The Taelemans´ Blog

Finally!

Everything went really well this week. The moving went really smooth. Yesterday our shipment from Belgium arrived and although customs opened a few boxes, everything is here without any damage.
I didn’t remember what we’ve put in all those boxes, so seeing a few things back again, was really surprising.

I also managed to get everything in order so we’re actually ready to start our new lives. We didn’t buy everything immediately, we still need a dining table and some chairs and a few other practical things, but we’ll probably wait for that.
We can sleep, eat, take a bath or shower and watch tv,, so we’re good to go for know.

As promised, I have taken a few pictures of our new place.
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I am really sorry for not posting any stories the last few days. We’ve been really busy with moving.
How can we be busy if we only left with a few items of luggage? Good question…

Well since we knew that we could rent our apartment, we immediately started buying some things that were necessary to get started. So we stored everything in the car, but it was pilling up very quickly.
Conclusion: A car full of all kinds of stuff, needed to be unloaded. we also needed to move our luggage from the hotel to the apartment and of course we couldn’t forget Freggels and all his stuff.

So basically what have we been doing the last 3 days:
- We had a very nice thanksgiving dinner (pictures will follow soon)
- Kris survived his first day at work
- I had my first job interview (which was OK, but like always, it’s going to take a while to get some more information about whether I made it or not, but I’m not getting my hopes up)
- Today Ikea came over to deliver our bed, mattress, desk, … Besides that the guys from Shaw came by (television and internet). And last but not least, they brought over our sofa.

So as from today we are officially living in our apartment (we’ll first have to install the bed, but that’s a small detail). Tomorrow they will deliver our shipment from Belgium (it arrived the same day as we did, but we asked if it was possible to leave it at the storage place for a while, until we had something more permanent).

I promise I will post some pictures of everything as soon as we get all our stuff in order (probably withing the next couple of days).

What is still on our to do list:
Buy a bed (as mentioned before, the same one we had in Belgium, thank god for Ikea)
Buy bed linen
Buy a vacuum cleaner
Find an alarm clock which can project the time on the wall

That is on our list for tomorrow. Well the first three things will be pretty easy, as we already decided what to buy and where we can find it. The alarm clock on the contrary will be pretty difficult to find. I had a clock like that in Belgium, and although it’s more or less something I want because I’m a bit lazy, I NEED IT. The cool thing about a clock like that is that it of course projects time on the wall so you don’t have to lift your head to check what time it is. You just have to open your eyes. I know, like I said, lazy…

What did we do today? Not too much, not every day can be as exciting as yesterday…(too bad). But we went downtown and like a normal tourist would do we went to Gastown. Actually nothing special but we needed to be in the neighborhood to arrange some things so we decided to just stroll through Gastown. Pretty relaxing, weather was great and we enjoyed the sun.

Mission completed: I finally convinced Kris to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch. Since Kris is not a big fan of pasta it was pretty hard to get him to have lunch over there, but I finally succeeded.

So coming up next week:
Tomorrow Thanksgiving
First day of work for Kris on Tuesday
Getting keys for the apartment on Tuesday
Moving in on Wednesday
Taking the Ghost train in Stanley Park on Saturday (Halloween event)

Enough talked for today, have a good week! For those going to work: 5 more days until it’s weekend.

Today we got up early, to be in Whistler on time. They expected a lot of visitors for the turkey sale, so I wanted to be there around 10am.

On our way to Whistler we saw a bald eagle. Pretty cool because the eagle was actually flying for a change, instead of sitting on a nest. The wingspan of a bald eagle is between 168–244 centimeters. So I think we can conclude that we saw a really big bird today:)

When we arrived in Whistler it became very clear why we left early today. There were a lot of people carrying a lot of bags. NOOO, less shopping items for us…

I have to admit, we didn’t enter the turkey sale tent, because to many people where queuing. But we visited another tent and I bought myself a hoodie and a goggle. Actually Kris was going to buy a goggle because he didn’t have one. But then he saw the cutest girlie goggle ever and he said to me that I had to try the goggle and that he will take over the one I already had (unisex of course). Thank you Kris!!
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Nothing to special to mention actually.
We got our car today, which is great. We are going to make a test drive tomorrow since we are heading up to Whistler. As I previously mentioned, it is turkey sale in Whistler. You can find snowboard and ski equipment from last season at very low prices. Plus I also need some new clothes (all my clothes are in the air shipping package, which we haven’t received yet) because I have my first job interview next week. No, no details because that’s bad luck.

But for those wondering if I will keep on doing the tourist things, no I’m actually trying to find a nice job too .

It’s pretty busy out here in Vancouver, because I think a lot of people are going away for the weekend (Thanksgiving weekend). We have planned to go out for dinner on Thanksgiving, since I don’t plan to prepare a turkey here in our hotel room. Stuffed turkey is not my thing.

Well that was it for today, maybe we’ll have some pictures of the Whistler and Blackcomb mountain tomorrow, let’s hope the lifts are open.

Enjoy your weekend!

Since our rental car is soon to be returned, we needed to buy ourselves a car.
As most people know, I preferred a Dodge Ram 3500 and Kris preferred either a Dodge Viper or a Dodge Challenger (which were both available at the car dealer). But well, we couldn’t decide so we “met in the middle”.
Since we both like Dodge, we decided it was definitely going to be a Dodge and we both agreed on the Dodge Caliber.

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I started today with my drivers lesson and it actually went quite well. The guy told me that I should do fine on the road test if I keep in mind a few rules.

It’s actually pretty different than in Belgium. You have all kind of tests and each test has a different level. We’ll be doing the class 5 road test which means that we have to be able to do following things:
Drive (“no shit Sherlock”)
Be able to name the different hazards on the road while driving
Park up or downhill
Reversed parking
Make a 3 point turn

That’s it, no maneuvers at all except for the parking and turn…
So, I really hope I pass the exam,… But well worries for later…

Then the most important thing of the day: WE SIGNED THE CONTRACT!

It’s officially our apartment to rent. I have a quick sneak preview of the view we have from our living room. You can’t really see the whole view you see from the apartment such as the mountains on the right side of the picture, but still it might give you a glimpse.

The rest of the images will follow later.

After the signing we decided to go downtown for dinner. We went to Ponchos, a restaurant we were advised to go and check out. Really nice Mexican food!

Since we had to drive past one of the main shopping streets in Vancouver, there were still a lot of people shopping after work. And specially for Elke: We also saw this one guy advertising for a fast food place on Robson Street. The guy was dressed like a chicken and actually enjoying it. He was definitely dancing like a maniac!

If I don’t find a job, at least I have some options left:)

I know the picture is rather small, but well, take my word for it, it was funny.

We received some good news today. We are accepted as tenants for the apartment in Port Moody. Tomorrow we have to sign the contract so actually we are not 100% sure until tomorrow, but we received mail confirmation and a phone call so I think it’s OK to mention.

OK, so maybe I should rephrase my sentence: We’re almost certain that we are the proud tenants of an apartment in Port Moody.

After we got the confirmation we went searching for a sofa and we kinda immediately found the sofa/sectional of our dreams. So we already ordered the first piece of furniture.

We can move in next week on Wednesday, but it’s slightly different than in Belgium. We have to call different services in order to activate everything, which means we are going to have a busy week.

Besides that I’m going to get my first (and only) drivers lesson tomorrow. Yes I know how to drive, but I just want to be prepared for my road test. Do you remember dad? More or less 5 years ago, I did my road test in Belgium… Oooh boy, was I stressed out. But well it’s just a lesson tomorrow so that’s nothing stressful.
The organization who offers the lesson gives you the possibility to take a lesson which is specific for people who already have their drivers license, but need to redo it, because of the fact that they moved to British Columbia.

I think that’s enough boring talk for today. We’re heading out to Earls tonight (thank you to Olivier for the tip). And no, we are not going because of the “hot chicks”. We are going there because of the great food!

Ooh and for those who need it, we also have a Canadian cell phone number so send us an email if you need it. Just to let you know, our Belgian numbers still exist but it’s cheaper for us to send you text messages with a Canadian number.

Our day started with a visit to the Linen N Things shop. A shop where you can find all sorts of, of course, Linen and Things… You can buy all kinds of household goods, not too expensive, so if we know for sure that we have an apartment it probably will be one of our first stops.

After that we went to the Ikea. Yes, they have an Ikea in Vancouver. The only thing different with an Ikea in Belgium is that the sell cinnamon buns. But they also sell the hot dogs (at the exit of the shop). We already decided which bed we are going to buy, surprise, surprise, the same we had in Belgium:)

We didn’t buy anything yet because we want to be sure first. Well except for one thing, I’ve bought a pillow. The cool thing is that they sell pillows for stomach sleepers, back sleepers and side sleepers. OK, this probably sounds stupid but I was not aware of the fact that they make different pillows for each sleeper.

This week we are going to find some other furniture stores so we can find a cool sofa and if everything goes well, we will probably be buying some stuff next week to get settled.

After our visit of the Ikea we went to Port Moody to drive around a bit. Yesterday I noticed a sign of a recreation area not far from Port Moody so I asked Kris to drive up there.
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Today we’ve been house searching. We saw a lot of different properties so we had a big choice.
But of course we needed to pick one out and if they accept our application we will be the proud tenants of an apartment in Port Moody. (Pictures will follow) So Let’s cross our fingers and hope they accept us as tenants.

The apartment has an amazing view. You can see the mountains (really close by) and the bay. But like I said details will follow later as soon as we know if we have the apartment.
The only thing I can say besides the fact that it;s really beautiful is that we will probably need bear spray:) Yes indeed, it’s really close to the forest and we know for sure that it’s bear country. Not far from the apartment, there is a local supermarket, and a few weeks ago they had to gett rid of a bear who entered the supermarket. ( ok so far for the bear stories).

The only thing we did today (besides house searching) is go to the supermarket and I finally found cupcakes sold piece by piece. I never tried them but it looks good ( I know a real calorie bomb, but just this once). Check them out.

The left one is called the chocolate truffle, and the right one is the strawberry delight.
As for the box underneath them, those are the Halloween cookies. And if everything goes well, we’ll move in to the apartment the 15th of October, so I will be in time to bake some Halloween cookies myself.

Well, that’s it for today, we are pretty tired because of the driving around today, so we’re going to watch some television and go to bed early.