Hovel Hunting in LotusLand

I found a job (or rather, it found me)! It's a contract position working for an old supervisor of mine. It's a little strange to be working again - the first day it was difficult to concentrate on one thing for the whole day. But it's satisfying. I'm working on something I care about, and I've been meeting interesting people. Overall, I'm pleased to be back at work, and am wishing it were not a contract position!

Douglas has also had two interviews with a company that may want to sponsor him, and we are waiting to hear back. It turns out that he can, with company sponsorship, apply for a work permit while waiting for his Landed Immigrant status to come through. He may not get his 8 months of mountain biking after all! He is despondent. Actually, he said that he found talking to people about computers really exciting, and wouldn't mind too much if he had to become a contributing member of society again. 8)

Since we have some work, and the potential of more, we decided to embark on the painful task of hovel hunting in Vancouver. The real estate market is ridiculous here. There is no way we could afford to buy anything - condos cost several hundred thousand dollars, burned out or falling down houses cost upwards of $700,000. So we are looking to rent. That isn't an easy task, either, and we have looked at some, er, spectacular places. For example, we looked at a very cute apartment in a nice neighbourhood that was very reasonably priced - $750 including utilities. But it was 400 square feet (this is approximately the size of the shed we had in our backyard in North Carolina). At least it was a cute apartment. We can't say that about all of them. Some have been real hovels - places where the floor was plywood, and the ceilings were so low that I, at 5'3" tall, had to duck. The best one, though, went something like this (needless to say, we didn't go see it):

One bedroom basement suite in Marpole (not a great neighbourhood, very far from everything). $750. No smoking. No pets. No kitchen.

No kitchen????????

After about a week of looking, we got very lucky, and found an entire house (we can't believe our luck - I don't understand how we're not in a basement suite) in a cute neighbourhood, near an off-leash dog park, not too far from potential jobs, with a basement!!!! We're actually going to have room for our boats and bicycles and woodwork projects!! It's an older house, renovated, full of character. It has a clawfoot tub. And a gorgeous garden. We'll post some pictures once we move in, around the first of the month.

And tonight we had a beachside picnic with old friends, Jon and Christy. Saira ran in and out of the ocean with lots of other dogs while we ate salad and melon on a log in the sand and watched the sun set over the Burrard Inlet. It was glorious. We rode our bikes down and back, too, on bike routes. It seemed like half the city was out biking or running. I can't quite believe we're back.... 8)