sheff2van : sheffield -> vancouver

It was the last day of freedom before the boys went to school yesterday so we went 10 pin bowling in Burnaby where we lived when we were over in 2004. There isn't another 10 pin bowling alley downtown which I was very surprised by. Aparantly they have 5 pin bowling here which is unique to Vancouver, but I shied away from going to it with the boys as it is quite hard to do when you first go.

Travelling back across the Burrard Inlet on the seabus the sun was shining on the North Shore Mountains and it was really beautiful. I thought, this is a fantastic place to live, we're so lucky. It is absolutely stunning when the sun shines.

People are, for the most part, very smiley, and want to help you if at all possible. They do have a problem with my accent though. Most people who work in shops and coffee bars are Chinese or Japanese and are used to hearing the North American version of English - they don't understand my dropped vowels, so I often have to repeat myself.

There was an article in the local paper, the Vancouver Sun, about the fact that Vancouver is now the 13th least affordable city.

Researchers compared the average earnings with the average house price

I started work today.

- 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