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Friday, December 28, 2012

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:(





Friday, December 14, 2012

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