I have to move to vancouver.

What sorts of things are you interested in? Vancouver has a lot of offer culturally - great location - sea and mountains - awesome food city - super universities. What do you want to explore?

hmmm...
well, im going into high school, i am a swimmer, i like to eat, i like the parks.
any tips on meeting and making some new friends? should i stay in touch with the ones back home?

It's a VERY beautiful area with a ton of outdoors things to do and see. And as ehbeth said, great food, great culture.

One thing you should do pretty quickly is prepare yourself for the dampness. You will get wet. When my wife and I lived up that way we each plunked down decent money on some REI outerwear that helps keep you dry but doesn't look like you're wearing a tarp.

I'd recommend that, highly.

i love rei. it is quite a lifesaver....

Stanley Park (10% bigger than NYC Central Park and one of the finest in the world) is an awesome place to hang out. It used to have an internationally-known zoo, but I hear they closed it down in 1997. The park now has a an incredible aquarium. It also has fantastic botanical gardens. Vancouver, BC has some incredible and varied Asian restaurants and a large Chinatown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Park

If you would be starting high school where you are now, you'd be meeting to new people in any case. That wouldn't be too different.

Gorgeous parks in and near Vancouver.

I changed schools a lot as a kid. Not because we moved, but because of new schools being built and changes in what I needed from school. It was long before the days of the internet/cell phones etc, so it wasn't that easy to keep in touch with people from previous schools. I didn't much care since I liked meeting new kids and teachers. I realize that not everyone enjoys change the way I did, so my suggestion now would be to keep in occasional touch with your old friends, but not to the extent that it prevents you from focussing on your new community.

while we were looking around the place, we entered the city through it's east side, where they had relocated and legalized all the meth addicts. great first impressions, lol.

hmmm...
i have a friend who moved to cleveland last year. at first he kept in touch pretty well, but as time went by, he never contacted us. he's rarely on skype, but we find ways to keep in contact. its annoying that he's so silent sometimes...

Hi! I live in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver.

Just for your interest, here's something to look at for things to do in Vancouver:

http://www.tourismvancouver.com/visitors/things_to_do/

Good Golly Tzar, how old is that map.
Vancouver still has a pretty good zoo, but it's about an hour or so out of Vancouver proper near Langley. Greater Vancouver is actually made up of several cities, Vancouver, Richmond, Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey, Maple Ridge, Aldergrove, Burnaby, West Vancouver, Delta, maybe even Mission and other town's like White Rock and Horseshoe Bay and so on..
There are mountains, lakes, trails, pools, great golf courses and universities, whales, seals, dolphins, yachts, cruise ships, three ski hills in town and the world class Whistler and 1 1/2 hours away.
Across the straight lies Vancouver Island with some of the best diving, skiing, fishing and surfing in the world, with forests of trees that rival the red woods in California. There are world class wineries tucked amoung mountains made for climbing, and quiet camp sites only you, the bears and cougars will find..
It's only 3 hours from Seattle, another very cool city. You'll fall in love with the city and I'm sure you'll make plenty of friends.

Actually, it's not near Langley, but in Langley, on 264th street. Aldergrove is just a community name within Langley.

I was there every month reading the meters when I was still working, as they were on my routes.

http://www.gvzoo.com/

Ha! Funny you should mention 264. My cousin lives in Langley, still not sure where the town is though.. Just after I moved to B.C. she invited me to tea one day, she asked if I knew where the zoo was, I blurted out the number before I even though about it. She was kind of amazed. I have that affect on people..
I took the ferry 20 years ago, sadly we were marooned on the wrong side and didn't stop to see the fort when we got across. I really wanted to go to the cranberry festival but missed it both years I lived out there. One day...

Langley is between Surrey and Abbotsford.




Here's a better map (PDF file):

http://www.hellobc.com/NR/rdonlyres/94212952-34DC-4D05-B2FC-74A0F93A18CF/0/LowerMain.pdf

I was just there, I guess if I'd taken the highway from Surrey to Abbotsford I would have tripped over it. My cousin's on the other side of the 1. I see I added a few cities and forgot a few.
The geography's much harder when you go from the flatlands to the coast... lol

Yes indeed. A newcomer to the area would be wise to have a map handy.

Vancouver-1798 map
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vancouver-1798map-FucaGeorgia.png

Tell your mom this:

I'm super-duper paranoid about this kind of stuff. I know I'm probably too paranoid, but what can I say, I am.

Yet I started a whole thread about the fact that I was moving to Columbus, Ohio (and got some really world-class advice in the course of that thread). Super-duper paranoid me.

I'm paranoid enough that I won't say exactly what neighborhood I live in, but I'm comfortable with revealing the city. It's a largish city. Vancouver's pretty big, too.

wrong thread, but...
thanks!