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Published: February 6th 2009
Two of the newest instructors on the hill!
Maria (L) and me (obviously) in Merlins after the verdictFirstly, the important bit - I passed my level 1 instructor course!! The Alltracks crowd did everyone proud and managed a 100%!p(MISSING)ass rate (except for Nicole who busted her knee last Sunday and is now on crutches and Callum and Miranda who couldn't be bothered to take the course) - cause for much
celebration!
To give you a brief rundown of the week - it snowed really hard on Sunday night so that we had powder conditions for our first day of the course on Monday. Not ideal as we'd all been used to the hard-packed/icy conditions of the previous snow-free couple of weeks and it was first powdery then lumpy and hard work. Therefore I skied like an idiot and got very frustrated with myself. Tuesday wasn't so bad although our instructor Sarah insisted on taking us over bumps and through trees which aren't my favourite things and therefore I skied like a slightly less idiotic idiot. Sarah said I had a lot of work to do on my skiing... no sh*t Sherlock. Wednesday we switched instructors and Ken was great (he seems to be a head honcho in the ski school so I guess he should be!).
Snow conditions were perfect and groomed and he gave me a couple of excellent pointers which completely changed my skiing for the better. Thursday was more of Ken and lots of teaching - obviously I've learned well from Mum as I aced that bit! Either that or I'm just good at being bossy with my class of unruly boys ;-) So obviously we all went out for a few lemonades last night...
It's amazing the people you meet during/after a night out. First off it's Winter Pride in Whistler this week (I will clarify here and now that Dave was unaware of this fact when he booked his holiday here!) so I had an interesting conversation with a bunch of Californian gentlemen in the queue for Maxx Fish who were showing me the pictures they'd taken at the Gay Fashion Show they'd just been to... Much discussion ensued over which was the best model (I believe we settled on Mr New Zealand despite the weird skirt thing he was wearing) and what constituted unacceptable facial hair. Once inside the club there was much merriment and dancing and what I thought was a woman who looked like a cross between
a white Grace Jones and Brigitte Nielsen. Oh no. She/he/it took off her/his/its PVC backless top and lo she was a man! I think. I'm really not sure. Let's move swiftly on.
Bored of Maxx Fish we moved on to Buffalo Bills and apparently crashed someone's wedding... Not to worry - we were happy tucked up in a quiet corner, dancing amongst ourselves. On our way out at closing time Matt and I were queuing to get our coats when we bumped into a member of the Great Britain skeleton bob team... He'd apparently been competing in Whistler yesterday (it's the World Cup Bobsleigh event this weekend - more of which I'll tell you when I go tomorrow for the 4-man) and was off to Salt Lake City for his next event. No idea of his name, but if I suddenly scream at the TV next year "I've met him!" you'll know what I mean.
All venues now closed, Matt and I headed for our respective homes. Only to be accosted in the street by a young Swiss chap who wanted directions to his hotel. We were headed in that direction so got chatting - he's apparently a
wannabe pro snowboarder (I guess it's not unusual to meet such people here) and particularly gullible... actually believing that James (sitting outside their apartment making a phone call) was a local homeless man. He also thought that I was 24 so no reliance should be placed on his testimony m'lud!!
All in all a fairly eventful evening, although still no repeat sighting of the "coyote"...
Other news this week... Em, Fez, Dave and I went to the weekly 7-Eleven Fire and Ice show - fire dancers and then some of the ski school skiers and boarders doing jumps and tricks through a flaming hoop (see rubbish photos - may go back next week to get some better footage!). I finally managed to catch up with Alison, albeit very briefly and at the top of the mountain at the start of ski school on Wednesday and Thursday! Her level 1 course is next week so good luck to her. And after a T.com-on-Whistler at the Brewhouse and local creperie, Em and Fez went home :-( Thanks for coming over guys, it was great to see you and sorry the timings worked out as they did so I couldn't go
out with you as much as I'd have liked.
Right, I'm off to reward myself with some new ski gear and lunch at GLC with Dave. Speak to you soon!
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Suze
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Congratulations!
on passing Level 1! Sounds like you had fun with Em, Fez and Dave - So Dave could blame his sore head the next day on falling over and not on the booze!