several times, and the use of the word 'North' (if we're in the north, who is it that we're standing guard against?)

By comparison, the British national anthem simply claims we're happy having a monarch and hopes that no harm comes to her (catches the flu, chokes on a fish bone, etc).

We went to register the boys for school today.

It was at somewhere particularly out of the way and registration was only open 8am-11am. We were slightly late but they let us register anyway, which took about an hour.

The main thing to sort out was which school Josh was going to go to. Children start school a year later in Canada and move to Secondary school when they are a year older. So although he was in his second year at Secondary school in the UK, children his age are in the final year at Elementary school here.

Eventually we decided it'd be best for him to get to know other kids his own age before moving to big school, rather than being with those a year older than him who have already got established there.

And apart from it being nice for them having each other at the same school, it'll also be easier for us getting them there....

Went to get our SIN number today - it's the equivalent of a National Insurance number in the UK.

Supposedly if you use up all your sins you get asked to leave the country, but mine's a nine digit number so I should be OK for a while.