Wednesday, October 29, 2008

My life in Canada (June 2008)

June 2008:

Ineke and I met up a few more times after she moved here. I happened to be off on my birthday which was May 15 and she wanted to do something for me, so she envited me to her place for lunch and we would go for a walk after. I figured it might be an idea to pick up some Chinese food, so this way there wouldn't be any work for us (as in dishes). I picked up the food on the way to her place and once I got there I was greeted by the friendly little four footers. It happened to be a nice sunny day and fairly warm. When I walked onto her patio where she had just set up the patio furniture a few days ago, I noticed she had decorated the patio with balloons for me...HOW NICE! It was so great to see that and that's not all, she also bought a yummy chocolate cake for my birthday! Well, we would have to do quite some walking to work off all that yummy food...haha. After endulging ourselves in the Chinese food and the cake we took 2 dogs with us (Bella and Dax again) for a nice walk at Belcarra Regional Park. That was really nice. We walked for quite some time and the doggies seem to enjoy the walk as well. Dax just wanted to go towards the water, appearantly he loves swimming and he goes crazy when he sees the water, haha. He really kept on pulling towards the water, so funny. But he was okay after a while. We had a great day and I really enjoyed my birthday. It sure is nice to have a wonderful friend like Ineke nearby!






At the end of May Ineke and I went out again with 2 of the doggies. This time we took Dax and Pink for a nice walk in Barnet Marine Park which is a wonderful park as well. Here you have a big beach and a few smaller secluded beaches where the doggies could have fun and swim in the water. Boy did they ever have fun in the water...just have a look at the photos and the little video below! :)






For the rest nothing too much happened in June. Ineke was quite busy with a bundle of things and I didn't have that much time in June to meet her. But Michael and I did go out for dinner with her and Sandor (her husband) for a lovely dinner at Milestones which was great. We had a fun evening and hope to this again in the future. In other news I can tell you that I finally got a letter from Canada Immigration about my Canadian Citizenship. I had to go for my citizenship test and interview on June 24/08. Darn, that was bad timing as we would leave to Mara Lake for 1 week on that day. Well, we decided that I would take the Greyhound bus to Sicamous where Michael could come and pick me up. So, we went for a little trip to downtown Vancouver together to find out where the place was to do the citizenship test and where I would have to take the bus after. We enjoyed our time in downtown Vancouver and it was really nice to walk around there again. I would have to be in Vancouver on the 24th of June by 10.30am for the test and my bus would leave at 2.00pm in the afternoon. So, I would have plenty of time to take the test and get to the bus. I got to downtown Vancouver fine and I found that the citizenship test was really easy. They make it look so hard when you read the booklet for the test, but yet it if you read the booklet a couple of times it is very easy to do. There were 20 multiple choice questions and I am sure that I got them all right. The interview really wasn't an interview, it was more like a little chit chat and that was that. I got on the bus and the bus took off about 2.15pm, we would get to Sicamous around 10.00pm and was on my way to Sicamous. When we got to Salmon Arm, about half an hour from Sicamous our bus broke down and we had to get into another bus. Oh dear, I was afraid that Michael would be worrying on the other side as he was waiting for me in Sicamous. There was no way that I could reach him. Anyway, I finally got to my destination about 11.45pm. I was sooo happy to see Michael waiting there for me! Somebody at the office there had said that the bus broke down in Salmon Arm and we would be late. Thanks goodness, I was worried that nobody would be waiting for me. We got to Mara Lake and it was good to see mom and dad there too...but Fay and Dorothy went to bed already and I would see them the day after.


Some photos from Vancouver and my trip to Sicamous by bus




Our week at Mara Lake was great again as usual. The first few days it was a little cloudy and cooler, but by mid week it was really getting hot with warm summer temperatures. We were able to enjoy some afternoons on the beach and swim in the lake. The only problem was that the water level was quite high and there was not too much beach. But we had a little patch of beach where we could put our chairs and sit in the sun. We also went in to town a couple of times to look around, do some shopping and just enjoy the area. It was so good again to see Fay and Dorothy, they both look good and told us all the news and happenings from Calgary and Saskatchewan and we told them all our news. There wasn't too much news from us, but we were also getting ready for a big trip to Europe...so we talked about that. I also called my mom once from Mara Lake which is always nice and this way she doesn't have to miss me so much. My mom is looking forward to our visit to Belgium.


Some photos taken at Mara Lake


For my most recent post: --> CLICK HERE!

Please see my next post "My life in Canada (July 2008) for the rest of the story!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ann,

Loved your blog so far. I actually got here searching for Canadian citizenship test questions. It made me feel so much better that you felt the test was really easy.
Could you explain a little bit how was it for you? Did you study from the guide only? any online course or practice test you used?

I found many online but not sure they are actually what they say they are.

thanks for the advice. will keep reading your blog.