It's Summer in Canada, now where are the grizzlies?

Summer in Banff. When winter ended and the ski field closed I had no enthusiasm about the concept of sun and heat, at least not in Banff. I'd had so much fun skiing in the trees and playing in the snow over winter, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with myself once that finished.

The last day of the ski season was crazy, the mountain hosted an event called Slush Cup. First off it's an excuse for everyone to try get the day off work and head up the mountain fully equipped with carefully concealed booze. Hundreds of people sit down a hill to watch costumed contestants hurl themselves down the hill on to a jump in an attempt to surf across a pool of ice cold water on their skis or snowboard. I'd say about 1% of people made it across, it was much funner watching the splash as they crashed into the water!

The following day I noticed the number of young people walking around the streets aimlessly looking sad and lost. No more skiing, what the hell were we supposed to do? I was one of these people for a couple of days until a friend of mine asked me to come canoeing with her.

It was a warm sunny day, we hired a canoe grabbed a 6 pack of beers and set off. Five minutes later I was over my depression. The water though freezing was crazy clear and the reflection of the trees and mountains on the water was stunning. The surrounding mountains despite the warmer weather were still snow capped and there were deer and various 'woodland creatures' (no idea what they were) along the river banks.

So that's the new hobby, either cruising down the river in a canoe or kyaak, or relaxing by the river with friends in the sun - beer always in hand of course!

Yesterday I hired a kyaak and the guy told me the previous 2 days a grizzly bear had been spotted along the shore with 2 cubs. I was so excited! I found out the route, and paddled like mad in search of my first bear sighting. Sadly, no luck.

When I'm walking through the bush with my fearless friend Paula, I generally tend to hyperventilate convinced I'm going to be attacked by either a bear or a cougar, but from the water or a car..different story, bring em on!!

All good things must come to and end though. I have just over a week left in Banff :- (

I'm heading to Vancouver for a week and then heading back to London for a few months. I'm really looking forward to being back in London but I'm also really sad to be leaving Banff. I've had so much fun here and made some awesome lifelong friends.

So - I have 2 weeks left in Canada. My next blog better have some darned photos of bears and a moose! Stay tuned...

Aloha from Hawaii!!

Here are some photos from my recent trip to Hawaii with my sister Susie. We had such an awesome time, first spending 3 days in Honolulu and then 4 days on Maui Island. We stayed in a very luxurious hotel, went whale watching, snorkled, lounged by the pool, ate and relaxed. My idea of paradise!

Highlight of the trip was when Sooz and I went snorkling. We saw a few turtles and followed them around for a while and when we dove down to have a closer look we could hear whales calling to one another, they were a long way away but the sound was really clear under the water. One of the most amazing expereiences I think I've had!

Girlie Road Trip to Fernie

Tarryn, Heather and I fooling around after lunch on the ski field

Last month a few girlfriends and I went on a road trip to Fernie.  It's a small ski town in BC about 4 hours from Banff.  

The trip started off promisingly, we hired a SUV and managed to leave only an hour behind schedule (not bad considering a Lewis was on the trip!),  Heather my friend from Ontario took on the driving and Dayna (my kiwi room mate) took the front passenger seat as navigator.  Map in hand Dayna and Tarryn (my fellow back seat driver from Aus) found a great looking short cut and we were away laughing.  An hour later we were back in Banff...the short cut didn't quite work out as planned, we somehow managed to do a giant (but beautifully scenic) circle.  Hmm not the best start.

Deciding to follow the obvious main highway route we set out once again.  This time we were successful, and after four hours of driving in the snow, peeing in the snow and listening to the only radio station we could get warning drivers not to venture out in such rough snow conditions we arrived in Fernie or should I call it Slushie.  Clever me, I took Ugg boots and heels not ideal since it was raining in town.  Believe it or not having spent the winter here it was the first rain I'd seen since November, it's too cold in Banff to rain!

Heather has a friend in Fernie who was able to get us a great rate for a lovely hotel, right in town, ground floor room with a hot tub and swimming pool directly outside our room, fab!!  

We had one day on the slopes, they had had a huge dumping of snow, and the girls and I had a fab time skiing in the fresh powder.  I'm not the best powder skiier I will admit and I managed to faceplant a couple of times.  

We had some great nights out on the town and overall the trip was exactly what I needed.  The drive back was pretty scary as the roads had gotten pretty bad after a severe snow storm.  Heather did well though with the driving and managed to get us back to Banff in one piece.  When we arrived back Banff looked stunning having received about 15 cms of snow and all of us realised how lucky we are to be based in such a cute town, Fernie had been fun to visit but with the rain and the way the town is spread out we know we made a good decision basing ourselves in Banff. 

 

Amanda, the Spag Hag

Yay! Found a new job. I'm working at a restaurant called the Old Spaghetti Factory. It's a busy restaurant and management are really nice which is much appreciated after my last job!  At the moment I am a buser which means I clear and wipe tables and then reset them, boring and gross but to become a server all I have to do is sit a test.  It's kind of silly that i have to learn 100 pages of material to be a waitress but it means much better money so I'm not going to complain, I'm just going to do it! 

I'm living in a motel at the moment with my friend Dayna. We get a decent monthly rate but there's no kitchen. On the plus side we have our own rooms , double beds, a coffee machine... and there's also access to a hot tub, sauna and gym! It's not the most ideal situation but it'll do for now, there aren't many places with rooms available at the moment so we'll sit tight here for a bit and see how we go.

I've been kind of sick the last few weeks which has been a pain in the arse, my symptoms have changed from sinus problems, to chest, to stomach, to my eyes - I'm just recovering from conjunctivitis!  It's been really annoying and I'm hoping the conjunt is the end of being unwell!!

Last week my friend Heather and I went up the mountain for her birthday, some crazy guy friends of ours have recently invested in one piece ski suits and we managed to pursuade them to lend them to us!  I was wearing a pink and cream very 80's shaped number and Heather wore a bright purple, pink and orange suit, it was hilarious and we got a lot of attention!

Not much other news but here are some photos from Christmas and the past couple of months.

Finally, it's warm enough to snow!

First up I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas and fun and drunken new years!

I was sad to be away from home over that period, especially Christmas which is a very family orientated time of the year for me. It was fun though celebrating Christmas mid winter we even had a white Christmas with flurries falling throughout the day which was awesome.

My flatmate Dayna and I decided to host a Christmas lunch for some of our fellow antipodean strays. There were 9 people altogether and we had a great time cooking our first Christmas meal for everyone. Based on the instructions the turkey should have taken 4 hours to cook. Reality? It took almost 6 hours! Christmas lunch turned into Christmas dinner but no one seemed to mind as we kept wine flowing throughout the day! When at long last dinner was ready I think people were impressed - we made a spectacular dinner, our Mum's would have been so proud!

I have handed my resignation in at the coffee shop. Dayna and I got in a lot of trouble for having a house party for our flatmate who was leaving, some of the neighbors complained even though we had warned the ones close by. It was a Friday night and we were out of the house by midnight but there were still complaints. Because of that incident we started being watched like hawks, if we were 2 mins late we got in trouble and they were always on our backs. So both of us have decided to try and find a better job where we actually like what we do and where we aren't talked to in such a belittling way. We're hoping to find something where we can work evenings so that we can ski any day we want to and not just on our days off.

I've invested in a pair of skis and boots and have managed to have a good few days on the slopes. I bought a ski pass for Sunshine which is an amazing mountain, it's $900 for the season so I'm trying to ski as much as possible to make the most of the pass. The snow has been great, and there are so many runs to choose from, I don't think I've even skied a third of them so far. Getting to the mountain you can buy a bus pass for $500 for the season or you can pay $15 return per day, darned expensive! Luckily I have friends with a van who have been kind enough to take me up when they're heading up and on the days when they're working I've started hitch hiking which is fun! I always do it with a friend but the people who pick you up have been lovely so far.

So many people snowboard here, in my usual fashion I've ended up in the uncool group by being a skier. I tried boarding once and was horrific! All of a sudden I was the annoying person falling off the T-bar and wiping out when getting off the chairlift who everyone had to try and avoid from crashing into. I managed to wind myself at least twice and was asked a couple of times if I was okay when I lay like a starfish halfway down a run, exhausted and snowcovered. It was fun though and I'm keen to give it another go at some stage. But I can definitely say - I am a skier!

A quick update about the weather - it has finally been warm enough to snow again. Never did I think I would utter that sentence. The sub 30/40 temperatures have pretty much gone and we are ranging between -5 and -17 which isn't so bad.

A couple of days ago was Australia day. It was a brilliant day up at the mountain, there were Aussies everywhere. They were so patriotic wearing flags, yellow and green outfits and with painted faces. They were never hard to spot especially the brave/stupid guys boarding down the hill in -20 deg temperatures wearing tiny shorts and singlet tops! I really wish I'd taken my camera! Town in the evening was crazy, everyone went to ONE club, we had to queue for 40 minutes to get in and it was freezing, I was sure I had frostbite on my toes by the time I got in! One of my friends fell down the stairs because she couldn't feel her feet and we had to spend a while trying to convince the bouncer it was because she was cold and not totally drunk!

So I'm still enjoying Banff, I've met some great people here and am having a lot of fun. It's a shame I'm back job/house hunting but I'm hoping everything will work out for the best. I'll upload some more photos soon I love how photogenic this town is, every angle there is a different mountain and when the sun catches the tips of them it's just stunning.

I've been a bit slack on the blogging front so I'll try and get online more to update everyone with my progress.

Have a good week!
Mandy x