Eyelash Icicles and Frozen Nose Hair!!

I have never been so cold in my entire life!!

Saturday it was -27°C, Sunday -34°C and today it's -38°C.  The ski mountains are even closed because it's too cold!  I just walked to a coffee shop to check my emails, a 5 min walk from my house.  When I got here I had icicles on my eyelashes, my nosehairs I'm sure were frozen and I couldn't feel my toes or fingers.

The snow from the snowfall about a week ago is still on the ground but has turned to ice in the cold weather so walking around isn't easy, fricking annoying when all you want to do is mission it to get to somewhere warm!

I contemplated buying a helmet for skiing, now I'm seriously considering it so I can use it to walk around the streets too!  I could be a trend setter here in Banff...

Anyways, I am now working in a coffee shop.  I don't love it by any means but at least it's money!  What I do love about it is that we get free coffee!!!  There are still very few jobs going around at the moment so I was lucky to find this one through a friend.  I'm going to keep an eye out for other jobs though because bar or restaurant work would be a funner work environment and you'd get much better tips than $45 per week!!  I'd probably make that per night - at least.

I had my first day skiing the other day.  It was so good to be back on the snow.  We went to Norquay as part of a deal for locals (which aparently I am now that I'm working), for $25 we got bus transfer to the mountain, ski pass, ski rental, coffee and a muffin in the morning, beer and nachos in the afternoon and even a ski lesson if we wanted one.  Crazy cheap!!  There are two other mountains I can use the deal on so once it warms up a little I'll be right back out there.

Weather forecase for the rest of the week:

Tuesday -20°C

Wednesday -26°C

Thursday -37°C

Eeeek!

Canadian Winter

I have finally experienced a proper snowfall!  In London we had a couple of days with snow but we only ever had a couple of cm's at most that would quickly melt.

Last night it snowed here in Banff and when we woke up this morning there were a good few inches on the ground.  I'm glad I'm in a hostel at the moment as there were loads of Kiwis and Aussies out at 11pm last night throwing snowballs, making snow angels and acting like a bunch of kids, we were all so excited!  It's bloody cold during the day here so the snow has stuck and the city looks so pretty.  

Another part of winter that I'm loving is watching the river freezing over.   It has frozen to about 15 metres off shore so the other day a couple of friends and I went and had a play!  I have never walked on a frozen pond or river before so it was quite the novelty for me!  At first I was nervous and tentatively tip-toed over the ice but soon I realised how thick it was and developed the confidence to walk, slide and jump on the surface.  In places you could see cracks in the ice that gave away how thick it was, some parts seemed more than 4 or 5 inches deep!  In the shallow parts of the river the ice was glass like and you could easily see the bottom of the river bed and tiny fish swimming underneath, then as you went further out the bottom became a mass of blue, quite daunting.  

Aparently later in the year you can ice skate on the river, that would be so much fun and I can't wait to give it a go!

Here are some pictures of me playing on the ice.

First Week in Banff

I have survived my first week in Banff.  It is such a pretty town, much smaller than Toronto which is nice.  I loved Toronto but I think I've had enough of bigger cities for now as I spent heaps of time in London and then Toronto where it can be hard to meet people and can be a mission getting around from place to place.

You can walk from one side of Banff to the other in about 20 mins.  There are plenty of shops, restaurants and bars, and also a movie theatre so there's plenty to do here.  The rockies are stunning, pretty much surrounding the city which is lovely.  It's darn cold though, when the wind picks up it's tempting to walk around with your duvet!

The hostel I'm staying in is really nice.  I think the best bit is my bed which is a bunk but I'm on the bottom and it's a double, I'm loving being able to starfish!

I haven't been on the mountain yet for a ski yet because I'm being firm with myself and saying I can't ski until I get a job and that isn't turning out to be very easy!  There aren't many tourists here yet which means most places aren't hiring, and there are loads of Kiwis and Aussies here looking for work so the jobs that are available get snatched up super quick.

I have a couple of job interviews this week so hopefully something will work out and I'll be working and therefore able to hit the slopes.  One of the interviews is for housekeeping which 

would be interesting.  Another is for front desk in a hotel which I think I would prefer!  Ideally 

I would be a server so I get tips but there are zero places hiring for servers at the moment because it's so quiet.

Yesterday me and a couple of girls hired a car and went into Calgary to stock up on supplies 

(it's so much cheaper there!), I managed to buy 4 pairs of shoes which most people tend to think is a little over the top but with -30 temperatures looming I figure UGG's, snow boots, waitressing shoes and going out boots are necessary!  I do need to start watching my money though as I still have to buy skis and boots which should set me back a good few hundred dollars.  Oh yeah and then there's the season ski pass... Bring on that job!!!

Coldplay!

Deserving of a post on its own for being the best concert ever!  

Most of you will know that I am slightly more than obsessed with Coldplay, so when I heard they had scheduled concerts I was on Ticketmaster straight away.  

Things are rarely simple for me and getting tickets to a show was no exception.

When the concerts were announced I was living in London so I looked online to find tickets only to discover they were playing in London when I was in Canada.  Then I realised they were also playing in Canada... when I was in London.  Not cool.

Then I say that they were also playing in the States so I looked in Google Maps and saw that they were playing in Cleveland which is only a 5 hour drive from Toronto where I would be based at the time.  So I booked tickets to see them in Cleveland.

Shortly before the concert someone asked me why I didn't book to see them in Ottawa where they would be playing the night before they were in Cleveland.  Somehow I had completely overlooked that show, goodness knows how but anyway a trip to the States seemed like a fun idea.  Still could I be more of a moron?  Perhaps it was because I was booking the tickets I had a 'Mandy Moment' and decided Ottawa was in the States (and not the capital of Canada!)... I'm not sure if I should be owning up to that kind of thing!

Anyway, my friend Kate and I road tripped down to the concert and had an amazing time.  Duffy a singer from London opened which was exciting in itself and then Coldplay came on.  I'll admit it, I cried when they first came on stage!  They were so good live, most of their songs sounded exactly like they did on the album which was great.  They were friendly, chatty and fun throughout the concert and at one stage said they'd be back in 30 seconds.  We were left wondering if we had time to grab another beer during the break but I'm glad we didn't as sure to their word 3o seconds later they were back, but not on stage they appeared just behind us in the audience where they proceeded to sing a couple of songs, supercool!

They played songs from all their albums, my current favourites are Viva La Vida and Lost from their new album, they also played Fix You, Clocks and Yellow plus a tonne of other songs that I adore.  A very happy girl I was!

As soon as I was back in Toronto I was back online seeing if there are any other concerts of theirs I could get to, no luck sadly but hopefully I will get to see them again.  It's true love.

The First Entry

A couple of my friends write Blogs.  It seems like a good way of keeping people in the loop with what you're up to and where you are.  So I'm gonna take a stab at it, and hopefully not bore the pants off anyone in the process!

Where to begin.  I am in year 3 of my travels.  I left New Zealand in Feb 06 for London where I spent 2 years.  I lived in Fulham for the first year and then moved to Westbourne Park.  I had so much fun in London, I don't think I've ever been as happy as I was there.  If I start writing about my time and experiences there I think I would end up writing a small novel, which I don't want to do for my first blog entry, so perhaps I'll write about that later on!

After London, I returned home to NZ for 3 months, where I got to spend some much needed time with my family, in particular my two newphews, Daniel (5) and Ryan (7 months) and my niece Nicole (3) who had grown so much!  It was my first time meeting Ryan and it was wonderful spending time with him and getting to know his little personality.  I also had my 24th birthday in New Zealand which was great as many of my friends flew up to Auckland to celebrate with me.  

When the 3 months were up I returned to London for a few weeks and then headed to Ireland where I lived in Galway for 2 months.  I did a Paddywagon bus tour around the main cities in Ireland which was brilliant, we had an Irish tour guide who told us stories and filled us in on the history of all the places we visited. 

This time in Ireland was really a time filler as I waited for my flight to Canada which for me was to be chapter two of my world travels.  

Here I am now, in Toronto Canada where I've been based for the past 3 months.  When I first came over I flew with one of my best friends Hermione.  It worked out perfectly as Hermione is from Canada so I essentially had a tour guide showing me the sites!  

She took me to her latest hometown of Gananoque, 2 hours East of Toronto.  The town was gorgeous, very picturesque and small.  Gananoque is right in an area called the Thousand Islands, which is exactly that, a region right on the edge of a beautiful river with Islands dotted around for as far as you could see.  

I'm really glad I got to see that area as I haven't found Toronto to be all that pretty, which is something I expected of Canada.  It's a big city and I think now after 3 months here that the time has come for me to move somewhere smaller.  So in 2 days (Nov 18th) I'm moving to Banff!  

So many people have told me how beautiful the West Coast is so I can't wait to get out there and see it for myself.  I'm hoping to get a job in a bar or restaurant out there and then spend the days on the ski slopes.  I did think about working on the mountain, it's still something I might do but there are pros and cons to doing that.  

If you work for the mountain you get accommodation provided, but you have to share a room with at least a couple of other people.  You also get a free ski pass which usually costs about $900.  BUT, you get paid a very average wage, they have a system where you get paid a bonus at the end of the ski season, problem is I'm not going to be there until the end of the season so I'd miss out on that.  

I have spent the last 3 months living in a hostel here in Toronto and I'm starting to get a little tired of sharing my room with someone, it would be great to have my own space and I think I would be happier living in a flat share in downtown Banff, working in a bar or restaurant making decent tips in the evenings.  Forking out the money for the ski pass.  Spending days on the snow and then having my own room to go home to.  It seems much more appealing at this stage.

Goodness knows what will eventuate though, one thing I've learned with travel is that things often don't pan out as you plan them to!  I'll update my blog when I have a job and somewhere to live out there!  Fingers crossed.