up until now...

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hey everybody.....

tried to set up this travel blog thing before we left but never got around to it so now im gonna try to catch up!!! i'll try to be brief...
we left for vancouver friday october 27th 2006. leaving was really sad and probably one of the hardest things ive ever had to do!! we caught a 13 hr flight to san francisco, where we thought we lost our luggage. we waited around for awhile, still with no sleep. our flight to vancouver was on alaskan airlines, tone didnt like it coz it was a small plane, like jetstar, but he pretty much slept the whole way anyway.
we got to vancouver airport and caught a taxi to our hostel, the driver was crazy though he wouldnt slow down!! he did tell us a lot about the city though. we got to pender lodge where we were going to stay for two nights, and didnt like it at all!! it was run by people who couldnt really speak english which made it hard and the rooms werent very nice at all. it was the cheapest hostel in vancouver for a reason! it was also on the outside of chinatown, somewhere i dont think ill visit again! dont really like the smell of dried out fish heads at dinner time... the first night we slept til 4pm the next day and had so much trouble trying to call home and buy a simcard (then realised i didnt even have a canadian adaptor), it made things seem even worse! and we were hungry...two pieces of weird chinese bread (tastes like cake) with peanut butter just isnt enough for two days!
we ended up staying the two nights but didnt get out much, and moved to another hostel on granville st, the main street of vancouver. this hostel was really nice, we had a nice room with a bathroom and it was right in the centre of the city, which meant listening to club music til 4am, but free breakfast! mmm danish....so we spent the first few days sleeping in and trying to get our body clocks right, it took about 2 weeks! we got a free nights sleep too coz we had mice!! we had to move at 3am...kinda my fault but dont tell the hostel that....
the food here is so massive...by the way australian kfc is so much better...went shopping a lot, went to the ice hockey and saw the vancouver canucks play...such a big thing over here...it was good though....and met dusty and amber, who said we should do the snow season at big white....caught the skytrain & went to metrotown, haha, ate pounini, entered the scissors, paper, rock tournament at the royal, went to the aquarium and saw beluga whales, and rode around stanley park on bikes. it rained a lot! i miss wearing thongs...went to grouse mountain one day and saw snow for the first time in canada! and ate it...was pretty cool, we saw grizzly bears and white wolves too, and decided we wanted to do the snow season in canada. we also went to the capilano suspension bridge, 70 metres high or something, and did the treetops walk...pretty cool. of course it was raining though...went on a pub crawl and met a group of swiss guys too...tried their tobacco..dont get it...dont think tone will be drinking jagermeister anytime soon...he got us kicked out so we had to move on...but at the next one we got free peanuts!! i think when you're backpacking you appreciate anything thats free, especially bananas! after that we figured out that the whole time we'd been in canada we were living an hour ahead! what! so for 2 weeks we've been getting up too early...something i never do!!
we bought all our snowboard gear, something i never thought id do, and spent about $1000 each! we got interviews to work in housekeeping at big white, which is about 7 hours away from vancouver, 1 hr from kelowna, in the monashee mountains. before we left we met paul the german, and decided to rent a car and take a road trip up through the rockies to banff and then to big white. watching tone drive on the other side of the road through snow and ice in pitch black dark was not the most fun! after scratching up the mirror in the first hour on the side of a bus and getting a huge chip in the middle of the windscreen, we ended up having to pay nothing! what? the trip to banff was really pretty though, driving through the snow covered rocky mountains is pretty amazing. banff was small but pretty, with nice views of the mountains surrounding it. no moose but we did see those big sheep things with horns...we stayed there about 2 days, tried out our snowboards a little and figured out i had mine the wrong way (im goofy!) then drove down to kelowna, had to wash the car coz it was supposed to be black but when we came back it was brown...and bargained with the taxi driver to get up to big white (about an hour and a half drive up the mountain). got to big white and booked into the hostel (more expensive than vancouver and not so nice!). straight away decided i hated it and wanted to try out whistler instead, which is a 9 hour bus ride back where we came from!! booked the bus and packed and then changed our minds and decided to stay half an hr before the bus left!!! after we had rejected the housekeeping jobs we went back to say we wanted them back...luckily it was still ok!
there's just not a lot here, the village is one building, theres a little market, about 3 restaurants and 2 pubs. thats it...the rest is residential buildings and hotels etc. we have to drive an hour and a half back to kelowna to do all our shopping and buy phone credit, and get back to civilisation...i wasnt sure how long id last in a place like this! finally got to go to wal-mart though!
but we started our jobs anyway and moved into staff accommodation, which is a two storey place with 8 other people...we have the only downstairs room though so its ok. we do have a hot tub but not allowed to use it! the boys are trying to fix that though...we'll let you know if we get evicted...everyones nice and fun so i think itll be cool...we also met another group of guys who we've been hangin out with, matt, casey, and tom...been to the pub, the only pub, a couple of times, its pretty good...just dont go drinking then drive into a pile of snow head first with rocks underneath coz tone says it hurts...
housekeeping sucks and i hate it already....but apparently we get tips and we got paid to watch movies and sleep the other day...cant complain too much!
we went snowboarding for our first two days...hahahaha....it was minus 26 degrees the first day! and its been snowing a lot....pretty cool coz ive never seen it actually snow before! and snow flakes really do look like what they are on tv!! when u look up close....started out with a lesson which was pretty good...i just suck at getting off the lift! i hate it, it scares me every time! but im going ok, tone is pretty good he picks everything up real easy anyway...he's already trying his 360s....at the end of the two days i could hardly move my head and couldnt reach my arms up to my head...so sore. we went again yesterday, i went out with katy (who we live with) and my bum and knees are so sore!!! we went up the big lift though to the top, where there's a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains...and went down that run where i twisted my shoulder on one arm and my elbow on the other...i nearly thought i broke it! its so sore today and both my legs are killing, i wanted to go out again but tone wont let me coz im injured!! it sucks coz its our only two days off til next week but im in so much pain! guess it jus takes time but im so impatient! we went ice skating on the lake and played ice hockey...tone copped a puck in the shin....it was fun, pretty cool skating on a frozen lake too! and we went tubing last night which is probably the most fun thing ive done since we got here...probably coz it doesn't hurt!! it was heaps of fun though...
so i think thats the main things up til now...sorry it was a bit long but i tried to make it as brief as i could to cover a whole month!
oh and we also have our own christmas tree in our house..one that tone and the boys cut down with steak knives the other night..haha..its kinda weird looking but it does the job!! beer cans make nice decorations...

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Photos

bear
grizzly bear or black bear...cant remember which is which...our first sighting on grouse mountain

lake louise
famous lake louise

rocky mountains
some of the views driving through the rocky mountains...

our house
our house on snowpines road in big white...the snow covers over the stairs a lot but its fun to slide down!

big white
some of the views around big white...so pretty!

Comments

[Arthur]

wow
wow I knew it was a steep mountain the trees actualy grow sideways