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Published: January 27th 2007
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The Falls
Here is the Jones clan at the falls. As you can see it is a bit fresh with the spray from the falls hitting them! Hi again!
And Happy Australia Day!!! We had a few (Canadian) beers over here to celebrate- don't you worry!
We are pleased to announce that the snow has finally arrived in Eastern Canada and we have stopped being poor bums and are now are honest working people! After continuing to bide our time in Toronto and mooching off Marks relatives we decided it was too dangerous to drive over to the West to work as they were having crazy blizzard weather. So we decided enough was enough and we were going to start the next phase of our trip as planned in Collingwood and live in our apartment and wait for the snow to come. Luck was on our side for once, and within the week it got considerably colder and snowed! The first night there was a 10-15cm dump! We woke up to our deck being white. We opened the curtains in our bedroom and lay in bed watching the snow fall- we were mesmerized and overjoyed! Blue Mountain, where we had our jobs lined up, then called us and the work began! Mark is working retail in a shop called Blue Basin in one of the lodges.
Disco Falls!
Here is a night time version- pretty cool isn't it? This is only done during the Christmas period. My position initially started as working in a coffee bar, but has now expanded to that coffee bar turning into a real bar after 11am so I am now a (unqualified!) bartender manning my own bar! The tips aren’t bad, and make my appalling below minimum wage salary now decent! We will both hopefully start doing the similar hours which means less trips to and from the mountain and more skiing time, drinking and playing time!
We have now also begun using the perks of working on the mountain and have done a night of skiing. Since I haven’t skied since I went to Dinner Plain with the hostelians about 4 years ago I was interested to see where my skills were at! Mark of course having been to New Zealand with the boys and then more recently to Hotham with Jim and Ev went flying down the mountain straight past me, but I wasn’t as bad as I thought I might be! Maybe all that ice skating was good preparation! I am intending on having a few lessons though (which we get 3 for free so that’s not bad) as next week we are off to Montreal to
Our snow covered digs
This is the entrance to our cosy studio appartment. As you can see we battle through the snow to get to the door! ski at Tremblant. We are going with Cathy’s school trip thus making it a very good deal financially! Apparently the mountain has some crazy runs there, so if I don’t want to be a client of ski patrol I better get practicing!
The week before we left for Collingwood and where our last entry left you, we ventured down to the hot tourist attraction of Niagara Falls with Marks uncle and aunt, Barry and Caroline. The falls are truly spectacular, not only to look at, but the sound of all that water is powerful. We saw the falls by day and illuminated by lights at night. We also ventured behind the falls themselves, accessed by a lower platform that was carved through to the falls. It was amazing. As if we hadn’t had enough visual stimulation for one day there was also a Christmas light display to look at. The town itself is very touristy and has been described as a Canadian version of Las Vagas- casinos and hotels galore. It made for a very touristy experience!
Last weekend we drove back down to Toronto to go to a Lacrosse game in Buffalo with Adrian (Cathy’s fiancé) as
Lacrosse!
We had the nose bleed seats... but it was still an awesome night regardless of all the hiccups along the way! his son Jamie plays with the Minnesota “Swarm” team. The drive from Toronto to Buffalo proved an interesting one. Not only was there uncharacteristically bad traffic making us late, but I cost us all a considerable amount of time crossing the border into the USA. It seems I did not have the appropriate piece of paper stapled into my passport (which already contained a US Visa and Canadian work permit, do you want any more documentation?) and thus all our passports were taken from us and we were directed into the immigration office where we spent the next 30mins waiting in a queue to get said documentation. In this process I was charged $6US and told that I was talking to much by the immigration officer (that doesn’t sound like me!) who then proceed to interrogate Mark and Adrian (who both carry Canadian passports)!! Oh my god what a nightmare! After all this it left us about 20 minutes to get to the stadium, which thankfully wasn’t far from the boarder. We got to seats about a minute into the game, then only to be informed by Jamies girlfriend that he wasn’t playing! Arghhh!!! By this stage all we could
The Swarm!
This is Adrian and I having dinner at half time. Go the Swarm!!! do was laugh and buy another beer to dull the pain! Even with all this disaster, it was still an awesome sport to watch. The atmosphere at the stadium is hilarious- there is a lot of audience participation, and being a Buffalo home game the crowd was rather boisterous! There is an announcer who doesn’t even recognize when the away team score a goal but instead yells out to the crowd when they miss a shot- “What do they have….” To which the crowd reply- “Nothing”. There are flashing lights all around, smoke comes out of the score board when the home team scores and there is music being played constantly- sound like we were in America?? Anyway hopefully our next trip to Tremblant with Cathy and Adrian proves more successful!
Hope you are all surviving the heat at home. We are thinking of you all sweating away as we shiver away over here! What did you all get up to for Australia Day? Would love to hear the drunken stories. We are pretty happy with Augie March winning JJJ's Hottest 100! Hope to hear all your news and hope that everyone is well.
Lots of love,
Blue Mountain
Here I am on Australia Day! The view at the top is amazing. Hill, town and then water (partly frozen!)- who could ask for more! Mark and Susie xoxox
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Jim
non-member comment
Hooray for snow!
Hi guys, sounds like you are having an awesome time! Everything here is going well, no snow though, it is a bit warm. Have fun skiing. Cheers