Happy Holidays.. to be politically correct

Wishing all our friends and family all over the world a very Merry Christmas all the way from Whistler. We will be thinking of you as we both work hard on Christmas day and then celebrate with the Douglas clan (+ Bill, who used a white Christmas as an excuse to come celebrate with us) on Boxing day!


In other news we are still having an absolute ball and loving every day over here in Canada. Life has become very busy as we spend our time off from work losing ourselves in inches of snow and shredding up the mountains, so we apologise for our lack of posts! We hope in the new year things will slow down a bit and we will have more time to keep you up to date on the lives and travels of Emma and Rhys!! (no longer living out of a back pack :) )

Until then, have a drink for us, enjoy the well deserved time of work / school / uni / reality and we will be back in touch again soon!

Lots of love and holiday wishes
Emma & Rhys

Day in the life of a lifty

Hey,

Its been a while since my last post, but there seems to be no better time than now to fill you in on what I have been up to at work! This is a day in the life of a lifty-

The morning starts bright and early at 4:30 in the morning for breakfast and a coffee in an attempt to wake up prior to starting work at 6! After swiping in the shift starts with a sketchy snowmobile ride halfway up to the mountain to the lift. It is then a hectic rush to dig out and remove any overnight snowfall from the ramp and begin to setup the “maze” which is where people get in line to ride the lift. This setup process takes anywhere between 1 and 2 hours depending on how much overnight snowfall there was!

Not long after finishing preparation works, guests begin to arrive, the mountain is open and it’s time for a ride break!

The remainder of the day consists of thousands of greetings as guests enjoy the mountain and assisting when required to get them safely to the top of the mountain. The idea is to move around, keep the ramp nice and tidy and do all you can to keep nice and warm!

Generally there is time throughout the day to get in a decent ride break and some time to sit in the warmth and have some lunch; it is essential to have lots of snacks =) then the rest of the afternoon flies by and it is time to pack everything up and head back down the mountain!

How about that view!

At the end of the day, the body is well aware it has done its fair share for the day and it is time for a nice hot shower and a beverage before an early night to bed!

The first day on the mountain

So Whistler mountain officially opened a week earlier than expected and lets just say there were lots of people excited about it all!











The line outside the guest services center at the base of the mountain started forming at least 24 hours before opening and there were people camped out in the wind rain and snow over night just to be the first up the mountain!

The line starting to form on opening morning, 2 hours before opening! 

We chose to skip the crowds and went up the following day!

Rhys headed up early in the morning to get a few runs in as I was babysitting.. if you could call it that! I went up and down in the gondola and played in the snow for a few hours.

I got all dressed up in my new gear and hiked up to the village to jump on the gondola (this time with my board and purpose) and put my boots in the snow for the first time! I was skeptical.. it had been a while since i'd last boarded, 4 years if my memory serves me correctly!

But i had a very patient instructor who helped me down the mountain and so what if it took us a few hours to go down 1 run and we were the last people on the chair that afternoon, I made it, didn't kill myself and even started to get into my turns!!

Needless to say, I'm now more excited about the rest of the season and am really looking forward to some more snow so we can start to really explore the rest of the mountain!  

Welcome to Whistler

We've been in Whistler for two weeks now and it already feels like home! What have we been doing for the last 2 weeks you ask? Good question..I'll try to remember!

Well there was the trip from Van which started very early and there were just over 40 of us from TWHC standing outside the Samesun in the dark trying to work out how we and all our luggage was going to fit on the bus!

There were a few people that made us feel not so bad about all our bags! At the end of the day though all the stuff was a necessity so thanks to the bus driver and his tetris skills (and potential breach of health and safety regulations by stacking gear on seats and piling it in the aisle of the bus)! Nether the less the bus ride up was amazing and if there hadn't been so many clouds around we would've got some sweet photos! Still..we were on our way to Whistler!

Then we checked into our house at Brio Staff Housing,  lugged our gear up the stairs and met our new housemates. We're sharing with 2 girls, one from NZ and one from London. So far so good, but I imagine things are going to get interesting when we all start work at the same time and want to use the bathroom at the same time! The apartment itself we are also pretty happy with; It was a lot bigger and much nicer than what we were expecting!

Brio house 

Our pad

Our room (2 x single beds = a GIANT bed! we don't know what to do with half of it!)

Our house decorations are minimal but we've got the essentials up there (incl park, bus and village maps!)

 

We've spent a few days wandering around the village getting ourselves orientated, taking lots of photos of the village pre snow, took a bus trip down to Squamish to stock up on necessities at Walmart, watched the snow fall (and then disappear), went ice skating, discovered a few cheap eats around town ($4.95 all day meals at El Furni's are pretty good), found out where I can do free yoga, joined the gym, and of course, met lots of new people!

Base 2 pre snow

View down to Blackcomb gondala pre snow (the big building is the Panpac hotel which is where my work is!)

We also started training at work which has been pretty good and broken up our days a bit. Everyone is just  hanging out until the snow falls, the mountain opens and we can all work and get into the swing of things! Whistler is opening this Saturday (17 Nov - 1 week earlier than expected) and Blackcomb will open the following weekend as scheduled (22 Nov)  Bring it on!

Rhys was lucky enough to get an early start at work, he was originally scheduled to start on the 22nd Nov with the second wave of lifties but there were a few guys who didn't show up to the first day so he got in early and is ready to start! Their training has been pretty intensive and after the first few days we were in the village buying more thermals for him as it was a little chillier than expected up there!! Temps arent even close to how low they will be during the season so might be interesting for him!!

I've learned what a rental tech does! Essentially I'm working in the rental division at the back of Salomon store at the base of the blackcomb mountain, right next to the gondala and in the centre of the village. THe store itself is pretty cool and we were shocked by the price of everything when we walked in the first time! even more shocked to find that people wont hesitate to walk in and drop $2000+ on a second set of gear just to use on their week holiday at Whistler.. oh it would be nice to have that kind of money!

So i've learned a lot about all the different kinds of skis, how to set up bindings on skis and boards, how to fit boots, how to 'upsale' and how to calculate DIN settings. It was all a bit overwhelming but I had my first practice customer (Rhys) the other day and I'm more than excited to get started!

 
I get to fit boots and use a skrew driver to set the settings on the skis and set bindings on boards! pretty cool


I also had an interview with Whistler Babysitting and am hoping to pick up a few babysitting shifts here and there. The money is much better than what i'm getting at the store and the work will be very different to what i'm used to so i guess we'll see how that goes!

Snow making

Aside from that, we've spent far too much money and need to start work so we don't draw into our savings too much! we've met a lot of people, learned the cheapest alcohol at the liquor store (you can buy 1.5L of red wine for $14.99 and 2L of 7% cider for $8.99!) , taken plenty of photos and are now just sitting on our hands waiting for the snow so we can start work and official kickstart our lives as Ski Bums :)

And just for the record.. it's so nice not living out a backpack any more!

E x

Other highlights in Van

There are a few other must see places in Van that we haven't yet included in our other posts but thought we'd definitely need to share! That and I wanted to share all my photos :)

Granville Island 

 A short ferry ride in a very very small ferry across the river from our hostel, was Granville Island. Home to the local, famous and indoor Granville markets.

 

Kale flowers!! (They looked a lot healthier than mine did when i left home..)

Oysters and fresh seafood

Handmade Choccies

We wandered through the market looking at the fresh fruit and veg, seafood, hundreds of different teas, baked goods, hand made chocolates and fresh flowers! Surrounding the markets is the ‘arts and cultural’ part of town I spose you could call it. There was a few community centres, various performing art theatres, lots of art galleries and shopping areas. The weather was perfect the day we headed over there and it was the weekend, so it was definitely a busy place to be! It was also a few days before Halloween so all the kids were out in the costumes! 

The packed harbour surrounding the island

Hats!!

Mum this one's for you - laser engraving is apparently how you can label your chopping boards! Bring them over with you when you come ;) 

Gastown

Gastown was one of the places in Van we’d been told we had to visit. It’s down by the waterfront, at the north east end of downtown and is considered a historical site of Vancouver. It’s full of hip bars and restaurants and home of the famous steam clock. The scenery and buildings down there were pretty cool but it was pouring with rain the day we went so we took a few quick snaps then took shelter in a cute little pub for a nice glass of red!

University of British Columbia + The Museum of Anthropology

We’d heard good things about the anthropology museum at the University of British Columbia and even though we weren't quite sure what we’d find there, we went anyway, and we were so glad we did!

The university itself was pretty cool, the campus was huge and the area surrounding it was a little university community, similar to UQ and St Lucia but much larger! The museum was incredible too, full of artefacts and displays from the first nations people of Canada.

Another great day of weather! 

We did a guided tour which was well worth it as we were told about all the history of each of the artefacts and learnt a lot more than we would've just walking around the museum solo! 

Perhaps i'm going to need one of these to keep warm in the winter..

A new bike dad?

Traditional dance costume for rituals

E x