Whistler part 2

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So last time i spoke to you all i was snowboarding with Johnny and his housemates and whistler, much of this has continued for the last four days, ive been having such a great time. when i got home on wednesday night, however, there was a bit of bad news; Helga (the lady who runs my hostel) had to go to Montreal to see her dying mother so instead i got looked after by a couple who live in the flat under the B&B, Clive and Sachi; Clive is from london, an ex copper who has lived and worked in hotel security in Canada for the last 20 odd years. Sachi is his Japanese wife who works in hospitality. She made me some amazing breakfasts over the last few days. Clive is really friendly and is into cool music, lol it was
a bit of a change eating breakfast to clive's heavy blues rock music instead of Helga's normal
atmostpheric classical or opera singers. I love hearing music in the morning that makes you
wanna wake up rather than easy listening stuff.

During the day ive still been boarding and been trying out some jumps and grind rails to pretty good success, check out the pics. On friday night there was 4cm snowfall which meant that the top of whistler
mountain on a run called "7th Heaven" there was some nice powder to shred. Its my first time on powder and it feels rele cool cos its like ur floating on a light fluffy carpet, it feels like surfing.

The aprés ski is brilliant, sitting on terraces overlooking the slopes with ice cold Kokanee beer. I do love Canadian bars because they always play good music, stuff like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Van Halen, Scorpions and Hendrix; much better than all that pop and R'n'B nonsense at home. Not to mention all of the waitresses are good looking and really friendly; also when you eat there is always a bottle of hot sauce on the table. The only thing i dont like is their tipping system, not just applicable in bars it is compulsory to give a 10% tip on everything, be it a round of drinks or taxi fares. I think its really unneccessary most of the time, i mean you wouldnt tip a bloke in a pub for pulling you a pint would you?

Things are really livening up here because of the olympics. On friday i came off the slopes and walked through whistler village and it was buzzing with loads of international people waving Canadian flags and watching some live music being played on the newly erected stages. It turned out this was the day that the olympic torch was being paraded through whistler. There were hundreds of police on every corner and lots of "Go Canada!!" being chanted. There were lots of team athletes in their country's tracksuits. It was a bit cheesy as you would expect but still a good experience to see.

On the walk home that day i saw a sign on a bus that said "British Columbia- The best place on earth" quite a bold claim i feel.

I was originally planning to leave on saturday but found out that the Colts were playing the Saints for
Superbowl 44 on sunday so had to stay for that. There was a group of about 15 of us that arrived at 12 midday and many pitchers of beer later, left at around 9pm and headed onto a few other bars and a club. It was a funny game and Stuarts brillant idea was "shot pot", we gave the waitress a loada money and everytime there was a touchdown she brought us a round of shots and took money outta the pot...genius.

I now write this on tuesday on a bus from Vancouver to Seattle. Johnnys housemate Stuart has said that
its a great city to visit so thought id come for a visit instead of seeing too much of Vancouver. The bus
is only costing me £30 return for 4 days so thought it was worth it. I passed through Vancouver and was
greeted by the sign "Vancouver- A nuclear weapons free zone" lol, looking forward to seeing it on my return on friday.

Until my next entry

Chris

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Comments

[Phil Silver]

Sounds brilliant mate. Just watching on BBC now the Olympics and they're live from Whistler Skier Plaza! Hope you're having a great time in Seattle, you've a point about those waitresses, ha.