Christmas update

Hey guys!

I guess I should just start apologizing for not having written for a long time, huh? haha
But my excuse is still that I'm having way too much fun to write blogs :)

I'll try and cover everything just like last entry:

The tragic (and epic) day of the 16th of December:
As I've probably mentioned I've gotten a friend who's a snowboard instructor. He is an amazing teacher and he knows pretty much everything about snowboards. Anyways, he thinks I have potential and he always takes me park riding on my days of. Sunday the 16th was no different.
The day began crappy because Carson was grumpy for not having slept enough, and I got really grumpy because we went "off piste" (there really isn't off piste in Whistler because everyone loves powder so much, that Whistler just don't groom the big runs, so it's still safe), but I'm not very good at powder so I fell and got frustrated. Then we headed to Whistler to eat lunch and hit the park. Whistler has a pretty good baby park, so that's where I'm learning.
So we start hitting the park and I'm going off a baby kicker which is a small jump. It hadn't snowed in a couple of days so the landing was getting really icy and with a big hole in it. On like my 5th jump off of it a girl hits it before me but goes really slow. She barely made it over, which was why I totally miscalculated how much speed I needed. I ended up approaching the kicker with way too much speed which resulted in me catching so much more air than I expected. That caused me to land the jump, but panic and so I fell over and hyper extended my right elbow.
It really hurt, but Carson didn't see the fall so he just told me to suck it up. So I kept riding the last two hours of the day.
When I came home I was so stupid to take a warm bath because I thought my arm was no big deal.
Turns out it was, because when I woke up I couldn't even move my arm. And I was supposed to work!!!
So I got up(5am), got dressed as good as I could but gave up carrying my snowboard so I just went and told my supervisor that I couldn't work and he told me it was okay and sent me home to go to the doctor.
I didn't really feel like I needed it so I went home to skype my parents to hear what they thought I should do. They sent me to the doctor, so I went.
The doctor sent me right to x-ray then told me she was pretty sure I had a fracture. She put me in a sling because she wasn't completely sure, told me that I had to stay home for a week and to come back two days after because she wanted to make a radiologist take a look at my x-rays.

So I went home and almost cried, then stayed home for a week. That week was the most epic snowfall with pretty much 20-30cm new snow every day. It was the worst week of my life.

Luckily I recovered really quickly and was able to come back to work this monday (the 24th). I was so happy about that even though my arm still hurt a bit. It's getting way better though, and I'm pretty much over it!:)

So that was the tragic/epic day of the 16th!
Also here is a video of me riding the park after the fall, haha:

Bld 2 #409:
Life in 409 is just as it always is. Good.
We decided to celebrate Christmas together. I cooked an epic Danish christmas feast and they all really liked it! We also had secret santas but of course that had to wait until the 25th because that's how they do it in Aus. My secret santa was Gabbi and she gave me a toque that I've wanted for work for a long time. It was epic and I love it soooo much!
On the 25th all the aussies cooked me dinner and it was soo good too.
Besides Christmas nothing new has really happened.

Work:
Still on Catskinner, still working with Kieran. Still awesome. I was so happy to be back at work and the day just got even better when they told me I could go straight back to Catskinner, because everyone told me they would probably put me on the "sweep to sweep" (peak to peak, but when it snows, all you do is sweep the windows) and I HATE working gondolas.
So I've been on Catskinner the past three days, but for some reason they put me on Crystal today. Guess who was a very grumpy co-worker today.. Nah, it was alright because it was a fixed grip, but Catskinner will always be my baby, and I really hate being taken away from it.

Oh yeah and two funny stories from this week at Catskinner:
My christmas present:
On the 25th I was working Catskinner, and as you all know the 25th is the day where english speaking people open their presents. Everyone was really nice and brought all the lifties chocolate and candy. But as you probably know by now, Catskinner is a park rat chair. So what I got from the day was a Ferrero Rocher from the first lady to come to our chair. She wasn't a park rat though. Then I got a hug from a ski instructor I've never met before. And to top it off, some of the park rats that kept using catskinner that day, suddenly dropped me off a broken pen. I just looked at them like "Wtf?" and they said "It's weed!". I got really confused because to me it was just a broken pen and I thought they wanted me to throw it out. So I just said "What?" and they said "It's weed!!" and I didn't say it but I was like "No, it's not, it's a broken pen you freaks". So they just got on the lift and when no one was around I checked the pen out. Sure enough, inside the pen was a joint rolled and ready, haha. I don't smoke though, so I gave it to a co-worker who got so happy that he hugged me. Smoking weed is no big deal in Canada. I've only met Canadians who smoke it, and it's pretty much legal.

Yesterday is a bit of a different story though. And not as funny! I was working top of Catskinner and just watching people getting off it around 2.30 which is half an hour before we close. Suddenly the chair stopped with an e-stop! Catskinner is such an old lift that you have to go to the machine room to reset the stop. So I ran upstairs to fix it, but as soon as I got up, my co-worker called me and asked me why I pushed e-stop. I didn't and I asked him why he did, but he hadn't either. So I was running up and down the machine room to try and figure out what the hell was going on. Nothing worked, so I had to try and call maintenance, which I've never done before. But before I even got to that a maintenance guy comes running up to the lift to help me out. He runs upstairs and before I even get to look around he's called like 7 other people and they all showed up with 5 minutes interval with all kinds of machine stuff. The lift wouldn't start no matter how much they tried, and eventually they decided to clear the line. So they had to switch to our emergency motor. It took half an hour and the poor people were just sitting there getting really cold and I could just stand there and do nothing. It was actually kind of terrible, but now whenever I meet one of the rescue maintenance guys they go "Hey Viebs, nice of you to break the lift!" haha. Should probably mention I didn't! It was a drive fault and there was nothing I could do, haha.

Parties:
Haven't really happened. I've been sick and I was too afraid to get more hurt to go out with my arm, I haven't really been out in like 3 weeks. Except for last friday when I finally went to Moe Joes. It was a pretty epic night though.

Snowboarding:
Has obviously been limited because of my arm. I am finally getting better though, and I will definitely go riding this weekend which is starting as of tomorrow and the following two days. And I will definitely go and make that kicker my bitch after almost breaking my arm!!!

So yeah I think that updates most of my life right now!
Oh and a really big thing I should probably mention.. I think (and really hope!!!) that I've told all my nearest friends so I'm not upsetting anyone now:

I am applying to get permanent residency here in Canada!!! :D :D :D
I love it so much here and I can't bare the thought of having to go home in the fall, so I asked my family here in Canada if he would help me out and he agreed.
And what does all of this mean? Well, it doesn't mean that I don't love all you wonderful danish people (<3 <3 <3) but it does mean that I will be able to come to Canada and work and live whenever I want. I will still be going home sometime to take an education (so I'm not kicking myself out of Denmark, I'm still a Danish citizen), but if things go as planned, I will go back to Canada to live when that is done. This is way out in the future though!
For now, I will just be staying a season or two more and then come back to Denmark :) And I will be coming home to visit in the spring!! So save some time for me in May <3

I hope you are all well, because I am the happiest I've ever been:)
I do miss you guys though:(

Sorry!!!

It's been so long since I posted last time. I'm so sorry! There's so much to do and so little time to write blog, haha.
Anyways, I'll try to cover everything that has happened to me since last post.



Bld. 2, #409
My roommates are my Whistler family. Gabbi and York are the parents (Gabbi proved this by walking into me and Chloes room in the middle of one of my cough fits (I'm sick at the moment) with cough sirup - she would not even let me pour it myself) and Chloe is my big sister who lovingly looks out for me while never letting an opportunity of picking on me go by.

                                                              It's christmas in room 409

Work: 
Is so good. I'm seriously never leaving. Here's why:

When your office view is this, you don't ever quit that job

I have been placed on the lift that I wanted the most for the season, so I am as happy as it gets.

The lifts name is Catskinner. Catskinner is my baby. It's right next to the pro's park so there are always people coming down again and again that you can have nice conversations with. And cool tricks to watch when no one is at the lift. 

Apparently I am good at start ups. Start ups are the crew that meets at 6am to start up all the lifts and check that the machinery is okay. So this week has been 4 shifts of 6am starts. Which means I have to get up at 5am. This week was really hard because I'm sick and had to get up that early. Today is finally my friday though, so I am pretty happy! Next weeks schedule says four more 6am starts, so I am enjoying being able to sleep in the following three days!! 

6am starts are not so bad though. I have been snowmobiled to work some days, which is SO AWESOME. Other days I've had to start up the gondola and that's the worst thing in the world. 

Also it only takes about half an hour to finish the start up, which usually means (if I've been snowmobiled up to a lift near Catskinner) that I get to just sit and relax until my crew comes up and we can start up our lift. So it's basically an hour pay for not as much work. 

Parties

Parties has been limited the past two weeks. Mainly because I've become friends with a snowboard instructor and we've been snowboarding together to make me better, so I've turned down partying to avoid being hungover. I also caught that cold so I've been sleeping so much the past week. 

We did have our first rounds night and it was awesome. Rounds is a lifty thing. Basically if you screw up at work, your colleagues can call rounds on you. Then you have to buy a jug of beer and pour them a glass of beer at a rounds night. It comes to be a LOT of free beer by the end of the night and things gets pretty wild and hilarious.
So far I've done a couple of things that could be called rounds on. I have to admit they're legit, haha.
First rounds: Being taken out by my own chair. Twice.
Second rounds: Shoveling snow of a chair for my collaegues but not removing it fast enough so one of them sat down on it and brought it with him up. 

Third rounds: I actually forgot, but know that there is one. Probably for falling over. 

Fourth rounds: Sweeping snow of chairs with broom, then losing broom on chair. I had to call down and tell Kieran that I lost the broom to the chair and he instantly called rounds on me and declared that if the broom didn't make it down it would be a double rounds. Luckily for me it made it down, haha. 

Snowboarding:

Holy shit. I never thought I could improve SO much on such a short time. As mentioned before I got a friend who's a snowboard instructor and he is so helpful. Apparently he believes I have potential to be like REALLY good, so he forces me to constantly watch snowboard movies and we go out just the two of us to only work on my skills. It's really hard but so awesome and in just a week I went from only being able to carve to be able to (and to like it!!!) hit sidehits, small kickers and boxes. Still only 50/50's but shit am I proud of myself, haha. I will be bringing my gopro up on saturday so hopefully I will be able to show you guys how my snowboarding looks after a couple of weeks of snowboarding!! 

I'm not sure if I have anymore to add at this moment so to wrap things up, here are some pictures of life in Whistler: 

First snowboarding day of the year!!

Burger celebration

On the way up to Whistler the day after with Chloe

Don't we look excited?

Epic day of riding with the following idiots ( <3 ):

Stokesy

From left: Stokesy, Trubsy and Laurie(sy) haha

And that's what your knees look like after a day of riding with those guys

Office view, fuck yeah

Or maybe not...

Trubsy being gangstah with my helmet

Epic gullasch in bread bowl

The view from #409 on a bluebird day with new snow

Can you tell it's Christmas  in Whistler?

Epic day of riding with Trubsy

On our way down from Whistler peak in the sickest fog ever known to mankind 

Winter is here

And life is awesome. It's been snowing the past week, the mountains are open and I could literally not be happier.

I'll do a quick update on everything that I can think of concerning my life here in Whistler:

Bld. 2 #409:

Is where I live. Staff housing is a bunch of houses containing approximately 1000 employees of Whistler Blackcomb, and I live in building 2. Gabbi and York are so sweet and fun to hang out with which makes coming home so nice. Chloe is my roomie and it is just awesome. We try to plan to eat together and do stuff together as often as we can and we've had a couple of nights where we were supposed to get up early but ended up spending hours laying in bed just talking and laughing instead. 

Friends:

Are easy to make here! Employees are easy to spot and everyone are so nice. Work gives you a lot of friends too, and my bosses are awesome at calling around the lifts saying "Beers at x, see you there", and then the whole lifty crew goes to have a few beers and laughs at a bar. 

Food:

Is expensive!!! Me and Chloe try to shop together and cook together, but sometimes it just doesn't fit our schedule. Noodles are often the way to go even though I can literally feel on my body how bad it is for you. A packet of noodles is about 1 dollar though, so it's just so easy to go for that.
We only have a stove top too, so I constantly have to make sure that what I'm about to buy is something that I can actually cook on my stove top and does not require an oven.
18 Below is a restuarant close to staff housing which opens after mountain hours just for employees. It's 7 bucks for a meal which includes unlimited pop (or if you're trying to lose weight as I am, unlimited water), a bowl of salat, a bowl of soup, main dish, dessert and fruit. It's a good deal if you can drag yourself down there after work, and you will rarely be able to finish your whole meal 'cause there's a LOT of food. 

Australians:

Oh my god. They're everywhere!!! I feel like I'll learn australian before I learn Canadian, which was what I wanted to learn in the first place, haha. My roomies are aussies though, and I guess they're okay. Actually pretty much all of my friends are aussies and granted, they're pretty great, but man!! do they have some weird expressions. The most commonly used one from Chloe is the following: "Calm your farm down", which basically means calm down. She'll say it all the time but especially at me when I'm tired and grumpy, haha. 

I fear Australia Day......................

Canadians:

Haven't met so many yet, but I love the few that I have. They're insane at snowboarding and luckily for me I work with two of them. It really challenges me to board down with them and that's good. Canadians are so nice and sweet and that brings me to my next subject:

Politeness:

Wow, are Canadians polite!! You can't walk past a Canadian without getting a smile or a "Hi!", and they'll always be up for a small chat and they're always very interested in where I come from. I noticed that especially the Canadian people on my chair today appreciated me saying hi to them.
The thing though that really hit me about their politeness is this: In our busses, when people hit stop, it doesn't say stop on the sign, it says "Stop Requested" as if it's up to the bus driver if he wants to stop the bus and the Canadian guy will just be like "Sorry, didn't mean to be in your way", haha.

Work:

Is awesome! I love it so much. I've been working the past three days, and it's been really great. Tuesday was my first day and I met a 7.15. I met my returning guy which is someone who worked as a lifty last year. He's one of the Canadians and he seems really awesome. We had to board down to the bottom of my chair, which is Catskinner. Catskinner is the chair that I requested so I was SOOOO happy to get to work on it. Was a bit less happy when we got to the bottom of it and had to dig out the whole thing. We spent ALL day just digging and stomping the snow down so it could be a real lift.
The following day was a dry run day which basically meant that we got to the chair, made it run, waited all day because obviously no one was getting on the lift, then went home and was payed for pretty much just waiting. 

Today was opening day and also my first day working with people. 

It seems that the lifty job is just the right thing for me. I LOVED getting to talk to all those people and bumping chairs kept me warm, so the day just went by SO fast.
I'm working on a fixed grip lift which means I have to bump chairs which is basically pulling the chair to slow it down so it doesn't knock people over, it's kinda fun to do and I can definitely feel my arm muscles coming on. 

Training:

Obviously training is over. It was fun but I'm way more excited about working for real now. 

Catskinner:

Catskinner is the lift that I've been working on the past three days. I instantly fell in love with it! Catskinner is located right between an easy run and the pro's park. That means I got all the park rats coming in from one side being cool and all, and all the older people who really enjoy a quick chat before getting on the chair. It made a good contrast and kept me busy and smiling which was really nice. 

Dry runs: 

Are finally over, and I'm so happy about that. Dry runs is just running the chair without people for an entire shift, which means just about 10 hours. You dig a little snow if you can find something that needs digging but basically just waits around and feels really sorry for yourself that you're not allowed to take ride breaks on dry run days.. 

Opening day:

I was really nervous about opening day to be honest. I've never worked with both people and a lift, but luckily it felt so natural and I really enjoyed the whole day. People were lined up at the bottom when I loaded the chair to go up to my own, and everyone, literally EVERYONE included my awesome supervisor were so stoked that we all just ran around like happy idiots building mazes and getting ready for the people. 

By the end of opening day I was in love with Blackcomb, Catskinner and the lifty job. 

Parents on lifts:

Lesson learned. Don't trust them. ALWAYS slow the chair down even if the parent says that their kids can handle it. They can't, and the parent can NOT pull the poor child up on their own. Where does this come from, you might wonder. Here's what happened today on my lift: 

A guy came up with his two kids. I asked them if he wanted me to slow the chair down, but he declined. Being a naive newbie I acepted his request and let them load the chair. HUGE MISTAKE. The guy loaded the chair, and the kids ended up just being pushed ahead by the chair, while the guy frantically tried to pull both of them up on each of his sides. Both me and the other lifty was running after lift, basically hanging on it trying to pull the poor kids on. At one point I was actually being pulled up by the chair and had to let go and just jump down. It was insane and the kid was still hanging. Eventually he managed to pull the kid up, but I learned my lesson!!! I'm never ever letting a parent decide wether or not I should slow down the lift. 

Snowboarding:

IS SO AWESOME. Snow has been falling the last week which has made conditions so good. I snowboarded sunday and monday and I can really feel how I'm getting better already. Luckily for me some of my new friends are really good at snowboarding and I can go with them. It challenges me in the best way making me better run by run. It feels so good. On top of that I get to ride on work too, so I'm pretty much riding every day, and I plan to be riding park within not very long. I just need to have my switch side completely down before I can start park. But I've already got lots of offers from collueges and friends who wants to help me get starting on the park thing. 

Yeah, so that covers basically everything in my life right now. I'm really living the dream, and yeah, I'm probably not coming home. Every one are telling me to stay for the summer, and it sounds so great. Then they add "and if you stay for the summer you're staying for the winter". So yeah.. My supervisor, Gabe, is on the lookout for a Canadian guy for me, because appearently you only have to date a canadian for 12 months and then you get to stay here. 

Of course I miss you, sweet danish friends ( <3 <3 <3 ) but I guess you know how much I've wanted this and well, it's just so much more than I've ever dreamed of :) 

First real day of snowboarding!!!

TODAY WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woke up to snow outside again today. It's been raining all week so that in it self was awesome.
I really wanted to go snowboarding but my roommates girlfriend wasn't sure if she wanted to go. We convinced her and she told us later that it was worth it.

After spending a long time in the village getting her staff pass and renting skis for her, we finally caught the gondola up. It started snowing as soon as we got a few hundred meter up the hill, and everything was covered in white.

We finally got up there and I had the best day ever. There was so much snow, so few people and everything was just pure awesome!!!
I don't think I can ever come home! I love this place, this new life and I love the snow and snowboarding, life is truly fantastic here :) I am so happy!!!

Just a few pics of today 

Almost a month in Canada!!

I know I said I would post entries more frequently, but I'm having so much fun I just can't find the time for it.

I started training again monday which was a short day. I actually don't remember what we did though.
Tuesday was awesome because we met at 12 for a BBQ and to meet the returning staff. Then we had a short indoor session where they explained to us that we were opening on saturday.

They gave us wednesday off to prepare for the opening, so me and Chloe tried to get on the free bus to Squamish, but the bus was full so we had to go back home. I think we ended up doing nothing all day instead.
I had thursday off too because they split us up so all could do dry runs and exams.

Friday was exciting because we had dry runs which basically is running the lift without people. We prepared for opening day and just hung out a bit. And got to snowboard, yay!!
Later on we had exams which was boring, but I passed.

I decided that I should probably have a real night out so when I got home I started getting ready. Chloe was up for it too. I had early dinner, but because I had gotten up at 6 I was so tired that I took a nap. From 6 to 9! I wasn't sure if I wanted to go out, but finally decided that since I was already in my clothes I should go out.

So me and Chloe drank some cider with our roommates, then got a cab down to Maxx Fish witch is a bar down in the village. We had an awesome night!

Today I actually promised Chloe to take her up to the mountain for opening day, but we were just too hungover to go anywhere, so we spent all day in bed taking naps and eating junk food.
I think I'm going to go up on the mountain tomorrow though!

Oh yeah and on monday it's been an entire month since I moved to Canada! It doesn't feel like that long at all and I'm very scared that time will go by too fast. I'm having too much fun!! Canada is awesome :)

It's been too long....

... Since I posted the last time! Because so many things have happened! So this will be a very long entry, but I'll try and make it more fun by throwing in random photos that I've taken.

Last time I wrote was about my first day of training. Well, here's a resume about the rest of the week:

Monday was not a real day of training. We got to pick up our uniform at fill out at paper about abilities and preferences.

 This is what Whistler mountain looked like monday morning

Tuesday included an indoor session which was loooong and not so interesting, but also an outdoor session where we got our hands on what we will actually do the next 6 months.

This is a parking lot and Blackcomb mountain covered in clouds monday afternoon when I met up with Chloe and Kat. 

Wednesday started out with an outdoor session which was a continuation of tuesdays outdoor session. We had to go around to different locations in Whistler and learn about different kind of aspects of the lifty job.
Our first location was at the bottom of a chairlift and the subject of that session was "Hangers". Hangers are the people that for some reason didn't get on the chairlift properly and are now hanging from it. We had to practise emergency procedures and needed some volunteers.  A guy from my team and myself volunteered, and it was actually a lot of fun. We had to climb up a ladder to the chair which was kind of scary, and then we had to wait for our rescue team to come pick up the fire blanket so they could save us. We then got to jump from 2-3 meters up high and into the blanket.


I kind of messed up but not on purpose! The rescue team had to count to three and by that time I should have climbed out from the chairlift and was supposed to just hang from my arms curled up into a little ball. But it had rained the night before so all the pipes were wet and cold and well, they only made it to somewhere between 1 and 2 before I fell because I couldn't hang on. The good thing is I had a really good rescue team that managed to catch me anyways! And it was actually a lot of fun because I didn't actually plan to drop so it surprised me as much as everyone else :)

Later that day we had an indoor session again which was as indoor sessions are. Not as much fun.
Thursday started out with one more outdoor session. This time we got to go halfway up the mountain which was really fun and interesting and I think we all kind of felt like VIPs for getting to go up there. We followed the same program as the other days with different kind of stations that we had to go to and learn about different stuff. That was interesting as well.

This is Blackcomb mountain from the same spot thursday on our lunch break. The three guys are all lifties and I thought that it looked pretty good with the idientical uniforms. We often have to walk though the village in big groups, and since we're required to wear or uniforms at all times during training and work, we get a lot of looks from tourists.

After our lunch break we had our first season orientation which was a lot of sitting down and listening, but they managed to make it more interesting because of a lot of candy throwing, haha :) (They would ask question and throw a chocolate bar at the one who could answer correctly)

Friday went with hanging out with Chloe with whom I had a sleep over with from thursday to friday. We went and discovered Function Junction which was not as much fun as expected though we did find Bounce (a place with trampolines and foam pitches that you can jump into) and the most amazing little bakery. So we're definitely going back there some time.

I REALLY want a car like this (or maybe a little bigger, haha)

 And well, the price isn't too bad. PLEAASSEEE, dad? <3 <3 <3

I think we all agree on this one! 

Saturday was a BIG day! It was Wal-mart day!! Me and my two roomies Gabbi and York got up ealy to catch the free bus to Squamish. They didn't sign up but managed to get on the bus anyways.
We bought everything that we needed for the apartment and even a little christmas tree in plastic! I also bought an unbelievable amount of food because it's so much cheaper than in Whistler.
All in all I spent almost 400 bucks and is now finally really settled into the apartment with brand new pots and pans, a tub mat so we won't slip and fall and so much more.

The view from the bus to Squamish

Saturday was also the day that Chloe finally got permission to move into my apartment!!! She'd been put in an apartment with three Canadian 18-year olds and that was just too much for her to handle. She wrote an email to house and they finally let her move in with me! So when we had unpacked from the wal-mart trip, Chloe came with all of her stuff (and that is A LOT!!!!)  and moved into my room. I'm making her clean today because it's soo messy right now even though I cleaned the room to perfection so she could move in, haha.

More views on the way to Squamish

We (or Chloe wanted, but forced me to come with her) wanted to go out at night. We got ready at eight and just sat and hung out with our roomies while we drank some cider which is really cheap and decent tasting. We went down to Whistler at ten and was bombardet by drunk guys that flocked around us because Chloe was so clever as to bring a flash light for the walk into the village. When we finally got there we spent like half an hour in queue to a night club called Garfinkels. The entrance fee was 6 dollars and then you had to go down and pay 4 to put you jacket in the wardrobe.

On the way to Squamish. Sea to Sky highway - do it before you die, it's worth it. 

We decided that we didn't want to spend that much money, so we walked out of that club and wanted to find something else. Turns out we made the bigget mistake of our life in Whistler when we decided to go out on a saturday. The village was filled with what the locals call Vancouver-Girls. This is girls wearing teeny tiny cocktail dresses and VERY high heels walking around the streets in just that (and minus 7 degrees) and cutting the queues because they're slutty and the doormen falls for it.

Eventually I got really pissed at the vancouver-girls and the extremely high cover charges (18-20 dollars just to get in) and we went and bought pizza then took the free bus home. We crashed in front of the tv for 20 minutes then went to bed.

On the way and in Squamish.

Right now it's sunday morning, I woke up early because I'm sick and Chloe is the loudest snorer in the entire world. I've watched a danish tv show that I really like (and good-guy Dr.dk streams it online for free) and now I'm so starving that I might go out and make some breakfast.

I promised my mom and dad to skype with them later on today since it's a kind of holiday in Denmark and my grand parents are coming over for dinner, so we can all skype. That is pretty much the plan for today. I think I might try to read my entire lifty manual today too, since we have exams coming up wednesday and thursday and I'm terrified of not passing the test.

Well, that was it for this time. I'll try and blog more frequently so it wont always be entries this long, but no guarantee since I love being here so much I'm actually considering becoming a citizen here (Denmark only gets a 1 year visa ONE time per person). haha :) I hope you're all well, dear readers, because I'm having the time of my life! :)

First real day of training

Today is tuesday and I finally had my first real day of training. Sunday we had that meeting where they informed us about everything that was going to happen.
We met a few people and I got my awesome nametag.

Yesterday we went and got our uniforms and filled out a sheet about our abilities and preferences on lifts and that kind of stuff. My uniform looks like this (even though the picture is really bad):

Today I had to get up at 7 which was not fun since I'd gotten used to sleep until 9am. We met at 18 below at 8 and had a indoor session from 8-12. To be honest it was really boring. We had to go through a lot of formalities and just had to sit and listen for a looooooong time, when all I wanted to do was be outside by the lifts and learn. 

We got a lunch break from 12-1 so we went back and ate then. At 1 we met outside 18 below again and finally we got to go outside! We had to go to different locations and learn different stuff. It was interesting but also a very long day. 

I was supposed to meet Chloe and Kathryn at the furniture warehouse for tacos and hockey but I was just so tired that I decided to just stay at home. I made noodles which I spilled on my lap three times. Now I'm just watching tv with my roommates and plotting on getting a bowl of reese puffs or maybe a pop tart or a reese cup. I'm going to get fat but I REALLY love these things, haha. Hopefully the lifty job will keep me just a little fit despite my addictions for reese and pop tarts...... 

1 week into Whistler

I know it's been a while since I last posted, and I don't really have any excuse, haha. I have been doing nothing at all!

I wanted to go to Whistler before I started working, but it turns out that having a 4 people apartment to yourself is really boring, and that it's not so funny walking around town completely on your own too. So I spent most of last week in the apartment skyping with friends and family, grocery shopping and watching tv when I finally bought the cable for the tv.

Monday was a big day for me because Torstein Horgmo's mockumentary called Horgasm a love story came out. It's an amazing movie and I've watched it three times since.

Wednesday was Halloween, and after much consideration I decided I had to experience Halloween. I was dressed as a spider web and went with Hannah down to the common room in building 7 which is the building right across the street from mine. I got 7% ciders and porbably had a little too much so the rest of the night is a blur. I do remember huge amounts of people dressed up dancing in a club.

Chloe and Kathryn, my two australian friends and also my adoptive parents, finally came on friday. We wanted Chloe to come live in my apartment, but we were told that everyone was already allocated, so we have to call back in a few weeks. I did get two new roommates though! It's a couple and they're sharing a room with bunk beds so it really sucks for them. They're really nice, but I'm not sure they're staying because naturally they will want a double bed if they can get one.

We went out friday to celebrate them coming so we ate at Furniture Warehouse Restaurant which has 5 dollar meals, so that is awesome. Will definitaly be coming back there on wednesdays as they have 25cents wings on wednesdays!

I went to a sporting store and found this really cute canucks baby outfit. Too bad I don't know anyone that I could send it to, haha

Yesterday Chloe texted me and asked me if I wanted to come play beer pong in her apartment in Brio. Of course I wanted to so they picked me up in car after their information session at the cabin, and we drove to the market to get beer, cups and pingpong balls, then we went to Chloes and made dinner. I met her roommates Luke and Gus who are both sponsored.

My very first game of beer pong.

Gus has had many seasons here so he gave us all the tips and tricks.Kathryn came down a little later to hang out with us. Then we played beer pong which was awesome. I think my team won, but I'm not sure, haha!
The rest of the night went with haning out in the couch talking and watching Horgasm which Luke had on his computer as he is a snowboarder too.

Today is sunday the 4th. We weren't hungover this morning but me and Chloe decided to go out to eat anyways, so we went to Tapleys and ate brunch buffet, which was delicious. Then we met up with Kathyn in the village and we all went back to Glacier to get Chloe and Kat checked into the Cabin and to get me home to a shower.

My delicious brunch from this morning.

In about half an hour I have my info session. It's a meeting where the lifties get to meet their supervisors and we get our training schedule and that kind of stuff. I'm really excited about it and I can't wait to get started on work - especially after talking to Gus who seems to think that lifty is the best job in the world.

Ok, well that was a lot of news! I'm going to get ready for the info session now. I'll be back with more information about the traning to become a lifty soon!
Life is amazing here and I'm already plotting on becoming a permanent citizen here. Sorry, mom and dad <3

Just a little update. Whistler Blackcomb wrote us a week ago and asked us what we wanted on our nametag. We couldn't pick nicknames, but I went ahead and asked for my nickname anyways and this is the result. It's awesome! 

WHISTLER!

Thursday morning was the day that I went to Whistler. It was kind of sad because I still wanted to live with Chloe and Kathryn at the Samesun.

I got up at 6 and took a cab to the Greyhound bus station. They weighed my bags and one of them was, of course, too heavy so they made me repack so I didn't have to pay more than I already did.

The trip to Whistler was so incredibly beautiful and my pictures just doesn't do it justice, but here are some anyways:

I spent all thursday unpacking and buying groceries, friday went with doing nothing and then I met up with a girl named Hannah for some drinks at Tapleys in the village. Yesterday I went to take a look at the village but it was raining so I just went to buy some more groceries then back home to watch some tv shows all day.

Today is sunday and I think I'm going to go see the village some more, maybe buy an antenna cable, since my tv doesn't have one and then just relax at home.
I can't wait untill I get some roommates and untill Chloe and Kathryn comes to Whistler. I miss them a lot!

More of Vancouver

Sunday we went back to Stanley Park but this time to go to the aquarium. It was awesome and we stayed there for hours. I saw my first beluga whale! I also had my first poutine which was surprisingly good. Poutine is french fries with gravy and cheese, and it's delicous.

When we got back home the girls decided that they wanted to get me drunk. So we went to the beaver at 4pm and began our first beer. We met some boys who we ended up playing drinking games with all night.
The morning after was not so fun ;) haha

Yesterday we stayed at our room because we were too hungover to do anything. We went to the supermarket to get hangover food then just stayed in bed all day, haha. I went to bed at 9, then woke up at 4 and regretted that decision...

Today we went to get our SIN numbers, bank account and cell plans sorted out. It took almost all day and when we were finished we went to a last season sale on snowboard gear. I found a jacket I've been wanting for a long time, some pants and a pair of mittens. :D

We just ate dinner and are now hanging out in our room. I'm surprised I haven't crashed yet since I woke up at 4am, but it'll probably happen in a few moments, haha :)

I have one day left in Vancouver before heading to Whistler, and I can't wait to get there! It's already really cold and snowing there :D

Vancouver!

Hey guys!

I've had a nights sleep now, so I'm ready to tell you a little about my journey!
My first flight was great! I had a window seat and the rows at the window is only to chairs, and the chair beside me didn't fill up so I could almost lay down! The movies were good, food was okay and in general everything was fine.

When I got to Toronto I decided to take it easy. That was a stupid mistake! I thought I had to go pick up my bags then go through immigration but it was the other way around!
So I got to immigration and there were like five people ahead of me but it took like 45 minutes to get through and when I finally got to the baggage claim the screen didn't even show where the baggage from my flight had come out anymore.

So I had to ask where my baggage would have come out. Turns out it was the farthest away so I had to run down there and drag my bags all the way back to the entrance, then check them in and run to my gate where the people then informs us that our cabin crew had yet to arrive with only 5 minutes to boarding ...

My flight to Vancouver was not so good though. I was exchausted and couldn't wait to get to Vancouver so I tried sleeping but it wasn't easy :(
I finally got to Vancouver and luckily my bags came out quickly so I just went and got a cab to the hostel.

The people at the hostel were really nice and helped me out with my bags and gave me a Working Holiday Club package containing a map of the city, a welcome letter, a free beer card, a TWHC bracelet and some other things. When I finally got to my room I just crashed.

This morning I woke up to all the beds in the room filled up and when I introduced myself two of the girls went like "Vibe? From the Working Holiday Club?". It turns out that they're going to Whistler too! So we had breakfast together and decided to go out together. We went shopping at the drugstore, ate lunch at Subway because I never get to go to Subway in Denmark, and then we went to Stanley Park!

Stanley Park was so incredibly beautiful so we spent almost all day there. We saw the totem poles, chased geese, walked around the shore side, met a beautiful dog with different eye colors, decided that we should go to Vancouver Aquarium tomorrow and eventually decided it was time to go home before heading back to a halloween themed event in the Park.

Turns out we're not as good at getting around as we thought. We ended up getting so lost and almost walked right back into the park! So we decided to just eat dinner and then go back to the park where we had tickets for a ghost train. We found this amazing Japanese restaurant which was so good and so cheap and we ate so much, haha :)

Then we went back to the park where we got on the ghost train which was a kids train driving around a halloween edition of old fairy tales. It was so pretty and also a little morbid sometimes ... The girls wanted to get a pumpkin so we stayed and carved a pumpkin, which eventually was named Pete the Party Pumpkin.
Then the cold weather got the best of us and we decided to head home. This time asking the busdriver where we should get off the bus, haha.

I actually went straight to bed when we got home which was at 8pm in Canada, but was later awokened by drunk irish guys shouting in the hall and my roomies trying to make them shut up, haha!
So I figured I might as well write my entry now that it's 1 in the morning and not as many people are using the internet.

So yeah that was my first day here! I'm gonna upload some pictures when the internet will allow me. Until then you're gonna have to settle with just text :)
Tomorrow we're going to go to the Vancouver Aquarium which I'm so excited about!
I hope all my danish friends are having a good time back home, because I'm having the time of my life already and I'm sensing this is going to be some crazy 7 months ahead of me!

Want to do what I'm doing next year?

http://www.the-workingholiday-club.com/

UK Arrivals, Recruitment & Orientations

Andrew Stewart

Tel:  07449 138871

andrew@theworkingholidayclub.com

Skype: andrewstewartTWHC

This is it part 2!

Okay so now I'm in Toronto. Sweating, red in my face and gasping for air. Thank you, immigration for taking that long! haha

My flight was great though. 8½ hours felt like no time at all, I had some sleep, watched three episodes of Big Bang Theory, the movie Some like it hot and Madagascar 3 (which were both good movies). Also ate which is always great, haha :)

Now I'm sitting at the boarding area to my connection and beginning to feel a little dizzy. I'm guessing it's mainly because of dehydration but also lack of sleep, so the next hours untill I arrive will be interesting! :)

I was so glad to log onto facebook because so many people had wished me good luck and have a safe trip and that kind of things.. It makes me so happy that people are thinking of me :) (How can they not, I keep spamming them on facebook, haha)

Well, I think we're about to board. When I get to Vancouver I've been up for just about 24 hours, so no blogupdate untill I've slept for a very long time, haha :) .... Oh wait, they're just telling us that our crew members has yet to arrive (5 minutes to boarding) so I have some time left to write ;)

I can't wait to tell you all about how my trip is going! Stay tuned for part 3!

Want to do what I'm doing next year?

http://www.the-workingholiday-club.com/

UK Arrivals, Recruitment & Orientations

Andrew Stewart

Tel:  07449 138871

andrew@theworkingholidayclub.com

Skype: andrewstewartTWHC

This is it!

My dream is now acutally coming true!

It is Friday the 19th of October and it's 10.20 am danish time. I'm sitting in the airport watching the planes take off. Half an hour ago I said goodbye to my mom, dad, little sister, grandma and grandpa.

It's hard to tell how I'm feeling right now actually.. I'm sad I had to say goodbye to my family, but I can't stop smiling knowing that I'm on my way to what I've wanted to do for so long.

Here are some pictures of my travel so far:

This is my bag a week ago

This is my bag yesterday afternoon

This is how I thought I'd travel

Untill I couldn't zip my bag and it weighed twice as much as I'm allowed to bring.
I had to pay for an extra bag, haha. 

This is how it looked this morning. My two bags and my rucksack for carry on. 

And this is the sunrise when we drove to the airport. 

So yeah, right now I'm sitting in the airport watching the plans take off. There's an hour until my plane begins to board so I'm just sitting here watching and writing. I'll be flying to Toronto first where appearently I have to pick up my bags, drag them through custom and immigration then check in one more time. Kind of silly.  

Then I'll be flying to Vancouver where I'll be arriving around 8 pm BC-time. When I get to the airport all I have to do is take a cab, get to the Samesun Hostel and sleep for a VERY long time :) 

I think this is it for the first entry of my journey - I think I'll be writing again when I'm in Toronto if I have time. Now I'll go back to watching the planes. Just like me and my dad used to every time we flew together :) 

and now for a message to my family (in danish :D): 

Jeg lover at jeg nok skal passe godt på mig selv, skrive mange sms'er om hvordan det går og sende jer billeder og videoer hele tiden. Jeg elsker jer meget højt og kommer til at savne jer meget :) Kram og kys!

Want to do what I'm doing next year?

http://www.the-workingholiday-club.com/

UK Arrivals, Recruitment & Orientations

Andrew Stewart

Tel:  07449 138871

andrew@theworkingholidayclub.com

Skype: andrewstewartTWHC