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Published: April 26th 2010
Snow capped Mountain
This was on my way from Vancouver to HopeI know, it's been a fair few days since updating my blog, but I've had a hard time getting internet access. I now have it so I'll be keeping you all updated again. So what I been up to over the last week or so???
I think I left off at being stuck in my hotel room as it was raining.
So the next day, it's time to head to Hope. I packed my stuff, went for some breakfast, bacon, eggs and hashbrowns, yum. I went and collected my bags and checked out, climbed into a taxi and I was on my way to the Greyhound Bus Stop. After waiting a good two hours as I was there early, I finally boarded the bus for my two and a half hour bus ride. Note to self, don't try try and read or watch a movie on lap top on a bus. For the first time since being in New Zealand I actually got motion sick and felt like crap most of the way. We stopped at Chiliwack for twenty minutes so I was able to stretch and have something to eat which made me feel a bit better. An
hour later, we were pulling into the small town of Hope. After getting my bags from under the bus, I headed for the Blue Moose Cafe where I was being picked up. But me being me, went in the wrong direction lol. After stopping and realising there was basically nothing in the direction I was going, I turned around and headed back, I then found someone and asked them where the cafe was. Ten minutes later I was sitting in a nice warm cafe drinking a milk shake, although Canadians version of a milk shake is made from ice, so eventually it felt like I was drinking a chocolate slushy. An hour later, I was needing to go to the bathroom, I thought, 'knowing my luck I'll go and Brian will turn up.' After closing the door, I realised there was no lock on the door, 'shit!' thirty seconds later, my door opens slightly then shuts after realising I was in there and I hear my name. 'Crap, I knew that would happen.' Once I'm finished, I head back into the cafe to meet Brian, Ben, Alex and Rach. We all had a laugh about what just happened and left.
We picked up Brian's fiancee Tara and tey dropped us off at a greek restaurant for dinner while they did some wedding stuff. I had already eaten so I just had a couple of beers and a tequila shot (a welcoming shot from Ben and Rach. While waiting for our food, Ben and Rach went outside for a cigarette, so I sat talking to Alex, although it was him doing all the talking as I couldn't get a word in. He was from Melbourne and excited about another Aussie being there. He seemed a nice enough guy except for an ugly lip ring hanging out his lip. (shudder at the thought) When Rach and Ben came back in, they ate their food and we all talked a bit more. About an hour later, Brian and Tara came back and picked us up and we all headed to the supermarket. $140 later, I was coming out, I had to make sure I had enough food for two weeks, hopefully I did. We then headed to the bottlo where I spent another $60 on beer and breezers. After packing everything back into the truck, we all climbed in and headed to
res. After unloading the truck and putting away my grocery's we headed to the point where they had a fire set up, I met Chris who was from England and Andrew from Germany and we all sat around the fire having a few drinks and listening to music. Heading back to the house was to be sharing with Alex, I made my bed while Alex sat on the spare bed in my room and talked for another hour, I was so tired. Again, I figured he was excited about having another Aussie at Res. Eventually I told him I was tired and I was going to bed, he slowly got up and left my room, sleep time, what a day.
Brian gave me Monday off to get myself used to my surroundings. I woke up at like 8am because Alex doesn't know how to get ready for work quietly. I was whn I was having breakfast that I realised how filthy the house actually was. I didn't even want to shower without either wearing thongs or scrubbing it first. So my day off consisted of me doing my washing and cleaning the house, not the best way to spend
The Point
This is where the fire happens my first day, but at least I'm now leaving in a hygenic environment lol. After the cleaning was done, I was still waiting for my washing to finish so I watched a movie and read some of my book until everyone got home. That night, I made myself some dinner or the first time and had a couple of drinks with Rach and Ben.
New day, my first day at work. Talk about the easiest day in the world. I was told to walk around aimlessly to see where everything was and go up and down on the tram to get used to it. That was my first day of training. So I started at the admin office and had a chat to Cathy, who runs the restaurant, does admin and is the land lady at res, I talked to her for the best part of an hour. I then made my way to the fisheries exhibit and watched the three videos that we have playing in there, I had a look at the gift shop, which I already know what I want to buy from there lol, surprise, surprise! I then headed into the cafe where Rach and
The view
This is the view from the point at res Chris works and had a bit of a chat to them. After about two hours, I headed back up to the upper terminal and stood talking to Brian for the next few hours and occasionally going on the tram. One of the times on the tram, I was heading down to the lower terminal in Ben's Tram and Alex was taking rubbish up on Andrew's, as we past each others tram, Alex called us and said, 'looks like you two are getting pretty cosy.' Really angrily and hung up the phone. Ben and I had a good laugh about it. On the way up, I suggested to Ben that you give me a hug as we went back past if Alex was on it again, we saw that he was, so Ben wrapped his arms around me as we went past, we had a good laugh, the phone rang again and he said, 'why don't you two just get a room.' Again he hung up. Seriously, what the??? I found out tht Alex so excited that there was gonna be another Aussie, he told everyone that I was gonna be exactly the same as him and practically that I belonged
to him. Sorry mate, I'm belong to no one, least of all you!
That afternoon, Andrew, Chris, Alex and I, went into Hope with Ken where we went to an all you can eat chinese restaurant and did some grocery shopping for Andrew, afterward we headed to the Blue Moose Cafe to meet Ken and we found the stars of the Rambo bridge protests on youtube, Brian and Riley. We all got chatting and talking about the bridge, they decided they want all of the Hells Gate staff living at res to be in the final instalment, when it's done, I'll let you know where you can see it. I know its gonna be fun.
Ok, so my second day of training, I was working with Deb, Brian's sister, in the upper terminal learning the tills, not very hard after working on checkouts for the last ten years lol. Although, Deb laughed at me when I said eftpos, she had no idea what the hell I was saying, they call it debit here, so that's gonna take some getting used to lol. It was feezing day in the upper terminal, we have the wind coming in from the
The common room
This is located in my house front of the building and wind coming in from the back and on a cold and wet day, it's really not good. When I went to lunch I got myself a hot chocolate and some soup to warm myself up, mind you, it only worked until I got back from the lower terminal. I went up and down on the tram a few times, but not as much as yesterday.
For dinner tonight, Ben, Rach, Alex and I went to Elvis' Cafe which is on the same property of res where I ordered a burger, later we were joined by Ken and Kathy. We all had a good laugh and went back to Ben and Rach's place for a drink or two.
I had to start early today as my tram training was starting, I learning all about how the tram's work and what to do in an emergency, not that they have ever had one, part of my training entailed me climbing up onto the roof of the tram to release the brakes, while I was up there, I had a ride all the way to the lower terminal and back again standing on the roof of
Hummingbird
There are so many of these around, my first day at res, 2 hummingbirds flew inside, this was one of them the tram, there's not too may people around who can say they rode on the roof of an airtram. Once I was back at the top, I really wanted to go again. That morning, I went up and down on the tram a few times to see if I could get to speech right. In the afternoon, after lunch I learned more things at the upper terminal, selling tickets, talking to people, etc.
After work, Kathy drove myself, Alex, Rach and Ben to Chilliwack so I could open myself a bank account. We went shopping in Walmart and I also go myself a new phone and a USB Flash Drive for the internet, now I have the internet here at res, yay. No more dial up. On the way home, we stopped at Hope to pick a few groceries and I had my first taste of Dairy Queen Ice Cream, oh my god, how good is it?! Yum, definatly going back there. Alex bough two ice creams and didn't eat either, now they are sitting in the freezer, wonder how long they'll sit there?!
Yesterday, Rach and I walked to work, it's about two kilometers from res and
we had to walk through two tunnels, after coming out of the second tunnel, we heard a whistle, we looked at each other and laughed, thinking it was someone in a car driving past. We then heard it again, we turned around and looked up on the side of the mountain to see about six men cutting down trees, yelling out to us. We laughed again and kept walking. I had my first taste of being on the airtram by myself. It was awesome and I'm slowly get used to saying the speech about the area. I was working with Andrew in the morning, it's so much harder doing the speech in front of people you know lol. So for two hours before lunch, I started working by myself, it was so much fun talking to people from all over Canada and from different parts of the world. I did my test that all the tram operator's have to do and got my first ever 100% which was cool. After lunch I was back at the top again, for my second afternoon of closing up.
Rach had a message from Ben on her phone when she finished saying he
had the fire lit and had already started drinking. When we got home, we all picked up a couple of drinks and headed down to the fire, we sat and talked for about half an hour before it started to rain, we sat for a little longer but eventually we headed back inside. We headed to Elvis' Cafe for dinner where I had and chicken burger and soup which was really good. When we got to Rach, Ben, Chris and Andrew's place, found Ben passed out on the lounge, so Rach, Andrew, Alex and I proceeded to play a drinking game. It was so much fun, but we ended up pretty intoxicated, especially Rach. After about two hours playing, Rach ended up waking Ben up and he eventually came out to join us, the game was pretty much over though so we just kept drinking and listening to music, after I finished my last beer, I had two vodka and orange then stopped as I thought if I had one more, I either would've not woken up for work this morning or would've woken up with a hangover. We had so many laughs, apparently I'm Ben and Rach's favourate, I
The airtram
This was my first glimpse of the tram in operation think Rach and I are gonna be really good friends, she's so happy that there is another female here and she told me so all night. I was looking at Rach's laptop with music to choose another song when one of the guys slapped my ass really hard that I was feeling the sting from it half an hour later. I saw Andrew run to his room after, so I assumed it was him and went after him, although he swore to me that it wasn't him and that it was Ben, so I went to see him and he denied it. A minute later Andrew was at my side and slapped my leg, so I'm thinking it was him, but I'm still little bit unsure. Andrew and I had to work today, so he went and got ready for bed, then told me to go to bed too, what the?! lol He's so funny.
Today, I started at 8:30 so I could be trained of how to open. I have to clean the windows of the tram and tidy the carpark, before we open the doors. I took the staff down the bottom today, now that I know
Surfing the Tram
This was part of my training, so awesome how the operate the tram. I spent most of the day at the upper terminal by myself operating the till and working with customers. I covered Andrew's break, so I was the only tram running for half an hour. It was good practice for me. For the most part, I spent standing under a heater in the shop at the top as it was another freezing cold day. I closed by myself which was good and did it ok. I'm learning alot and loving the job, I can't wait to learn more.
This afternoon after getting home, I did a load of washing and headed up to see how Ben and Rach were feeling. I walked in to find them in bed watching movies on Rach's laptop, I sat watching for a little bit and had some spaghetti that Ben made, I was suprised how well Ben can actually cook lol. I spent a couple of hours up there before heading back to the house and trying to update this blog for everyone. So you can all finally catch up with what I've been doing.
Well, I think I've covered everything, I'll post some more pictures with this
Look Mum, no hands lol
Coming back to the upper terminal and I'm gonna try and up load some video footage of me being on top of the tram yesterday.
Love you all and I'll talk to you soon xxx
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Jules
non-member comment
Awesome!
Hey there Stace!!!!!, So great to hear what you have been upto over there in Canada, awesome to see that you are living it up there and enjoying your job already and wow up on top of the tram!!. I giggled when you said about Dairy Queen, its the bomb hey!!! so damn awesome, i remember having a cheesecake icecream and its so divine. Wish i was over there travelling and working with you but looking forward to my Police course, its starting on the 24th of May so not long to do and am looking around for part time work. Enjoy it over there! its a beautiful country and hope you meet a hottie cos the canucks are awesome!!!. Take care, Jules xox