Tuesday 31 March 2009

Snow babe

Seymour is dead. Long live Whistler mountain.

That's right, folks, Mt Seymours, Grouse and Cypress have nothing on this place. On our 3rd day in, we've been particularly lucky with the snow. Sunday was gloriously sunny, yesterday had bad visibility, but the snowfall all day held promises of better skiing today. And so it was. Fresh, deep powder all the way :-) A particularly good run was Cockarlorum (not sure of spelling on that, and no piste map to hand to check, so we'll go with phonetics for now), in the West Bowl, which you access by a drop in, right down onto deep snow and then deep, soft snow all the way.... Q and I have also been doing a lot of moguls, off piste runs and tree runs, and skiing pretty much top speed down the blues and greens. He's been great at teaching me how to better tackle the moguls and tree runs, and (bless him) putting up with my mini temper flares that I'm prone to when I feel I'm not doing something the best way I could. But by the end of the day something had definitely clicked and I'm doing them way better than I was on Sunday. At least my legs seem to be holding up better - I need fewer breaks mid run ;-)

Had a few wipe outs today as well! A particularly good one was in the West Bowl before I'd quite got my balance for quite such deep snow, and didn't come out of a turn well enough. However, the best one was on a fairly easy, long blue (wait, it does get better..). Q was ahead of me just at where the piste went over a lip to a steeper section and suggested I go for the jump. So I did. What he'd neglected to notice was that where I would land was a patch of ice followed immediately by a big mogul. I went onto the ice, got control but failed to spot the mogul. My skis stopped there and I carried on, tumbling down the slope a few metres. No broken bones or bruises though, and once I'd scraped as much snow out of my ear, jacket and hat as possible, we carried on down to the bottom.

We're staying in a lovely hotel right in the centre of Whistler village, about a 10min walk from the main lifts. The lifts all shut at 4pm (Whistler 0 Mt Seymour, Grouse and Cypress 1) here so there's quite a lot of time in the afternoon for other activities. So far this has involved pool and hot tub and I'm eager to investigate the end of season sales due to only having one glove left. I impressively left one glove on the first gondola we went up on Sunday. That's right, even before I'd put my skis on...I'm managing so far with an under-glove lent to me by Georgia (Q's sister) but tumbles into deep snow are better with water proof gloves.

Time to put this baby away now, but we've got another six days here so there may well be another blog entry from here before we leave.

Sunday 22 March 2009

Fun and games in the park

Once again, greetings from the window sill. I know it's been a while since I wrote last, and that's not (entirely) due to neglect, but rather nothing much happened of new to make an entry seem worthwhile. However, over the last week or ten days, new elements have woven themselves into daily life, so I thought it was time for an update.

First off: it's been a week since Q arrived in Vancouver and so far, I am coping with the addition of yet another boy in the mad house! It's great to have him in the same time zone. He's jumped straight in to the job hunt. He's looking for sensible jobs at the moment - still full of the "newly- arrived" snobbery that prevents you from filling out the Starbucks application form. We all give him another week of this luxury! In general, walking in to places, such as restaurants, bars and shops to present yourself seems to be a more effective course of action than sending off resumes and cover letters to the invisible waiting room that is craigslist.com - a rich source of job postings, but disappointingly thin on the responses. He's staying with us for now, and will probably look for his own place once he has some income from a job.

Last Saturday we had our house-warming party. It was also a celebration of Loic and Sophie's birthdays. And it was mad! Our basement was transformed into a bar/club with the aid of a home-made bar, some painted shamrocks, music and some green light bulbs. Not sure how many people came but it was a lot! Mainly Australians. The clean up job was a project the next day! But a good night had by all.

I've been doing about 23 hours per week at Eco Outdoor Sports and so far it's going really well. My job title is sales associate, and my day gets filled with tasks such as merchandising, stock taking, sorting out the back office but mainly we're meant to engage with customers. The prospect of sales targets to hit every day is daunting, and I find it hard to push if it's obvious they'd rather be left alone, but generally, I've hit or exceeded my targets. Which is a surprise to me! And the days that I don't, it's no big deal. I enjoy remerchandising the store, and using my creative side to think out the best layout for the store and stock. Once you have a rapport with a customer going, shopping with them becomes less of a sales task and more a personal shopping experience.

Next Saturday, I'm off to Whistler with Q and his family for a skiing holiday which I'm really looking forward to. Apparently the snow hasn't been great this season but has been improving in recent weeks, so I hope it carries on. Typical, the one year I leave Europe, it has a better snow season than Canada.

This afternoon was one of the most fun I've had for a long time. We all went to a nearby park armed with a frisbee, football, basketball and cameras. The six of us spent the next few hours playing football, 3 on 3 basketball and clambering all over the playground, including a hilarious game called Blind Tag. One person is IT. The others all take up positions on the climbing frame/play area. IT then has to search around with their eyes shut to try and tag someone whilst everyone else climbs around trying to avoid them. Only one rule: your feet must not touch the ground! A few bruises, a broken, bloody nail and six muddy people later, Kev, Nath and I are awaiting dinner to be cooked by Chris, Q and Loic, 11-9 losers in the basketball, the winning hoop shot by yours truly... :-)

Friday 6 March 2009

Life with Domestic Gods and Goddess

Six days in and the house has really become home for us all. It's great to have a place of our own, our own rooms, a kitchen we don't share with 100 others and our own space. We have lovely neighbours who have been really helpful, and have given us all the numbers we need to get water/gas/cable set up so we don't lose power in about a week. Generally, we all feel massively lucky with this place - loads of space, the veranda is great and we can leave the front door open to let the outside in and make it feel even more roomy, and a lovely quiet, safe location that's minutes from shops, buses and easy access to downtown.

Buying food seems to be an almost daily occurence though! I have new found sympathy for my parents when they have a full house of five adults to feed on the rare occasions we're all home. But we've got a loosely everyone buys and everyone eats system, and we all pitch in with cooking. Loic is especially good in the kitchen, having whipped up iles flottantes with home-made caramel and creme anglaise this afternoon!

We also seem to be a very handy household - fixing things, moving furniture to more useful places, painting, making the most of space, it's all good.

Life is settling. We're starting work, last night we saw some friends from the hostel, and I've already met up with Caro, a friend who was in Toronto and has arrived here til the summer. We're also planning our first party, a joint celebration for Loic and Sophie's birthdays (Sophie is a friend from the hostel), St Patrick's day (for the Irish contingent!) and our housewarming! Also it's the day Q arrives, so we can throw a welcome to Canada element in there too.

On the job front, I had a day's training at ECO Outdoor sports yesterday. It was very thorough, a little tiring, but I was impressed overall. It feels like a really friendly, cool company to work for. Am slightly daunted by the pressure of sales targets but I'm sure it will be OK and easier than I think it is.

Well, I'm going to head indoors as my fingers are starting to freeze up and off to the cinema in a bit with Sophie to see Slumdog Millionaire. Check out Facebook for those of you who are on it for photos and video tour of the house! And we've got tons of room, so visitors welcome any time!

Bye for now xxx

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Settling in

Well here we are. This is coming to you not, as I feared, from a Starbucks or equivalent, but balanced precariously on the window sill of our living room, as it's the only place that picks up wireless networks in our home. So saving on overpriced coffee, but slightly awkward to write and it does cut out from time to time. We also have it on the veranda, which makes for a very modern twist on the notion of sitting outside enjoying the balmy afternoons and evenings.

However! We almost didn't make it! In the kitchen on Sunday ready to hand over the first month's rent, Chris made an innocent comment about the fridge not being clean as promised, which unfortunately awoke the schizophrenic beast within our mousy-looking landlady. She turned round, said "you know what, I'm not going to rent to you anymore" and proceeded, despite many attempts to calm her down, to lay into us for a good ten minutes. It was utterly bizarre, and not a little frightening! Not least because of the prospect of being back to square one. But the torrent ran its course, we paid the money and we got sweet Charlotte back, who then chatted on about how busy she was, her boyfriend, how women are great, and wished us a happy stay in the area. It does mean, though, that all problems to do with the house will have to be fixed by our own initiative because we never. want. to. see. her. again.

We've done a good job furnishing it for very little cost. On Sunday, Nathen and I drove around in a van we hired, whilst Chris stayed on internet duty ringing people who were advertising free/cheap things and then directing us to pick them up. A fun, tiring, long day, finished off by a late trip to Ikea which saw us get very lost (the map was in three bits by then, with middle section mysteriously vanished) only to find it, take the wrong exit and sail down the freeway headed to Seattle. By the time we made it back it was, of course, shut. We returned home to find Kevin back from work, locked out, sitting on the veranda using free internet. First evening was weird Chinese frozen take-out, followed by all camping down on the sofa and two mattresses in the living room under coats, thermals, towels because our bedding was still at Ikea....

But now, it's massively different. House is clean, furniture is set, beds arrived, rooms set up and unpacked and it really looks like a home! It's really, really lovely. We've got a ton of space so visitors welcome! Plus I have the best room in the house (advantage one of being the one girl in five!).

I've also got myself a job! Had an interview at an Eco store on Broadway - the main shopping street near us - and I have a training day on Thursday and then three shifts next week, with the possibility of more. Hurray!! I was sorely tempted to go and spend all the money I have yet to make on a new ski jacket - saw some beauties this morning but I resisted temptation. For now.

Also enjoying the pot of Marmite that Q brought out for me (thanks!). Kev said a few days ago that he didn't mind it (which I seriously doubted) so gave him some to try this morning. He clearly hadn't had it before, as his verdict? The devil's toothpaste.