The Story of My Life so Far - Part 102 - Finally moving to British Columbia, Canada
This is the story of my life so far: 68 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France
The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 101
Before moving with my four children to British Columbia, I had to organize the move of our furniture and stuff. It would go on a boat to Montreal, then on a train to Vancouver, before being delivered to the house I was renting in Richmond.
The moving company was supposed to come on a certain day and the packing was supposed to last for two days. But two days before the agreed upon date, they called me and explained that, because of a strike by the longshoremen in Le Havre, they needed to come early the next day, pack everything during the day and the moving truck with the container needed to leave before 4PM to go to Antwerp, otherwise it would miss the boat to Montreal.
And that is exactly what happened. While usually in a move, there are two or three packers, they were five or six and they worked from 7AM to 4PM without a lot of breaks. And the truck left exactly at 4PM, as scheduled. We would receive the furniture 3 to 4 weeks later in Richmond.
When they saw the house empty, my children knew finally that I was not joking when I said that we would move to Canada. And for young people 16 to 10 years old, they were very sad to be forced to leave all their friends for a long time. I had told them that we would not come back on vacation before 1996.
They asked me if they could invite their friends to visit them in British Columbia, and I had replied: "You may invite all your friends, but nobody will come". It was a little exaggerated, but the first of their friends who came to visit did it after at least 6 years, and I believe that there were less than five of them in total who came to visit.
We flew to Vancouver through London with British Airways on Tuesday July 5th 1994. We all had business class tickets, so on the transatlantic flight all the seats had a screen, which was not the case then in economy class. The four of them watched at least five movies during the ten hour flight from London to Vancouver.
At the Vancouver airport, we went through immigration and our papers were stamped appropriately. Hughes Aircraft had reserved rooms in the same hotel I had already spent 4 months from February to May. And they also gave me a rented car, so that I could come to work.
At the end of the day, we were finally in the hotel and we were happy to go to bead early, as it had been a long day.
Continue to Part 103
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Summary
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16
Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24
Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28 - Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32
Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35 - Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40
Part 41 - Part 42 - Part 43 - Part 44 - Part 45 - Part 46 - Part 47 - Part 48
Part 49 - Part 50 - Part 51 - Part 52 - Part 53 - Part 54 - Part 55 - Part 56
Part 57 - Part 58 - Part 59 - Part 60 - Part 61 - Part 62 - Part 63 - Part 64
Part 65 - Part 66 - Part 67 - Part 68 - Part 69 - Part 70 - Part 71 - Part 72
Part 73 - Part 74 - Part 75 - Part 76 - Part 77 - Part 78 - Part 79 - Part 80
Part 81 - Part 82 - Part 83 - Part 84 - Part 85 - Part 86 - Part 87 - Part 88
Part 89 - Part 90 - Part 91 - Part 92 - Part 93 - Part 94 - Part 95 - Part 96
Part 97 - Part 98 - Part 99 - Part 100 - Part 101
@vcelier This pretty impressive.. I could put my self in your kids shoes, I no how it feels to relocate from a part place. I can remember vividly back then when my parents waned to change my school, it wasn't funny to me then but to them it was the best option. I'm certain that it's only a matter of time and they'll get use to the place.
It must have been hard for everyone to leave many things behind but it was for a greater good I guess, plus I was impressed that there was one of your son's friends who kept his friendship and despite the years I visit in the same way that is true friendship
I can only imagine the excitement and anxiety that you would all be feeling. Such a big move. You ended up in a great place.