Jetlag be gone!!

Dear Lynette,

So we have been in Calgary for 5 days now. It's been pretty hectic with sorting out insurance, banks, meeting work colleagues and learning how to navigate the numbered/directional street names (i.e. 16th NW). Its actually a very logical system but when you have lived your life in countries with street names its a bit of a challenge at first.

James and I are both finding it hard to get over the jetlag. We have done the sensible thing of holding out to go to bed at the Calgarian "bed time" and tried waking up with the rest of the city, but yesterday we had to give in and catch up on some sleep during the day. I think its going to take a little while longer till we have fully adjusted to this time zone. James is off to his first full day of work today (seminars and meetings so we hope he can keep his eyes open!), I start next week so I get some time to relax which is nice.

Accommodation here in Calgary is pretty tight at the moment, especially if you are looking for a fully furnished place. Apparently we are lucky we didn't come in September when uni started as all the accommodation around the uni had been taken by the uni students. We had a look at a "basement suite" which is basically a unit/apartment with all the trimmings located in the basement of a house. They are common in Canada, but reviews have been mixed. If you do decide to get one its recommended that you find one with windows, preferably large ones to let in as much light as possible, and make sure that the door won't be snowed in! The suite we looked at was large with lots of windows and meet all of our requirements but the landlord seemed pretty dodgy (and not in a good way!), so we gave it a miss.

We have been a bit worried about finding some accommodation in our price range that met our requirements and were going to stay on at the uni in their townhouse for an extra month when we came across a lovely wee condo a 20minute bus ride away from the uni that is just fantastic!! Ideally we would have preferred to be on the LRT (light rail train) route which is much more reliable in heavy snow but this place is really nice and there are several bus routes to chose from which should make getting to work in winter ok. We move in on Halloween. (The kitchen is huge and we have an extra bedroom set up for visitors and we are on the bus route to a major mall as well as having a nice community shopping centre near by). James and I are both looking forward to being able to cook for ourselves again!

Anyhows I am going to head off and have look around the area today fingers crossed I don't get too lost!!

Love heaps
Chantelle

P.S. big hugs to Linda and Johnno I am thinking of you.