Our First Summer in Vancouver
Well, seems the summer is over. Somebody has definitely flipped the switch "Summer/Fall". After a glorious three months of uninterrupted clear blue skies and sunshine, the rain has started. Nothing to complain about though, the rain and the mood of the fall season are also good things that make going back to work a bit easier to digest.
Ironically enough, our summer started with a winter backpacking trip in the Cascade Mountains during the 4th of July weekend. Yes, we did have lots of snow and icy temperatures during the trip through the Glacier Peak Wilderness. But the day after we came back, the temperatures were already in su
mmer heat mode. After that, we have enjoyed wonderful mini-vacations each weekend, with trips to the mountains, bike rides in the Fraser Valley, dinners with friends, day-hikes, and runs in the Pacific Spirit Regional Park. To top it that off, we went every week to the beach, at least once, after work. Our favorite beach in Vancouver is called Wreck Beach - a very liberal, open-minded and funky beach with great views of the mountains of Vancouver Island and the Pacific Ocean. The atmosphere of Wreck Beach makes us feel like we are on vacation in the Caribbean and makes Vancouver a place worth living in.
We also had a relatively calm summer at work, followed by two weeks of vacation at the beginning of September. We spent one relaxing and very happy week in Spain, visiting my parents, sister Carolina and my brother-in-law Felix. In Spain we went out geocaching in Moia, and Ben also set up his very first Geocache, in the Creu of Moia, right above town. We indulged in great Spanish food, red wine, cheese, "pa amb tomacat", watched "Pasabalabra", went twice to Barcelona and bought great clothing items at "Desigual" (which made me sooo happy) and spent many hours in the soothing company of Mami and Papi. It made me very sad to leave them - it is always hard to say goodbye, and see their images disappear on the rear view mirror of the car while driving out of our street on our way to the airport. It is not fair really that we have to live so far apart. But life never seems totally fair, does it? We are in a great place with nice jobs in the same company, but have to live so far away from the ones we love.
Fortunately
, we do have some good friends here already and family very close by - in Seattle! After landing in Vancouver, we immediately drove south for a week of crazy funky madness in Seattle, with lots of friends and family of Ben preparing lots of wonderful art work for the wedding of Sunda
ri, Ben's sister, and Elijah. That week in their house, doing art work (and documenting the process too!) in the company of so many talented and interesting funny people was a reminder of everything that is good in this world. The wedding of Sundari and Elijah was simply unforgettable, full of originality and love (and really good food!).
We needed a full week to adapt our brains to being back to the "real world" and to normal working life. But of course, being us who we are, we can never totally relax. As it seems our Canadian permanent residence papers are going to make their way to us very soon, we've decided to start looking for a condo or a small townhouse in town to buy. It seems we will stick around this town for a while and it only makes sense to build some equity in the process. The real state market in Vancouver is a parallel universe with its own physical and logic rules - irrational doesn't even begin to describe it. But, it is where we live, so we must adapt. Resistance is futile!
PS: Quick update - as of last Friday, October 1st, 2010, we are officially Permanent Residents of Canada!
Dionisio Alcala Galiano
Galiano Island, one of the Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver, was our destination this past weekend (May 29-30). Together with Chris and Beth, our two new friends and adventure companions, we set off on touring bikes to explore this island and map it too. As it turns out, OpenStreetMap didn't have any vector data on Galiano, so Ben was very keen on bicycling as many of its roads as we could, which considering the island is only a mere 30 km x 3 km, shouldn't have been much of a problem, except for the short-lived steep uphills which had up to 15% gradients!
The island takes its name after the Spanish Naval Captain and explorer Dionisio Alcala Galiano, who together with Commander Cayetano Valdes, were am
ong the first Europeans to explore this region in 1792. The natives, or First Nations people as they are referred to in Canada, had been inhabiting the island for at least 5000 years prior to the arrival of the Europeans. The park where we camped at the northern tip of the island is called Dionisio Provincial Park, also after Captain Galiano. This park, founded in 1991 by the Galiano community (most of the park's lands where donated by the logging company MacMillan and Bloedel) is one of the four parks that protect the many beautiful Douglas Fir forests and wildlife areas of the island. In this visit we had the opportunity to see many sea otters, seals, hawks, geese, hummingbirds and one bald eagle (and a lost peacock!). Chris and Beth are great connoisseurs of the flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest (they worked at the Olympic National Park for many years, re-vegetating the area, and volunteering in different conservation projects). They taught us about the beautiful Arbutus (or Madrona) tree, native to the area, as well as the ubiquitous Salal, the Salmonberry, and the virulent Scotch Broom.
Galiano has only some 1000 permanent inhabitants, which double in the summer with the arrival of the tourists. The community is trying to keep it rural and not too urbanized, trying to respect the natural order of things as much as they can. But it is clear that there is pressure to sell more lots of land and build more houses, as it seems Vancouverites have an huge appetite for high-priced real state. We can only wonder where all the money comes from really. In their attempts to keep visitors under control, most maps of the island do not show all the roads, not even the 4WD ones. So Ben had a lot of fun mapping them this weekend with the GPS, albeit he is not done - some roads were not biked, so we must come back. The data is already available in OpenStreetMap, for all those who care about freedom.
The Venga Bus Band
Melissa Martens, a long time friend of Ben from Baltimore, Sundari Meacham, Ben's sister who lives in Seattle and her other-half, Elijah Driscol, and us two spent the weekend of May 22nd to 23rd together in Vancouver mostly saying the word "Aquabus" outloud, singing the Venga Bus song (from the Vengaboys), talking design, world matters, and most specially, talking a lot about the game of Mahjong. As Melissa just opened another very successful exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC, where she works as a curator, we had the opportunity to learn a great deal about this game. Now we are desperate to get our hands on one of those beautiful sets to start playing it for real.
Backtracking a bit, we actually started our weekend a bit earlier. We took Friday May 21st off and went to pick up Melissa in Seattle. We toured the city with her, exploring the hippie and progressive neighborhood of Fremont, then venturing downtown for the mandatory visit to Pike's Market Place, and finally closing it with a wine tasting at a fabulous wine bar, Purple (did I mention the succulent melted goat cheese with herbs we had with the wine??). On our way back to Vancouver we sang pretty much every song in the Top 40 Countdown of the week of May 21st, 1983 (got to love Sirius 80s-on-8). The top song that week was no other than David Bowie's "Let's Dance" - so appropriate. 1983 was truly a great year for 80s music: "Every Breath you Take", "Total Eclypse of the Heart, "Beat It", "Billie Jean", "Flashdance", "Come on Eileen" and "Safety Dance". I mean, who can beat that?!
Once in Vancouver, Sundari and Elijah joined us for an unforgettable weekend of great food, laughs, stories and walks. To top it all off, on the Saturday night we all went to see Eddie Izzard's latest stand-up show, "Stripped". A dream come true for most of us, seeing Eddie live, on stage, was quite an experience. The man is just as smart as he is funny - the show consisted of a long stream-of-consciousness conversation about evolution, atheism, history, science and, of course, about how the monarchy is good for nothing. Quite unforgettable. Then on Sunday, after a nice hike in Lynn Canyon Park and a visit to the Fluevog exhibition, we all had a yummy dinner at Habit on Main St., and then met with Susan Grossman, Chris and Beth for drinks.
We truly enjoyed very much showing off our new city and our official base-camp, Castle16, for the (hopefully long) foreseeable future. After Sundari and Elijah went back to Seattle, we spent Monday May 24th with Melissa (public holiday in Canada - Victoria Day), visiting vintage shops and playing really loudly Guitar (Band) Hero at Susan's place on her Wii. Later we picked up Kevin (our friend from Berlin who we hiked with in Patagonia back in December) at the airport. Kevin stayed with us a few more days before embarking on the West Coast Trail in Vancouver Island. We expect to see him again in a few weeks, before we departs to Berlin. We will diligently gather lots of good information about his trip and send him home with good memories of Canada.
And then, on Wednesday May 26th, Melissa had to go back to her beloved NYC, leaving a bit of a hole in the house and a desire to see her again very soon. It was a great visit of the now-officially-named Venga Bus Band! Even Enzo, our car, has gotten a second name - The Venga Bus! Fortunately, soon we will see Sundari and Elijah again when we go down to Seattle for the Fremont Fair weekend (apparently, there's even a naked bike ride in the works...).
^ TOPVancouver Goods and Gods
It has been now three months and a half since we arrived in Vancouver, Canada. We left Germany on Jan 27th, and started working at MDA on Feb. 1st. Much has happened since, and to make a long story short, we've summarized in a list the main activities that we've been engaged in lately. So, since Feb. 1st we have:
- Been working at MDA Systems Ltd.
- Obtained work permits and applied for permanent residency to Canada.
- Lived at the lovely home of Donna Peerless and her sheriff Percy in Kerrisdale.
- Watched a bit of the Winter Olympics (best part - Virtue and Moir gold medal in ice dancing).
- Purchased a 4WD Jeep Patriot, which we baptized with the name of Enzo.
- Played curling for a full afternoon at a social event (our residency exam!).
- Found a house to rent in a lovely neighborhood called Mt. Pleasant.
- Moved into this house, received our things from Germany, unpacked and purchased some furniture.
- Been at two concerts - Armin van Buuren and the magnificent La Roux.
- Been twice in Seattle visiting Sundari and Elijah (Ben's stepsister and her fiance).
- Seen several wonderful Burlesque acts (Moisture Festival and The Olymphixx) and Variete shows (Nanda).
- Visited Ben's parents in New Hampshire and Chris and Maya in Massachusetts.
- Traveled on a business trip to Montreal and Ottawa, where Maria saw the Parliament building.
- Started exercising - biking and running.
- Joined the BC Mountaineering Club (BCMC) and been at several of their socials.
- Participated in the Vancouver Sun Run, the largest 10K race in Canada.
- Gone on a BCMC Trip up a beautiful mountain called Sun God in the Sea to Sky region.
- Biked to work - a 15 km ride each way on nice streets and a new bridge.
- Found a family doctor (by far the most difficult of all the things we've done!).
Of all these activities, it is number 17, the hike to Sun God Mountain, that is the one that has made us feel the happiest. It is because of them mountains that we moved to Vancouver in the first place, and this first trip has more than exceeded our expectations about the area in every regard. We had a great time with the group of BCMC people (Sabine, Tracy, Jim, Jamie, Ryan and Paul) we joined on this trip; they were really friendly and very interesting. The trip was led by Sabine, who took great pictures during the trek. One of the group members, Ryan, wrote a very detailed account of the trip in Club Tread, a great portal for trail resources.
In summary: we still cannot believe our luck: that we ended here in Canada, a country known for its friendliness, and in Vancouver, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, both working in the same company, one with a healthy working environment to top it off, living in a pretty area, and with mountains, ocean and gorgeous big trees all around us! It is just possible that we might not be wanting to move out of here in a very long long long time. Cheers!
^ TOPBetween Patagonia and Canada
Since we will most likely not be seeing our friends and family in Europe as often as we would like now that we are moving to the west coast of Canada (i.e. 16 hours of air travel away...), we decided to jam as much time as possible with them before heading back to Berlin for packing and getting ready for the departure to Vancouver at the end of January. So we went from Patagonia to Spain to spend Christmas and New Year's with my parents, sister and brother-in-law, and from there traveled to Darmstadt to see all our great good friends, Julia and Derick, Nacho and Virginia, Belén, Eoin, Julie, Thomas and Florence, Richard, and Pete and Michelle. We also spent two days at Eumetsat, visiting our ex-coworkers and bosses, talking about the new changes - both in our lives as well as at Eumetsat. It was rewarding to feel the positive atmosphere that is now present at Eumetsat. They are very clearly headed for a promising new decade.
The atmosphere in Moià, my parents town, was relaxing and joyous. Even though my parents are sad that we will be so far away from them, especially now considering their old age (my Dad is 86 and my Mom is 79), they are so happy for us. They know this is a good change and they look forward to seeing all the pictures we will send them. My sister Carolina and her husband, el lupo Felix, are already looking up diving opportunities in Vancouver and are excited we are going there so they can visit us and go diving too! My best memory from this time in Moià will be the happy faces of my parents on New Year's Eve. They looked so so happy, I will never forget it.
Spending time in Darmstadt with Julia, Derick and their little ones, Marta (6) and Kelvin (3), was also an unforgettable experience. Their kids are the most lovable kids ever, and so smart too. They both speak three languages quite well - Spanish, English and German. Needless to say both Ben and I are quite jealous of them. For me, as always, seeing and being with Julia was the most important thing. How much have I missed her, and how much more will I miss her. That, I guess, is the price we pay for moving around so much. One gains something, but loses something else.
In any case, I am sure they will all come to visit us in Vancouver! We are flying there on the 27th of January and starting our new jobs at MDA on the 1st of February. And so, the new wild ride begins.
^ TOP