Week one of living on the other side of the pond has involved a great deal of map reading, being organised (not my strongest point) and the worst student card photo ever known to man... amongst other things. I've been in Vancouver just over a week now and am slowly starting to get my bearings. Landing in the airport you quickly get an idea of how multicultural this city is; signs in English, French and Chinese drop a lot of hints as to what to expect but it's only once you get in the city itself that you appreciate how diverse a place it is. The nickname "Hongcouver" really sums it up (no, I did not just invent that one myself - look it up!)
After a quick navigation exercise (thank god for lonely planet) my taxi, baggage and I arrived on the UBC campus and moved straight in to my new house for the next 8 months. Unpacking was a very quick process in comparison to the cramming of my life in to a suitcase and a backpack the day before, having been awake for a grand total of 26 hours my first night was an early one. My first full day in Vancouver I was all set to sort all the important things out, but having realised it was a bank holiday I didn't get very far so spent a lot of time waiting for a bus which eventually took me downtown.
Downtown Vancouver is about 10km from the university and this translates to about a 30 minute bus ride on a good day. The city itself is so very different to anywhere I've lived in before and everyone is very friendly. Most common question asked so far is something to do with people called Ashley and Maxine; who i have now learned are characters from Coronation Street. Evidently a particular generation of Canadians (thankfully not the student one) are rather obsessed with this, which, having seen a glimpse of a canadian soap opera is probably a good thing. Sadly I can't deal with any of these questions with anything other than "why would you want to watch that?!" quickly followed by a change of subject.
Day two in Canada was my first day of lectures and at this point the jetlag seemed to be working in my favour, 8am lectures didn't seem too painful! Now week two has begun they're pretty painful so we'll see how long the good track record lasts... Seeing as my parasitology professor has already failed to make it to one such class It seems to be inevitable that accidental lie-ins will occur.
In comparison to fresher's week, socially, my introduction to life here has had a bit of a slow start. Missing international student orientations didn't help so i've had to settle in to things pretty quickly. Time between classes has been spent finding my way round other parts of vancouver, one day i aspire to being able to walk around without the help of a map! Generalised observations so far include; canadians have small dogs (think fluffy rat), sour skittles are immense but too plentiful in the yellow department and shutting one's bedroom door with the keys still inside is not big and it's not clever and inevitably leads to running around in the dark to the commons block to retrieve a spare key.
All important lessons to learn if i do say so myself!
Societies and labs all start in the next few weeks so life is set to get busier and I can't wait!!!
