Apartment hunting

Vancouver is a pretty city - surrounded by water and mountains, it's quite picturesque. This photo is the view from Nic's balcony at night. During the day you can watch the sea planes come in and the cruise ships sail past from the deck, and the sunsets are gorgeous.

On Sunday Andrew got up first and scoured the internet for apartments, and found one that sounded nice, so I got up and we went to look at it. As soon as I walked in I loved it - it was so light, the sun was pouring in - it faces south, which in the northern hemisphere means you get the sun. A couple had just bought it as a rental, so were looking for tenants. We got on really well with them, and loved the place, but I was worried that as neither of us had jobs we wouldn't get it. That evening we got a text asking us to come over, and they offered us the apartment! Yes, they were worried that neither of us have jobs, but they gave us a shot as they liked us so much! YAY! So we're no longer homeless, and move in on Sunday.

It's a one bedroom apartment, on the corner of the 10th floor. And there's a Starbucks downstairs - does life get any better??!! It has a decent size kitchen, complete with huge oven and fridge - guess they build 'em big to take the turkeys - and an unusual luxury, an in-suite washer and dryer! Normally they're down in the basement (like they are in Friends). Score. It also has a little balcony, enough for a small table and a couple of chairs. It even has a dishwasher! So we're really lucky. And our landlords, Adam and Jeanette, rock!

The rest of our Sunday was spent with Nic & Daragh, and we went out for brunch to Commercial Drive (the "hippy" area), and then to Granville Island, which is really close to the city and has great markets.

On Monday we went to the bank to find out how to set up payments for our rent. Big drama. The banking system here is like stepping back 30 years. If I thought Irish banking was bad - Canada is worse. The effort required NOT to bang my head through the wall was huge. As we were with a different bank than our landlords, it was going to be a huge deal to pay them each month. Yes, we could've withdrawn the money from our account, and walked over to their bank and deposited the money, but how inconvenient is that? All we wanted was an automatic payment. Ahhhhhh NO. It was going to cost us $30 each time we wanted to make the payment. So we quickly closed those accounts (that had only been open for 4 days), and opened up accounts with the same bank as Adam & Jeanette. Much easier. Only thing is, that now we have a limit of $1000 per payment, and our rent is $1300 - so we have to make two payments, and therefore pay for two transaction fees. Crikey.