Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
We listed our house on Homelink in the hope of exchanging in the winter of 2008-2009, ever hopeful that someone in Australia or New Zealand would want to ski at Big White (local downhill ski hill). No offers were immediately forthcoming so we started to send out feelers. One such was to Philip and Laurena Henschke in the suburbs of Adelaide. Seeing that Phil had done post doctoral studies in Canada we approached them and instantly got a very positive response. Although not downhill skiers they had cross-country skied back in their days in London Ontario and were willing to come back to Canada to experience another Canadian winter. After a lot of emailing we settled on an exchange to take place in February 2009. During the intervening months we became cyber-penpals, exchanging photos, notes on our activities, details of the exchange and so on until the time eventually arrived. Phil and Laurena landed in Vancouver on February the first and took the Greyhound bus to Westbank (our nearest bus stop) on February 2nd arriving in the late afternoon. It was like meeting old friends, Phil and I had emailed so much! We spent that evening and the next day exchanging information about our respective homes and surrounding. They read through the booklet I had prepared for them, explaining all the ins and outs of our home and neighbourhood. We introduced them to our next-door neighbour who was there to help if need be. On February 3rd in the evening friends came over for dinner who we thought would be compatible given that both husbands are doctors and Gabriel and Rosemay's families both live in Australia. They got along really well. We broke up the party early as we were leaving on our trans-Pacific flight the next day and all the others were jet-lagged! After all the planning tomorrow is the day!....
