New Places and Familiar Faces (by Neil and Tara)

So much has happened here in the past week, you guys must have so many questions...

Holy cow, we heard you guys had a visitor on Friday?

How did you know? Yes, Neil's cousin Julia graced us with her presence very briefly on Friday evening. She was in town for a volleyball tournament and couldn't resist a feature story in our blog. We picked her up and brought her to our neighborhood for dessert and a stroll. Check out what a great time we had:

Dessert at Benny's Cafe

That is so completely awesome! What else have you been up to?!

Well, on Saturday we finally got the keys to our apartment! We had planned on roughing it for a few days to a couple weeks with a blow up mattress, but it turns out our stuff came in on the earliest day it was scheduled. The moving guys (who we are convinced were gypsies) came in yesterday afternoon and quickly dumped off all of our stuff. Everything went smoothly and we've been unpacking ever since. Here are some pictures:

 Living Room

 Candid Shot of Neil Lounging

 Shot of Tara on Balcony...from Other Balcony

Tara and Boxes

Basically the place is amazing. Tara loved it immediately, and when Neil saw it again it seemed so much larger without the previous tenant's crap strewn about. Plus, we have 2 balconies, a giant walk-in closet, and a mother #$%@ing dishwasher! Also, just after our stuff arrived we received a brand new fridge (owner had it replaced) and next Wednesday we will be receiving a new stove.

After living in our little basement suite for over a month it's an unbelievable relief to have our own space, even if we are missing most of our basic furniture!

An Interview with Tara and Neil (by Tara and Neil)

After much delay and anticipation, our blog is FINALLY up and running. Since there is so much to talk about we thought we'd try and answer all the big questions in one shot...here goes:

So, uhm, like where are you guys staying?

We were lucky enough to get a fantastic deal on a fully furnished suite for the first month in a house owned by Neil's Uncle Rob's friends Bernie and Cindy Ross. The house, known as Cherry Hill, is in Kitsilano, and under amazing lighting conditions looks like this:

Woah, that's so rad! So like did you guys find a place to live yet?

Yes we did. Neil spent a lot of the first few Tara-less weeks on an intense apartment hunting quest. It turns out that getting an apartment in the more popular areas of Vancouver can be extremely competitive, and difficult when you have just arrived in town, started a new job and claim to have an invisible girlfriend.

Luckily, through an amazing coincidence, Neil found a condo on W 4th and Trafalgar being rented by a woman who lives in Calgary. Since Neil was going to Calgary for Thanksgiving, it was very convenient for the owner to choose him. Long story short, we will be getting the keys to our Kitsilano apartment next Saturday.

Ok, that's cool I guess. What's the big deal with this Kitsilano area anyways?

After checking out several different neighborhoods, Kits seemed like the way to go. The apartments are larger than the walk-in closets they are renting right downtown, it's right on the ocean, there are countless restaurants and bars within 10 minutes walking distance, and it's only a 5 minute bus ride downtown. Think of it like NDG except with way more bars/restaurants/cafes/shops and you can walk to the beach in like 5-10 minutes. 

 

 Jericho Beach, 10 minutes from our place

Oh man that's so totally awesome! So Neil where are you working and what's it like?

I'm working at a company called General Fusion as a Mechanical Engineer. I'm designing things, building things and testing things. Check out the website if you are at all curious about the crazy science experiment we are working on. It's located out in Burnaby which is a bit of a commute, but I usually take public transit to work so I can read or look extremely cool playing with my IPhone 4. I've pretty much had a blast working there so far and I can't wait to see how it will work out in the future!

Okay calm down. So Tara since you just arrived and are, like, a jobless freak and everything, what have you been up to?

Well I have been spending my days looking for a job, exploring the neighborhood and going for runs along the beach! When I am not doing that I can be seen drinking coffee in one of the many chic cafe's along West 4th or West Broadway. 

Oh okay, that totally doesn't sound boring. So what does the future hold for you guys?!

There are so many things on our list to do here, including snowboarding, hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, biking, surfing and food eating. Right now we are focused on getting settled but in a couple of weeks our belongings will have arrived and soon after that the snow should start falling and the real fun will begin!

Stay tuned with our blog and find out what happens next...