So the shower actually was tricky. Good, I'm glad we weren't just blind - and I'm also glad it's not broken, since I'm sure it wouldn't have been repaired for a while, what with it being Sunday and tomorrow being Labo(u)r Day.
We also met our landlady's daughter, who heard we were trying out churches in the area and invited us to go with her and her husband to the Evangelical Free church in Ft. Langley next Sunday. Apparently, it's going to be a big outdoor service to kick off the year! Should be cool.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Day 2 so far
I slept pretty well on my shiny new (satin, so they are literally shiny) sheets, and woke up at 8:30 to have plenty of time to get ready in time to walk to the local Lutheran church, which has a 10:30 service.
The only wrinkle so far with the basement suite is that Mackenzie and I can't figure out how to work the shower head. (It may actually be broken, or we may just be clueless. Either way, we'll talk to our landlady after lunch.) So we ended up taking sort of baths this morning, for the first time in a really long time. But hey, at least it worked all right.
Oh - while eating breakfast this morning, we noticed that not only do they translate all the nutrition facts and stuff on the cereal box into French, they also translate Rice Krispies' "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" into French! The version a la francais is "Cric! Crac! Croc!" Hee.
We were both slightly nervous to see if the Lutheran church was more conservative than we're used to - as in, would we be the only women who weren't wearing a dress? - but we decided on the walk over that if so, we would just take the attitude that this is after all a "foreign" country, so we could just use differences in local custom as our excuse. ;) The walk is not far at all, and the weather was absolutely beautiful.
As soon as we arrived in the parking lot (which was nicely full), we saw that we wouldn't be the only women wearing pants, which was a relief. :) The church has recently gotten a new facility built, and it's very pleasant. A cool surprise upon entering the sanctuary: our friend from KCC, Kristina, was there! So we sat next to her and her friends.
The service was very good. It's clearly meant to be inter-generational, since we sang both hymns and more current worship songs, including my absolute favorite Michael W. Smith song (Agnus Dei). The sermon was good, as well, and it only took Mackenzie and me a little while to get used to how the pastor said "about" and "been." I think it'll take longer to get used to "again" and "against", for some reason. Maybe because that's not as big a part of the stereotype Americans have for Canadian accents. We also noticed that his accent got a little stronger when he started talking about where he's from - Saskatchewan.
Another plus about the sermon was that he showed a clip from The Fellowship of the Ring to illustrate how when one person takes on a big goal - like Frodo accepting the responsibility of taking the Ring to Mordor - other people might just join in to help. And even though there were some minor technical difficulties in showing the clip (just like home!), it made Mackenzie and me quite happy... and also made us want to watch the movies again. Hee. But more importantly, we decided that we certainly wouldn't mind coming back to that church again, though we do want to try other ones that were either recommended to us or looked good when we looked around for churches near this house.
Now, time for lunch. More later.
The only wrinkle so far with the basement suite is that Mackenzie and I can't figure out how to work the shower head. (It may actually be broken, or we may just be clueless. Either way, we'll talk to our landlady after lunch.) So we ended up taking sort of baths this morning, for the first time in a really long time. But hey, at least it worked all right.
Oh - while eating breakfast this morning, we noticed that not only do they translate all the nutrition facts and stuff on the cereal box into French, they also translate Rice Krispies' "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" into French! The version a la francais is "Cric! Crac! Croc!" Hee.
We were both slightly nervous to see if the Lutheran church was more conservative than we're used to - as in, would we be the only women who weren't wearing a dress? - but we decided on the walk over that if so, we would just take the attitude that this is after all a "foreign" country, so we could just use differences in local custom as our excuse. ;) The walk is not far at all, and the weather was absolutely beautiful.
As soon as we arrived in the parking lot (which was nicely full), we saw that we wouldn't be the only women wearing pants, which was a relief. :) The church has recently gotten a new facility built, and it's very pleasant. A cool surprise upon entering the sanctuary: our friend from KCC, Kristina, was there! So we sat next to her and her friends.
The service was very good. It's clearly meant to be inter-generational, since we sang both hymns and more current worship songs, including my absolute favorite Michael W. Smith song (Agnus Dei). The sermon was good, as well, and it only took Mackenzie and me a little while to get used to how the pastor said "about" and "been." I think it'll take longer to get used to "again" and "against", for some reason. Maybe because that's not as big a part of the stereotype Americans have for Canadian accents. We also noticed that his accent got a little stronger when he started talking about where he's from - Saskatchewan.
Another plus about the sermon was that he showed a clip from The Fellowship of the Ring to illustrate how when one person takes on a big goal - like Frodo accepting the responsibility of taking the Ring to Mordor - other people might just join in to help. And even though there were some minor technical difficulties in showing the clip (just like home!), it made Mackenzie and me quite happy... and also made us want to watch the movies again. Hee. But more importantly, we decided that we certainly wouldn't mind coming back to that church again, though we do want to try other ones that were either recommended to us or looked good when we looked around for churches near this house.
Now, time for lunch. More later.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Random discovery
From change that I received from various American businesses by mistake in the past couple of weeks, I have now discovered 36 cents in Canadian money! I should invest this...
Move-in day
So Mackenzie and I made it up to Langley today, and we're all moved in! Well, we forgot a few things, but they weren't too essential, thankfully. I think. Ahem.
Anyway! We drove up in two cars today - Mackenzie and I with our parents and our brother. We got a later start than we'd planned, but that's pretty much business as usual with our family, and we didn't have a defined appointment with our landlady either, so no big deal. The trip up was smooth, and the border wait wasn't too bad. And even the process of getting student visas was surprisingly smooth! They just wanted to see our passports and the documents that Trinity had told us they'd need. They didn't even charge us a fee, and had them ready in about 10-15 minutes. Nice!
Then we moved in all our boxes at our new place, and the landlady went over a few more things with us. We also met her granddaughter, who is about one year old and is adorable. Her son-in-law showed us how to use all the numerous remotes we're going to need for the entertainment system (!!) and made sure our internet connection was working all right - both very important things. Hee. Then the whole family went out for dinner at A&W - darn good root beer! Interestingly, this was the first time Mackenzie and I had eaten at an A&W. Kind of reminds me of how we had our first ever Big Macs at a McDonald's in Thailand. We just have to be non-traditional, I guess!
The last stop of the day was picking up some groceries at a nearby store, which will hold us over for a while though they were much more expensive than we'd been expecting. It will be a while before the novelty of seeing all the writing on packages, signs, etc. in both English and French will wear off for me, I think. Good for keeping me literate in French, too!
Anyway! We drove up in two cars today - Mackenzie and I with our parents and our brother. We got a later start than we'd planned, but that's pretty much business as usual with our family, and we didn't have a defined appointment with our landlady either, so no big deal. The trip up was smooth, and the border wait wasn't too bad. And even the process of getting student visas was surprisingly smooth! They just wanted to see our passports and the documents that Trinity had told us they'd need. They didn't even charge us a fee, and had them ready in about 10-15 minutes. Nice!
Then we moved in all our boxes at our new place, and the landlady went over a few more things with us. We also met her granddaughter, who is about one year old and is adorable. Her son-in-law showed us how to use all the numerous remotes we're going to need for the entertainment system (!!) and made sure our internet connection was working all right - both very important things. Hee. Then the whole family went out for dinner at A&W - darn good root beer! Interestingly, this was the first time Mackenzie and I had eaten at an A&W. Kind of reminds me of how we had our first ever Big Macs at a McDonald's in Thailand. We just have to be non-traditional, I guess!
The last stop of the day was picking up some groceries at a nearby store, which will hold us over for a while though they were much more expensive than we'd been expecting. It will be a while before the novelty of seeing all the writing on packages, signs, etc. in both English and French will wear off for me, I think. Good for keeping me literate in French, too!
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