World Canada Ontario Guelph

Kings Travels

Guelph 27 May 2008

We have been here in Guelph for over a week now, and we are starting to find our way around a wee bit. Our first glimpse of Toronto out the plane was the CN Tower, which is the world's largest free standing structure. Hope to go there one day soon. (Dont think I will be going up tho, is 553m with a glass floor!!). We were picked up by friends of Rich and Sarah, which was great, didn't fancy making our way to Guelph by ourselves!

Their house is semi-detached, very compact, very up and down! Back yard about as big as our front yard. Its great, took us about 7 minutes to mow the lawn and do the weed-eating! Ground floor has kitchen, dining, 2 lounges and entranceway. 1st floor 2 bedrooms and bathroom, 2nd floor master bedroom with ensuite. Also a huge basement which has laundry, storeroom/workshop, and also the boiler/furnace. Don't want to forget your washing thats for sure!

We have had a look around Guelph city. About the same size as Palmerston North, has a huge university in the centre. The centre of town is only about 5 minutes walk away, with banks, library, post office, wee mall, cafes etc. The big supermarkets are about 35 min walk from here, quite a way to carry grocery bags. There is at least 4 big malls spread around the city (that we've found so far) also, about 3 times the size of Coastlands. Canadian Tire is a huge warehouse type shop which has everything you can imagine in it. Fun to have a look around these shops. We were all fascinated by the supermarkets here, so many choices of products, and convenience foods! It took us ages to do the groceries!! Prices seem to be cheaper here, even with the exchange rate (which is about .76 at the moment). Fruit and veges are sold by the pound so takes a bit of converting. And they have to say where the food has come from. There is a market just down the road from us every Sat morning, can get fruit and veges there - bit more expensive but fresher and locally grown.

We found a car to buy last week, privately. Need to get WOF and registered now (buyer pays for), and change the plates. So hopefully will have that by the end of this week. Ian has hired a car in the meantime so he can get to work. Second hand cars are quite expensive through a carsales, plus they are only about 2-4 years old. We found a old Chevrolet with low miles (owned by a older lady) so hopefully will last the year. Driving on the right side of the road hasn't been a problem so far, even Steph thinks its easy! Walking is different tho - never know which way to look first when crossing the road.

Ian started work last Monday in Kitchener, in training at HQ for a week while they asses him. He hopes to start on his shift next weekend. He managed to talk his way into riding the trucks whie he is at HQ in training. And they even have a firemans pole!!

Steph and I have looked at the pools, they are not big lane swimming pools like NZ, some of them are only 2 lanes wide! One older one is 5 lanes wide and is also 50m, divided into 2x25m. They are all on a bus route. We found some tennis rackets in the basement so had a bash around on a local court yesterday - exhausting! Also have 3 mountain bikes, so no excuse for sitting around!

Look forward to hearing from everybody.