Adam's Canadian Adventure

Thursday, 10 February 2005

Location: Gold Coast, Australia

Well sadly my trip has come to an end! I got back to the sunny gold coast on tuesday at about 4pm. The last two weeks in whistler were DEFINITELY two of the best!

As expected the day following australia day was extremely quiet.. none of us woke up before about 12pm and all of us were sporting seriously bad hangovers. However it was unanimously agreed that the pain was definitely worth it as it was such an awesome day. It snowed about ten centimetres on australia day so that made for some pretty good snow. Brig, Elly, and Bech left on the 30th i think.. so we all went up on the 29th with them. The snow was great and it was sunny all day.. check the photos. It was definitely sad to see them go and our place at Aspens seemed so much more empty without them! After they left it was just Molly, Bernie and I in Aspens.. however it was only for one night as our accommodation ran out there on the 31st. My parents arrived on the 28th i think.. and i moved in with them at the Westin on the 31st for my last few nights. It was such a nice hotel and i had one night with brig there before she left. Before the girls left my parents took us all out to dinner at Earls which was really fun. We all had a pretty good time and took the opportunity to eat as much as we could. The bayou prawns were a particular highlight!

My last week in whistler coincided with GAY ALTITUDE WEEK where it seemed the entire gay population of north america had flocked to whistler. I have never seen so many gay people in my life.. and the men inparticular were so camp and open in public which was quite disturbing at first and definitely took some getting used to!

My last two days of skiing turned out to be my best by far. On the morning of the 3rd i was awoken by a msg from bernie which read 'GET UP HERE NOW!! IT DUMPED A FOOT LAST NIGHT NO JOKE!'.. i rang the snow report to make sure he wasnt playing some kind of practical joke and sure enough 28cm of snow had fallen in only about 8hours. I got dressed as fast as i could and went straight up to 7th heaven. The skiing was absolutely phenomonal... ive never seen powder 'pow pow' like that before in my life. When i did my first run down 7th, there had only been like 1 skier down before me so i had fresh tracks the whole way. The snow was up to my thighs and my ski's were totally submerged.. quite a different feeling from the spring conditions we had experienced for the last two months. We had the most awesome day of skiing.. we didnt come in until virtually the last lift as the snow was so awesome. I took a video of myself skiing which ill have to show some of you.. all you can see are my legs floating through the powder.. it looks insane! I ventured up to Jersey Bowl which was insane.. they had been avalanche blasting all morning but opened it up in the afternoon - got some great photos from the top and looking down the rediculously steep face! I was meant to be leaving the next day at 7am however Hamish and i decided to leave at 7pm instead so we could get another great day of powder skiing in.

That night i went out with everyone for my last night out in whistler. We went to earls again for dinner and then on to tommy's to bid our favorite venue fairwell. We did it in style and had about 10 too many Jager Bombs (the bartender gives you a cup of redbull and a shot of jager.. you drop the shot of jager into the redbull and scull). We had another day of awesome skiing on the 5th before Hamish and i packed up our stuff, I said goodbye to the parents, and we got on the bus for vancouver. We were both pretty sad to be leaving all our friends, and especially with all the new snow, however im sure we will be back there soon.

We got to vancouver at 8pm and walked a few blocks to our hotel - while about ten homeless people offered to carry our bags along the way! Our hotel was awesome, both had queen beds to ourself and it was right in the middle of town. We went across the road to a pub for dinner and a few beers. At about 10pm the line outside was huge, apparantly the place we went called 'Caprice' was the most popular place in town on a saturday night. After dinner we were both exhausted so went to bed.

Got up early the next day at 8 and had our included 'Buffet Breakfast' - not quite the plethora of eggs, bacon, and pancakes that we had been imagining but still great considering it was free. We went to the aquarium at 10 which was really cool. Some pretty weird fish in there.. one fresh water fish that was about 3m long. Had some cool white Baluga wales and some dolphins and seals. Hamish left me after that as he had an earlier flight to catch. After the aquarium i walked up Robson st - supposed to be the place to go for shopping. Had some pretty cool shops and i bought a pretty wicked Pringle style jumper, very seth like! By the time i walked up Robson St, down the Pacific Mall, and into sears for a bit.. it was time to head home and to the airport.

Luckily they didnt weigh my luggage or care about my extra bag (thanks brig) or im sure i would have cost me an arm. Met up with Lucy Dunstan and Caro at the airport and then boarded the plane. Our first stop over was for half an hour in honolulu to refuel i guess.. then on to Fiji where we had a 6 hour stop over. For some strange reason we had to clear customs, however by the time we got to the customs gate there was no one there at all. By the way, if anyone is planning on seeing that movie 'Taxi' with Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon... dont! We waited for a while then just walked through to get some help without getting our passports stamped or anyone even looking twice at us! Not exactly what you would call a high level of security that is experienced in most other airports these days. See the photo of caro playing with the keyboard at the customs desk!

The stop over was boring and we were all so tired. We went to a cafe and slept and ate until it was time to board at 12:45. The flight to australia was only 4 hours and was pretty painless as we were all so excited about arriving home. Finally arrived back on australian soil at about 3:00pm last tuesday! Shawn and Eugene came to pick me up which was great, but the car ride home was painful.. i was in jeans and a jumper and the heat was insane!

All in all it was definitely one of the best three months in my life! Highlights would have to include Australia day which was unforgettable, and the last two powder days of skiing were also unreal. If anyone reading this is thinking of going over there i would definitely recommend it, i had the time of my life in whistler! Not really the place to go if you want to meet some canadians as the place is full of aussies! But that didnt matter for me, luckily we had such a big group of people over there and they all made it so much fun.

Ive been back for 5 days now and its great to be back but looking back at all the photos and the fun we had im missing it already. So nice to be back in the warmer weather now , i know its cliche` but Australia, and the Gold Coast in particular, is without a doubt the best place in the world! On that night its time for me to sign off.. thanks go out to Whistler BC for being an awesome place, thanks to everyone that went and for all the fun we had - Team Aspens, Crabapple, Terrace Boys, Cramptons House, BGS Boys, Grammar Girls + other randoms i have forgotten - , thanks to Ron Burgundy and my sweet Baxter, and finally thanks to anyone that may be reading this! Hope you have enjoyed reading about my travels... until next time..

FOCKER OUT!!

Monday, 31 January 2005

Location: Whistler, Canada

Thankfully the weather has taken a turn for the best.. the temperature has dropped and so have the freezing levels which has lead to some decent snow over the past few days. Lots of the slush has also frozen which is great, however the alpine lifts (7th heaven, Harmony) are still the only places worth skiing. My parents arrived yesterday, just in time for the snow which was pretty lucky. Its been great to see them and finally eat some decent meals! Its only a week until i come home now, i cant believe how quickly this trip has gone its insane! The last week has definitely been one of the best. As i said the snow has been good so ive been up a fair few days.

Without a doubt the highlight of my trip has been AUSTRALIA DAY on the 26th of January. I had heard rumors for the past two months about how good Australia day was over here, however everyone thought that due to the poor snow conditions and not too many people around, it may just be hype and not nearly as crazy as many of the stories i have heard. The Longhorn Saloon is the place to go on Australia day, and we had been told by many that you should be lining up at the door no later then 7am if you want to get in. We definitely should have listened to their advice!

Everyone woke up at 8:00am and started getting kitted up with any australiana that we could get our hands on. The guys all had "Australian Skiing Team" shirts on that we made and we littered ourselves with australian flags, tattooes and bandanas! I wore my t-shirt, big yellow vest, RM Williams and my Aussie bandana to top it off. At 8:30am we decided to set the record for the earliest beer bong in history and all the guys had two each while the girls enjoyed their orange champagnes. I thought drinking that early in the morning would be a struggle however the beers went down more easily then expected. After a few drinks and a 'roadie' under the jacket, we caught the bus stop into town. The bus ride was sooo funny, we all sat up the back and started bellowing out our national anthem with pride. Soon enough all the girls up front joined in and we had a full chorus line of crazy aussies. I would love to know what all the other normal people on the bus thought of us..

As we rose up the steps next to the bus stop we got our first glimpse of the line outside the longhorn. The rumors rang true and the line was at least 100 metres long.. and every single person in that line was sporting a flag or anything they could find that was green or gold. As soon as we joined the back of the line we found a footy in the line and started up a game of touch in the middle of crowd which was awesome fun however somewhat short-lived as our fitness levels wouldnt allow for a longer game. We all sang some more songs in the crowd, i think i heard Waltzing Matilda at least 20 times that day. Fortunatley for us we had some friends right at the front of the line, so in true aussie spirit we skipped the 1hr+ wait and scotty and I got straight in!

You got a ticket for a free meat pie on entry (was made of a grainy mince rather then gravy like the aussie ones but good none the less!) and we also discovered that the bar had imported cans of VB for day (Although it was a bit of a shock after drinking Corona's for two months, we thought it was our patriotic duty to drink VB all day, and that we did!) which made us feel at home! After half an hour and countless tinnies, all of our friends were in (about 25 of us) and we headed straight to the dancefloor where we stayed for the remainder of the day. The played the most awesome music - started off with about 4 hours of purely australian music with the likes of AC/DC, Jet & Midnight Oil. And finished up playing the top ten of Triple J's hottest 100! When 'land down under' by men at work came on everyone went crazy and screamed out the lyrics with pride. However the highlight of the day was undoubtedly 'The Voice' by John Farnham. At that stage all our friends were on the four podiums and everyone was screaming out the song which was awesome fun and soooo funny. I have a great video i took on my camera.

We stayed at the longhorn all day and didn't leave until the place closed at 2:00am. I left with bernie and some other girls from our house.. we aren't entirely sure how we got home, but as soon as we did we passed out for a well earned rest.It was an insanely fun day, i think i must have met over 100 randoms. It was so good to be able to celebrate the day with all our mates and about 700 other aussies. Ive never really celebrated australia day at home, but after that experience i think i will have a big day from now on. It was one of the best days ive ever had and I don't think that any other australia day will ever come close. Between us all we have about 600 photos of the day, I will post a few on here for you to look at but make sure you come and look at all of them when i get home on the 8th.

As expected we felt slightly under the weather the next day so we just sat around, watched tv, ate and reminisced about what an awesome day we had. If i don't go out again until i leave it won't matter, everyone is so stoked our trip ended on such a high.

Brig and the rest of the girls are leaving in a couple of days so Ill be spending the next few days with her. Apart from that i just want to ski everyday because the snow is good. I was looking forward to coming home about a week ago, but now im sure that i will definitely miss this place. We have already decided to have a whistler reunion when we get back. And bernie - our technical guru - is going to compile everyone's photo's and video's and make a DVD to remember our trip!

Until next time...
Adam

ps. The human torch was denied a bank loan.
pps. The skeleton ran out of shampoo in the shower.

Monday, 24 January 2005

Location: Whistler, Canada

On Friday night everyone headed to sushi at about 5:30 for Caroline's Birthday. It was pretty fun, we had almost half of the restaurant booked out. The sushi over here is quite nice.. they have a mango roll which is pretty awesome im told. However i cannot WAIT to get back to Mr Sushi at mermaid.. nothing in the world compares to their chilli chicken and teriyaki rolls! After sushi we all went back to out apartment and had a bit of a party before heading out at about 12 to Tommy's. It wasn't a very big night, i think everyone is a bit partied out. We were home and in bed by about 2:30.

The weekend was pretty uneventful... the snow is a joke. Ive never seen snow conditions this bad... even in australia! There are bare patches everywhere and a golf course has appeared beneath the melting snow in the middle of town! If the snow doesnt improve i think i might have to hire some clubs and go for a whack.. definitely missing my golf right now. On top of that I have picked up a bit of a head cold which is not cool. Been fairly stuffed up and had some headaches however im feeling better today so i should be right for some more lazing around and dvd watching tomorrow ;)

Everyone is trying to figure out how they can leave early or how they can move to another ski resort with more snow to at least get a week or so of skiing in before we all head home. Im looking forward to my parentals arriving on the 28th.. will be great to see them and also cant wait to eat some good food! At this stage my flight is on the 6th of feb arriving back in australia on the 8th. My parents leave whistler on the 5th.. but im thinking i might go down to vancouver on the 4th or the 3rd for a couple of nights because im told there is a lot to do down there - at least more then there is here at the moment.

Tonight there is a hypnotist show at Merlins just down the road and he is supposed to be hillarious so we might all go and watch that. Apart from the i don't have much to update.. due to the poor snow conditions the mountain are giving away free lessons so I might try and hit up one of those. Write me an email.. i need something to do!

Adam
ps. Pray for Snow