The Canadian Adventure

Part 2 - 16th September 1996

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I've been a busy lad - in the space of one day I sorted out both an apartment and a car. As from the first of October I will be the proud occupant of a one bedroomed apartment in Kitsilano.

Kitsilano was the hippy/student area in the sixties and seventies and the yuppie area in the eighties as the students grew up and got good jobs. Now it’s the place to go for interesting restaurants, arty cinemas, and an excellent beach. Downtown Vancouver is about 20 minutes walk away.

It's quite spacious with a minimal view of Cypress mountain, a stonking great fridge and room for a pony. For the next two weeks I shall be "Man at Ikea" in preparation for the big move in day. Which will be quite a small move in day really as I only have two suitcases and a stereo. And I lied about the pony.

Coincidentally it's only 200yds from Loretta's house (Loretta and I were at university together) who I spent yesterday with. Loretta is no longer even the slightest bit Scouse, but is very Canadian. They have two fluff-explosion cats who rule the house.

As for the car, I plumped for a Pontiac Sunfire. From the front it looks a bit like a Fiat Coupe, from the side a bit like an MR2 with blantant copying of Ferrari's C-post styling, but somehow manages to have plenty of room for four people and luggage inside. It has a 2.4 litre 150hp engine, most of which drives the stereo and the running lights I think - it certainly doesn't seem to be getting to the wheels! The absolute minimum of contact between driver and road seems to be the norm. Curiously, power windows were a costly option, but air conditioning was standard.

To tell thje truth I'm not really sure what the acceleration is like. In Vancouver more than two seconds of moderate acceleration will take you over even the highest speed limit. Some of the freeway slip roads have a 30kmh maximum, and given that they are often a kilometre long you feel like you could walk faster. It's no surprise that driving is a matter of selecting "Drive", slipping into a trance and waiting for the thing that goes "Bong" to tell you you've arrived. Most cars over here seem to go "Bong" a lot.

Here’s a funny thing. In Canadian houses light switches are off when they are in the "Down" position and on when they point "Up". I can cope until I’m faced with a cluster of switches with some on and some off, and then its "Signal the aliens" time as I try and sort out which are supposed to go where.