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Vancouver part 2




He said YES!!!!!!!!!!!


Big apology to my devoted readers as I had to take this post offline for a bit because it needed some corrections, and I have been a little busy too! Anyway, here it is again!

My dad finally said yes! After all my arguments, telling him that it would be so much better for both if I went to Vancouver, that he only needed to take one plane, a direct flight, only 5 hrs away....  and that it ran twice a week, just in case!... he finally said yes, you can go!
I was the happiest person ever!!!!!! not only I had dodged the idea of going to Switzerland with nuns but also I managed to get my way and go to Vancouver!
After one long year of prepping and getting the student visa and what have you, I was very happy to actually be able to SHOUT..... I was leaving the crystal bubble (my lifestyle back then) and I was about to begin a new journey, the journey of life!

I was only 16 when I moved to Vancouver, the idea was, for me to go to ESL school for I think 6 months so I could become fluent in English and then I would get to go to high-school for the rest of the year.

I started living with a "host family" that turned out to be a Lady with a cat.-- a ghost cat that I never got to see..!
I would take the bus every morning after having breakfast,  go to school for 5 hrs a day... with people from all over the world, which was amazing! All my friends back home were taking holidays somewhere and I was going to school and for the first time in my life, I did not get to take any holidays for that Summer, yet I was happy, I loved the fact that I was in Vancouver, making friends, having fun, going to field trips, learning the language that apparently I already knew (so old school not so bad at teaching) because I ended up having to skip a couple of levels as I was getting bored and my teachers getting annoyed because I was answering all their "difficult questions" without letting anybody else do it. 
For the first time in my life I actually felt smart; in my old school I did doubt if I was actually stupid, I kept failing physics and math and my teachers were not nice with me. I remember that my math teacher was a friend of my dad, so every morning many fathers would gather at a restaurant after dropping their bundles of joy in school to have breakfast and chat...    well, math teacher was amongst those that got together and my dad belong to the gang too.... FFS...!!!!! the teacher would go to school, gives us a test, and go  back to mark the exams in front of the fathers, so by the time my dad went to pick me up, he already had seen my grade and not only that, my exam too! Now, tell me, wouldn't that scar a kid? It sure did leave scared! I really despised the guy ... but there is a God and I do believe in Karma.

Oh yes, ....Vancouver, for the first time and I am not ashamed to say it, I had to do my laundry, the first time I did, all my clothes went green,  I had green jeans, so I put everything into the machine and VOILA! it all came out green! So, for the next few weeks until it washed off all my t-shirts, knickers and bras were a very nice pastel green! Again, I was so happy that I did not care.... I felt safe, I felt awesome... I remember once I needed money for something and didn't have any, so I put my clothes on, was already after midnight and walked to the ATM a few blocks away to Broadway (I was living in Kits then) got my money out and went back home and to sleep! It was safe to do it back then, now I think about it and I go OH my, what on earth was I thinking?, yet when you are young, you do not really think! never mind thinking danger, danger! you just do not think!!! which actually made life so much fun and laid back!
I had to learn so many things, new cultures, new people, new everything.... and I was absorbing all like a sponge!

Remember the tour guide??? well, turns out he was a con artist, he took the money from my dad to pay school and the host family and basically...... disappeared, so one day I woke up and my "host mom" asked me if I knew when was her money coming in for her and of course my face dropped....! I was so scared and crossed at the bloke that I actually missed school that day, for the first time I had to actually use my brain and think of the best way to handle something tough, something that I was certainly not prepared for, yet I had to deal with it and without my dad's help, this was it, real life at its best.
So, I called him (the tour guide) and said... I would like to have lunch with you, I am feeling homesick (which I was NOT) so how about if I invite you for lunch at a Mexican restaurant.... who would say no to free lunch I thought..! And he fell for it, so I went out to meet him and after our lunch I grabbed a napkin and a pen, and I said, ok, can you please let me know how much money did my dad give you and for what? he then explained.... your dad gave me (I am going to make up the amounts as I really do not remember precisely, first month of school was paid cos my dad took care of that before leaving me) for the health insurance 1200 Canadian, for host family he gave me 3 months of 674 each, for school he left me 3000... overall  and I do not recall what else had given him money for, he had over 6000 Canadian dollars of our money!!!!!!!!!! that RAT bastard!!!!!
 I kept a straight face, or I tried and I was writing everything down as he was explaining in my napkin; Then I said, can you sort out the health insurance and let me know when that its done because It is of importance to me....  I trust you, I know you are not going to do something silly but can you just sign here agreeing that the stated these is the money my dad gave you! I mean, its just a napkin sooo! I was just being silly and playful with the napkin, he signed.... we said bye and that was that!
- I think from that day my fangs actually began to grow...-- My trusting issues started with that guy for sure! yet, now... I was alert!

I let my "host mom"-- yes, the lady with the ghost cat-- know what was happening yet I had to find another host family in the mean time because she had asked me to leave, she was already pissed off and why wouldn't she?, if somebody had promise her money and she had none, yet I had none either, not enough to pay her in full, so I could not do much about it... 
I just apologized and said let me sort this out....you will get your money, I had to tell my dad about what happened but by then I already have had an appointment with a lawyer to get our money back! I asked my dad for some more money to pay the lady and of course apologize again for what happened even tho it was not my fault at all.
I moved to another family, this time the "host family" was even odder than the lady with the ghost cat. It was another lady, with a cat yes, but this cat was amazing, he would actually open the door to my room and sneak in, he would sleep on my head and when it was morning he would actually lick my hair as if it was his own kitten, he was funny and cuddly and exactly what I needed, since then I fell in love with cats, his name was kitty... yes, what a cliche, all black but his paws and around his mouth were white. Also in the house at that moment Janice, (host mom) had another student from Japan and another tenant renting the basement, a Dr. at UBC with a teenage son that had meals and watched tv with all of us so it actually felt like living with a family. The downside was that it further away from where I was, this time I had to take two buses.
I was still dealing with the lawyer, I gave him the napkin that this guy signed and he said it was valid piece of paper so he rang this guy and gave him a fortnight to pay me back! The lawyer felt so bad about it that he only charged me for the phone call and he did get my money back within 5 days!! I was forever grateful and now fully aware of crooks, so I became isolated of anybody that belonged to Mexico, central or south America. I became a true Canadian at heart.
I had finished my course at the ESL school in half the time that was expected, after what happened, my dad asked me to pay the school in full, so I did and because of my amazing progress passing all my TOEFL and TOEIC exams with almost perfect scores I managed to ask the school to refund me the money for the months that I was not going attend because I had "graduated" and had nothing else to do in that school! Did meet great people there, I am still in touch with a couple of friends and one just came to visit me not long ago, I mean, can you believe that after 20 years you can still keep in touch with somebody that you  have not seen and still laugh and remember our life back then? It was great seeing my dear friend again.
Pacific Gateway was the school, before it was on Broadway, no its premises be stand on Robson street.
An off I went, Summer was over, fall arrived, all the leaves had fallen of trees and it was the first time for me to see the arrival of a season, the change was so beautiful and drastic. It went from green and blooming thousands of flowers everywhere to orange, browns and yellows! I LOVED IT!

The air was fresh, the rain would not stop.. it never stopped so I decided to be a part of the culture, I started to go to the library and began to read, I got into every single art class I could get my hands on, from painting to pottery making, I took aqua aerobics in the community center, went to the gym every evening and even started minding children some evenings, that was my first paid job ever and I am proud to say it, I was getting paid by the hour, it felt good. I just kept myself busy, I had no time to get bored, sick or anything else... Plus the fact that I started to go to high school, in this case a private one because I was already late for the school year and that was the only one that accepted me without much hassle due to my student visa. I did have to change my visa status but it was not a big deal. I was now officially an "immigrant". I was able to get healthcare at the same rate as any other college or University student, I had my social insurance number.
Also, after complaining a lot about the rain... and getting drowned whilst waiting for the bus and all that... I was already 17 so, I was able to drive legally. My dad got me a car, it was a tiny firefly by pontiac, almost purple in colour and a bit old yet it took me to places and I was happy. Now, I was able to pick my dad up from the airport and take him sightseeing or to places that he had not been.
We had fun with that little thing, until it broke hahaha! I guess the years on it started to show with an inexperienced lady driver :P .....


It would not surprise me if that was my car actually!
This time, my dad went big, he got me a new car, it was a Saturn, blue!
Yes, exactly like this car! I loved it!!!
It was the first time I actually had an accident with me driving, scary and I some times still have the aches provoked by such. It was not bad just a head on collision but my neck paid the consequences of the stupidity and distraction of the lady driver behind me that forgot to look forward whilst I was stopped at a zebra crossing and she basically stopped her car with mine! It was not huge but my head did got bashed and trashed!
Thanks to the Canadian system and car insurance, everything in my car got repaired and even I got paid therapy with a Chiropractor, the down side? the ER Doctor failed to give me a neck brace which made my top vertebrae stay straight instead of the actual curve that is supposed have.... hence the therapy which did help  a bit but until now I need to sleep with a buckwheat pillow (which now I changed for a memory foam that does not work as well) to actually give full support to my neck, and then years later I had another accident with a very heavy wooden box full of small jars with herbs that happened to land on my head (8 kilos worth) causing more pain to my already bad neck yet this time the actual bang fixed my neck and I had my curve back hence full mobility too! yay! but now I had to wear a stupid hard brace neck that I HATED so much!
Now that I think about it that would explain a lot of my crazies :)!











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