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