The May Long Weekend

This past weekend (incl Monday) was a long weekend - not quite sure what for (Memorial Day or something like that)!

As you have read in previous posts here I have an appartment; well that means I then needed to furnish it - hence what I did on Saturday! I went shopping with Peggy, who has been really great I might add, and we started at the one store, but the salesman was really pushy and they didnt really have the range of furniture I was hoping for. I ended up going to "The Brick", another furniture store, and buying everything there. I spent quite a bit of money as furniture is ridiculously priced here (I mean totally over the top priced compared to other things like electrical goods and clothes etc). I managed to get the following:

• A sofa - which is really nice - its beige and SO comfortable - but was out of stock and will only be delivered in about 5 weeks.
• A bed - Queen size - which is also really comfy - and it came with a free 24" TV, DVD player, and digi cam - so finally I shall be able to post pictures for those of you who have been asking for pics!!
• A single chair and ottoman(sp) - its all kind of colour co-ordinated so it looks ok - this is just to sit in until my sofa comes!
• A table and chairs - its a glass top, and the colours also all kind of go.

So the above came to a ridiculous amount - but it had to be done and well from here I can just buy slowly slowly and build up my collection of stuff.

Then on Sunday I was picked up by Rick after church and I went round to his place. We went to the park and flew a couple of kites with his one son, Paulo. That was really fun, as I have not flown a kite properly for quite a while.

Yesterday (Monday) Rick picked me up in the morning and I joined his family on a trip to the beach!! Yes, Winnipeg has a beach! Its on Lake Winnipeg, so it is not an ocean beach, but its pretty darn good none-the-less! We had a picnic out there and the kids had an awesome time making sand castles and everything. The water was pretty chilly, but bearable! It was Rick's family's first time out there as well, and I think a good time was enjoyed by all.

Interesting Winnipeg fact #1

'Winnie-the-Pooh' is named after Winnipeg. Read a short history of this below!

http://www.just-pooh.com/history.html

And the results are in...

I have been accepted for the appartment!! I will be moving into a south facing (much lighter) appartment on one of the top floors of the Penth0use Towers (sounds all fancy hey!!)! I am very excited as now I have my first place of residence of my OWN!

I will be going furniture shopping on Saturday with Peggy to buy everything I will need and I will hopefully schedule delivery for next Saturday (28th) and will move in soon after that!

I'll try get some photo's of it for everyone when I can, I'll probably have to ask Rick if I can borrow his digi cam and take some snaps!

Found an appt!

I have found the appartment that I wanna stay in. Its on a road which is right by the river (I think its the Red river). It is very very nice. I have had a look at quite a few appartments today and this is by far the best I have seen! Its all carpeted, and has stove and fridge. The building itself is well maintained and you can see they are putting a lot of money into the building. Once my application is approved I should be able to move in on Jun 1!!

I am going into a 2 bedroom one first of all, coz that is all that is available - its on the expensive side, but definitely worth it. Once a 1 bedroom one is available the building manager said it should be ok for me to move into that. The 1 bedroom one is a bit cheaper (coming more into my affordable range), but the building is actually just too good for me to pass up any appartment.

So all I gotta do now is fill in the application form, send it in with a security deposit, and then (thinking positive here) I will be moving in!! I'm very excited about this, it's gonna be a bit of a project for me to put my own touches on my own place! (Considering this will be my FIRST place)

Same old

Well, the work here seems to bring about the same old problems as it did back in Zimbabwe, or Botswana. Not too sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing tho!!

I'm pretty busy trying to get this one section of work done for a client, and well, the same sort of differences pop up the whole time! At least I kind of know what sort of direction to take from here!

I am going appartment hunting with Peggy just now, but its gonna be a bit of a problem as I will have to try and get the renters to wait until about the 28th of the month till I have enough in my account to actually pay the deposit and the rent! Its a bit of a problem when you are coming from a country like Zim where you dont really have savings, and if you do they are minute! Oh well, I am sure I will work a plan, I kinda have to!

untitled due to lack of inspiration

Its not as bad as the title describes! Its Sunday afternoon and none of the plans which I had have actually materialised...

I was meant to head to that barbeque yesterday - if you look further down in my posts you will probably find that... But the weather was shocking and as it was an outdoors thing it was cancelled! :(

None-the-less Peggy still picked me up for a bit of a look around for an appartment. We went and had coffee and looked through the papers etc.. There is so much on the market, it is going to be difficult to decide on where I should live... Also quite a few deciding factors like accessability to main bus routes and large shops (as the smaller shops are generally a lot more expensive). We will have to see what I can organise though!

Then today I went to the same church just around the corner from me - and it is fine - nothing to make me too worried about their theology just yet - and well the people are pretty friendly!

Peggy's daughter, Unity, was going to take me around town today a bit on the buses jst to show me the town from that point of view, but she had to cancel coz her dad needed her for something or other... I'll be heading with Rick an his fam to a fair in a bit - which should be fun!

I read a short book this weekend - and when I say short it took me like 1 hour, which shows you how short it is - called "Who moved my Cheese". Its a very simple story, but definitely worth the read! It talks about 4 characters who are like mouse size and how they deal with their cheese supply being moved (basically changes in life). Its well written and very easy reading - I would recommend it to anyone to read if they have a chance! I actually have an electronic copy of it so if anyone would like that just email me and I'll send it to you!

Its Thursday and...

... I am still completely overwhelmed! Work is really starting to kick into full swing, which is great, as it keeps me busy and not getting home sick!

Something which keeps amazing me each time I come across it is the bandwidth out of this place. (For the non-techie people - bandwidth is basically the speed of your internet - if you can imagine a water pipe, if you have a very small pipe - i.e. Zimbabwe - you can only get a small amount of water through, but if you have a big pipe you can obviously move water through the pipe a lot faster).

On a daily basis my machine is backed up to a data centre in Cleveland - and not just my documents or anything like that - my ENTIRE machine - all 15 odd gigabytes of it... And quickly too - initially it took about half an hour but now it takes 10 minutes to scan through the drive for changes and back those changes up.

Let me put that into perspective - it probably updates about 100 Mb of my backup a day - depending on how many changes i have made. In Zimbabwe if you were lucky on a dial up you would get about 10 true Mb through in an HOUR. This does 10x that in 10 minutes - with most of that time actually scanning through the drive!

I downloaded a 2Mb file just now and it took 10 seconds!

Anyways - as people who know me well will understand - I am extremely happy with that part of the 'Canadian Experience'!

Yesterday I went shopping for groceries at a Canadian SuperStore. The store is just completely ginormous - even that does not describe it! At a complete guestimate you could probably fit about 15-30 Jaggers size stores INSIDE this one store! So shopping there was amazing - apart from the standard bombardment with choices!

After that I went with Peggy (my relocation agent) to a recital. It was some scholarship recital where young people got the chance to sing in public. There were four singers altogether each performing about 4 songs. I was impressed at the voices these youngsters had - and I mean they are not much older than about 18 and their voices were so well developed.

Anyways from there I went back to the hotel and had some pasta for dinner (Yes, I mostly just bought pasta, coz that is the quickest and easiest thing to do for one person!!).

Oh yes and I have a high speed internet connection to my room so I can connect to the work network from my room using a VPN (Non-tech note: Virtual Private Network - it allows you to connect to your work network securely and use it as if you were sitting at work - you can even print to one of the printers!!)

There is a cheese and wine event going on in the board room today at 4:30 so I might head there and try and meet some of the top dogs in EY Winnipeg. Not too keen on the whole combination of cheese and wine, but anyways!

K, well, work beckons, shall post again soon!

The first day

I arrived a little late for work on the first day unfortunately as I was
trying to find a dry walkway (but failed) to the office!

It was another eyeopener as they are SO up-to-date with all the technology!!
I got my laptop and spent the morning filling out forms and chatting with
the HR lady. In the afternoon I was grabbed by Rick whospent a long time
trying to update me from Zimbabwe TSRS to Canada TSRS. I still think it
will take quite a bit of time to get there, but i will most definitely make
it!!

Well its Tuesday now, and I have an Audit breakfast I need to be in about 20
minutes, and I have not started getting ready at all!!! So I will have to
love you and leave you!

Shall try update this soon!!

The first weekend

Well this weekend I spent quite a bit of time at Rick's place on Fri and
Sat, and well thats when I sent the group email you saw in the previous
post. That is such a welcoming family, you have to see it to believe it!

On Sunday, I woke up a little bit early, in anticipation of going to the 9am
church service at a Presby church a few blocks away. I walked and walked
and walked, but to no avail! I could not find this church for love or
money. So I started my walk back and stopped at a Starbucks. They are big
into "building" their own coffees here, which I was not brave enough to try
and so I just took something off the menu. Pretty good nonetheless!

Then, as I was walking back, I saw another church just around the corner
from me who had services at 11. So I went to that service, which was very
pleasant, a bit too happy-clappy for me (which I didnt think I would say).

I was then reading the entertainment mag in my room and found that the
Ballet was having a matinee on Sunday afternoon. I decided to head to that,
and found it was actually not all that bad! Added to that the audience was
mainly just chicks as well (smile)!

On my way home I thought I would explore the downtown area (Its not actually
that bad an area in case anyone was beginning to worry a little) and I
walked a v long way. Most shops were closed however, being 5:30 in the eve
on a Sunday.

A copy of my first email to everyone

Hi All,

I am in Winnipeg!! It took a lot of organisation and support and patience (Thanks to my mom and my dad esp as well as to my friends who supported and helped me so much). Sorry, that sounded a lot like a Oscar speech!

It was a VERY long flight, as those of you who are on the other sides of the globe from Zimbabwe will most likely know. It is enough to say that it is not something I would like to go through again in a hurry! Even today, two days later, I am still absolutely exhausted and a bit jet-lagged! Unfortunately I did not sit next to any very interesting people for any of the flights (no-one for the Hre-Jhb leg, an older woman from PE who was a bit slow for the Jhb-Lon leg, and a strange, virtually mute Belgian guy for the Lon-Tor leg!). I have to say that after the two long hauls I know exactly why people call "Economy Class" :Cattle Class", there was hardly enough room to sit upright with your arms crossed!!

When I arrived in Toronto it was a bit of a rush as I only had two hours to sort out all of the immigration stuff and work permit etc and also check into the Winnipeg flight. I was given wrong directions at first and ended up running around the airport like a headless chicken, only to be told that I had to go to a different terminal by bus. As I was rushing up some stairs one of the handles on one of my suitcases snapped off!! At that point I just lost it, as can be imagined! The people around me must have been a little worried for their lives, but I think I handled it fine for someone who was already jetlagged and had been travelling for over 30 hours with very little sleep. Needless to say I JUST made the flight after pleading with the check-in agent!

I arrived in Winnipeg and was met by a relocation agent called Peggy, who has been very very sweet to me, helping me open up a bank account and get a Social Insurance Number (which apparently you need for lots of things). She has also shown me around town quite a bit and I will be going to a Barbeque (a braai for those still in Zim) with her daughter and her next Saturday afternoon.

What I have seen of Winnipeg so far is very impressive, everything actually works!! The shops (or stores as they call them here) have so much choice, I thought stores in South Africa had a lot of choice, but this is just plain mind-blowing.

At this stage I am still in a bit of a state of shock as everything is new, but I have a feeling it will all get familiar and things will work out well! (A lot better than my first impressions of Botswana at least!!)

I will endevour to keep in touch with everyone individually in time, but I just thought a decent length first email was in order to bring everyone up to speed!

Well, thats all for now people, I will email again next week when I have more time and my own PC (I am at Rick's house - my boss in Canada, also was my boss in Zim - and he is very kindly letting me sit on his PC and email away)

If there is someone I may have forgotten please could you forward this on to them!

From me in Canada, this is Geoff signing off!

Love to all

P.S. If you do not want to receive these sort of emails or you have another address you would like to receive them at, please just email me and let me know.