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Hey hey! Well it's been a pretty awesome couple of days, I've been able to get up the mountain both yesterday and today. Whilst it's only been snowing lightly down here in the village, it's been snowing hard up top, as it was all yesterday. Lots of fresh powder to be had, with a bunch of off-piste little runs here and there. As for the progression I'm slowly getting there, today was definitely alot more comfortable, though keeping a decent speed to surf over the powder is a bit tough. Definite highlight for day 1 was getting off a lift without falling over, and highlight for day 2 was linking toe-side and heel-side turns. Some wild feelings plowing through waist-deep powder slowing sinking, then sitting back on the board and feeling the nose lift me up and out of the powder! So mad!!
Currently just chilling back in the apartment after dinner, feeling pretty sore from the day's boarding, and got all my gear in the laundry now washing it up for tomorrow! I start work proceedings on Wednesday so I think enjoying every day until then in the snow sounds like a good plan! Until next time!
I know I posted earlier today but just wanted to thank everyone for doing their snow-making dances and willing the snow, coz it's gonna be brought tonight! Was just out for a couple of hours, picking up some supplies, as well as getting my season pass (means I can start hitting the slopes!) and a pretty sweet uniform. Our work tops are North Face moisture-wicking tops which is gonna be mad, the pants are North Face cargo's with the same fabrics. And then they also give me Gore-Tex snow pants and jackets, all with the Whistler Blackcomb logo's on them. Hells yeah!
Anyways, the snow, as I was walking back up the hill to the accommodation it started falling! Only light but if it's snowing light down here it's heavy up there. The weather report, which was pretty average this morning, is now saying flurries (snow) for the next 3 days!
Score!
Whistler, BC 2C OvercastToday being laundry day gives me plenty of time to sit and write about the events of the past few days. Speaking of laundry day, I'm currently waiting on the results of whether I chose the right type of cycle to wash my whites in, time will tell!
Anyways, I arrived in Whistler on Monday and instantly unpacked, I will never underestimate the power of the act of putting your clothes in drawers as a way of making you feel comfortable. Also, finally got to see Jimmy again! We're in a group of apartment blocks specifically reserved for staff housing, conveniently called HOUSE. We've got a pretty nice little apartment with 2 bedrooms each with 2 bunks, a decent kitchen with a little toaster/oven that makes wicked nachos, and a lounge room which satisfies all lounging needs.
Tuesday was something of a paperwork day, wandering around trying to find everything I needed to get admin to start printing my staff pass. The village here really is massive, more of a mini city. To date I still haven't been able to successfully navigate it on my own, definitely need to grab a map today. Tuesday night, being the eve of one of the mountain's opening, there was a big party which they tell us is a tradition to do on the eve of the opening. That is to "Rock the mountain, and bring the snow", and their method for doing this is pretty great, that being handing around free beer and shots all night. Made for one crazy night, and definitely makes me start thinking about trying to get a DJ gig up here. At Merlin's Bar that night the DJ booth was in a gondola hanging from the ceiling, and big screens all around playing snowboard movies and such.
Basically today is a bit of housekeeping, doing the washing and vacuuming while the rest are at work earning a dollar. Looking forward to starting work next Tuesday, after chatting to Jimmy's manager on Tuesday night, she was talking up the huts higher up the mountain, which I believe I'm working at. Catching the gondola to work in the morning, and boarding home in the evening sounds amazing. And plus, going boarding means I finally get to strap onto my board. It's living next to Jimmy's board in the cupboard at the moment, one day, one day!
If you know of any snow-making dances then I'd love to hear it. Up around the top of the mountain is apparently excellent snow but it would still be awesome to have it all powdery down here near the village, instead of sliding around on ice all the time!
Until next time, time to see if my t-shirts are fun size...
UPDATE: haha! Take that "no tumble dry" sticker, my t-shirts still fit!
Vancouver, 8C Fine and sunnyWell it's day 2 here in Vancouver and the city is starting to grow on me. Managed to sleep from 6pm last night right through to 11am this morning, aside from the hour or so I spent awake discovering that my room is right above the outdoor area of the Beaver Bar downstairs, where they like to have late-night listenings of Dizzee Rascal and the The Beatles albums. Fortunately they also played a bit of Pendulum and SebastiAn hence I wasn't that upset about the situation.
I also picked up a new sim card today so you can now reach me on 604-9027-385. If you're sms'ing from Australia I believe you put +1 on the number, and if you're calling you'll need to put 0011+1 on the start of it. Shock of the day was that almost all Canadian phone companies charge you for "airtime" which is every minute you spend talking on your phone, whether you made the call or not. You also need to pay an extra subscription to be able to call 911, which seems a bit irresponsible. Cap plans pretty much dont exist either, I always thought we had it bad with mobile phones in Oz but these guys get charged for every little thing.
Alas, I basically spent the day wandering around Vancouver scoping out the city, which became very easy to navigate after only 2 days of being here. It truly is a sea-side town here, with the city going right up to the waterline and seagulls flying all over town. The picture above I took from the upper concourse of Waterfront station, I just love the fact there's another half of the city on the other side of the inlet that goes right to the base of the mountains, then just stops. And the fact those mountains are shrouded by clouds all day long, very picturesque!
Sunset begins at around 2pm which puts the sun on a hard angle, casting nice long shadows down the streets and giving the whole town a great golden glow. By 4pm you're walking with streetlights as the only light source, really messes with your body clock, save for the triple-shot coffee I accidentally ordered on the way back to the hostel, or maybe they did it because it took me so long to count out 72 cents.
Ah well, this is starting to become a pretty long post so I better wrap it up. The meetup for the people on the Moose Kickstart is tonight which will be good to meet some people. So far I've spent the past couple of days as one of those people that seem to survive without conversation, it's killing me! The kickstart is basically just a little 2-day package that they set up for the Whistler staff, you get a package on arrival that tells you where to get your social security number and whatnot. Then there's the meetup in the bar tonight, and all of tomorrow is spent touring around Vancouver in their bus, then on Monday we spend the day heading up to Whistler. The move to Whistler is very excitement, I've just been looking at their website and it looking pretty awesome, heavy snow in the village that's sticking around! Let alone the mountain now being officially open!
I've posted up some pics on facebook of my travels tonight, if you don't have facebook or are lazy you can click here to see the album.
That's about it for tonight! Do hit me up with comments and stuff!
Vancouver, 8C Overcast and showersSo the trip to Vancouver did an excellent job of convincing me that air turbulence isn't that fun, aside from some great new fashion statements like wearing your lamb curry. On arrival I felt a bit worse for wear owing to the lack of sleep. I still think all those people that sleep on planes are faking it, they actually have eyes wide open under those eyemasks. After collecting all the baggage and tracking down the airport bus we ended up shuttling around Vancouver to everyone's hotel. Of course for the backpackers they don't drop us off in front, rather, down the street in front of the fluorescent sign advertising 25c peeps, fun!
Arriving at 8.15am gave me the chance to get most of the business side of things done, like registering a Social Insurance Number and setting up a bank account. Made a nice excuse for a stroll through the city, which looked alot like Melbourne in it's layout and old/new theme, except with more of those big white vans that normally house a surveillance team in movies. Im not sure if it's the weather but the city just seemed so quiet, which I wasn't exactly complaining about, since it made it alot easier to get around and alot of the seaside areas were totally deserted.
Anyways, its coming off a bit like a kind of limbo. I see what Jimmy meant when he said he was sick of living out of a bag, it took me about half an hour to get sick of. Not staying long enough to warrant unpacking, but at same time needing to get into the bag several times a day for various stuff. Ah well, it'll be great to get up Whistler after this little adventure.
The final note Im making is how early the sun goes down, by 1pm the light was so dim it seemed like a normal Melbourne 6pm. So now it's 5.45pm and the sun has been down for a couple of hours, I feel like it should be around 9 or 10, but really, honestly, it looks like Im heading to bed before 6pm. Sleeeeeep....
So we set this blog up as an open textual and visual diary of our 6-month tour of duty at Whistler Blackcomb mountain resort in British Columbia, Canada.
We'll post images such as (better than! - thanks Jimmy) the one below as well as a couple more after the jump.
