On the Move: Settling in Vancouver

We arrived in Vancouver yesterday afternoon. Life has been a whirlwind since then! Our urban trainers met us at the airport. They took our bags and gave us our keys. We were left with a backpack each and directions to our apartments. Our assignment was to find out about Vancouver by talking to at least thee people on the Sky Train. We've learned a little about hockey, Canadian football, where to get good Chinese food, and some fun things to do from these encounters. At our sky train stop is the second largest mall in all of Canada. It is huge with more than 500 stores. We stopped here and got Canadian numbers and dinner before going to our apartment.

We then settled in and unpacked in our apartment before going back to the mall to buy some groceries. We met a few Brazilians in line at the grocery store who asked for Jonathan's contact information. We're hoping they contact us sometime soon. They were going to try to find us a Portuguese speaking church to go to while we are here. Plus, it'd be nice to have some friends our age.

Our apartment is a good sized one bedroom. It's cozy and comfortable. We are completely unpacked, and we got internet hooked up this morning. We are now fully connected to the world. :)

Today, we went exploring. Central Park is only a couple of blocks from our apartment. We enjoyed walking through it. Squirrels and ducks were everywhere. The leaves are all bright reds, oranges, and yellows right now. It was beautiful. We sat on a bench looking at the ducks in the pond and read for awhile.

We grabbed lunch at a Portuguese chicken place in the food court at the mall. Sadly, no one who worked there is Portuguese. We then found a Portuguese coffee shop that was five stops away from us, and enjoyed a mocha there. This is apparently the senior adult Portuguese hang-out spot. They invited us to eat lunch and go to a dance at the Portuguese Seniors Center. I don't know what kind of dance they have there, but I think we might have to go check it out. Either way, I've found my local coffee shop :) We explored that neighborhood a bit which is where the Portuguese Catholic church is and some Portuguese restaurants that we are going to try sometime soon before heading home.

After cooking dinner tonight, we made some chocolate cookies and went around delivering them to neighbors to get to know them. There are 18 apartments in our building including ours. We know some are vacant, although we don't know how many or which ones. We were able to meet 7 of our neighbors. One gave us his number and invited us in for awhile, and we've made plans to meet up with our neighbors across the hall this weekend.

We are excited about learning so much of the city so far and making good contacts who can be friends while we are here. Our neighborhood is great. There is plenty to do between the mall and other restaurants nearby and the huge park. Pray for us while we are here. We want to learn a lot about living and working in a diverse city. We want to make friends. We want to be able to share our story and see life change while we are here.