Second tracks

On the back of last night’s festivities I got up after a mere 5 hours sleep to hit the slopes this morning at 8.30. I’d arranged to go up with Tim as I’d left my backpack in their room up at staff housing and I had to go up that way to get my day ticket anyway. So I dragged myself out of bed this morning feeling wwwwonderful and got up and out as quickly as I was capable. Matt Rai stayed round at our place last night so we headed up to staff housing together, although the bus did turn up whilst I was putting my board boots on so I legged it out of the house sans my helmet or a beanie… Goddamit.

Unsurprisingly Tim wasn’t up when we got to staff housing at 10 and also the stupid intercom thing on the door doesn’t work so you can’t actually get in unless you tailgate someone! Anyway someone turned up after we’d been outside a while so I went about banging Tim’s door down. We managed to raise him from the dead and he looked just as happy as I was to be out of bed. I went to get my day pass while he got ready and we eventually got on the lift at 11.13, poor effort!

Tim took out his new Option Free Plus for its debut and I’d just changed my stance quite a lot (widened by an inch and moved angles from 24/6 to 18/-3) and, considering the picture of health that we were in the gondola I was expecting a slow start to the day :) after a couple of runs though we met up with some guys that Tim knew – one was a Canadian snowboard instructor and the other guy was a Kiwi who had more than one season under his belt. They were pretty much hitting every kicker and bump in sight and spinning 360s like it was nothing – sick. The Canadian guy – Fred – took us on a bit of a guided tour. We did some tree runs in powder and two of the bowls at the top of Whistler which was pretty sweet! Unfortunately whilst we were doing the second bowl I was straightlining near the bottom to get enough speed to carry across the run-out and hit a compression which sent me flying through the air and rotating forwards and slightly to the right. Landed on the nose then catapulted onto my head before cartwheeling through the air, sending my goggles flying in the process, and finally coming to rest on my back about 10 metres from the lip. After that my boarding was pretty much done for as I was somewhat dazed, which was compounded by the fact that we had to do a ridiculously long traverse to get back to the lifts that destroyed any strength left in my legs after having been slashing the pow-pow. After having a rest though Sascha (who was the Kiwi guy) convinced me to do one last run before heading home :) I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be in much pain tomorrow as random parts of my body started hurting after we came off the hill… Oh well if you don’t fall over then you’re not pushing hard enough, right? It’s just sods law that I managed to head plant after leaving my helmet behind, although fortunately I managed to loan a beanie to keep me ears warm :)

There’s some awesome terrain on the mountain, even though we only got a tiny glimpse of it in today’s outing. Plus we covered probably less than a third of the top section of one of the mountains, and the snow is much thinner than it’s going to be, crazy. There were some really nice tree lined blue runs further down too which are going to be wicked for hammering down at mach 7. In fact one of the runs we hit a couple of times today – Emerald – was a fantastic run with some nice lips on it for knocking out a couple of jumps on the way down.

Anyway I’m rambling a little, hopefully I’ll get up tomorrow if I’m not in too much pain but it’s 50:50 at the moment! Damn my lack of fitness :)

Jay oh beeeeee

Got a job today! Result!!!

Is quite funny what process I had to go through to get the job considering the rigmarole at the recruitment fair. Fran had heard about a job going at a restaurant called 18 below at Blackcomb base 2 which she told me about last Tuesday, so I phoned the woman, Estelle, who is the head of recruiting, and asked about it on Wednesday. She asked me a bunch of questions about what had happened in my original interviews and what kind of experience I had and said that she thought she might have a position in a different restaurant and that she'd call me on Monday morning. So I sat in all morning today, got up at 7.30, and waited for the phone to ring (well actually I played SSX3 and GTA San Andreas :) but no call! So at 1p.m. I phoned and left a message and she called me back at 2.20 saying that she had a couple of positions going at the Roundhouse restaurant on Whistler either washing dishes or 'bussing' - which translated into English means general clearing up and keeping things stocked. I said I'd like the busser position so she said, "ok they've authorised me to hire you straight into the job, so that's it! Bring the necessary forms to 'the Cabin'" - simple as that. So off I trotted with the forms and it was aaaaall good baby. Woohoo!

So that means FREE LIFT PASS! Get in. I checked straight off if I could get day passes for the couple of days until I get my proper pass (Thursday) which was all good, so basically I'm set! I have to go and get uniform on Thursday and then have training on Friday (how hard can it be) and find out my shifts and stuff. But yeah, basically I should have no worries now :) I'm not sure how much I'm going to enjoy clearing up after people but maybe I can search for something better in a while… Anyway will see how it goes and at the moment I’m STOKED (another N.Americanism).

After that we thought it would be rude not to celebrate so went and got mullered, and even pulled a nice Aussie girl whilst with hat hair - crazy place this is!

Pictures!

greets,

well Telus managed to pull their finger out and we got our modem yesterday, finally. So now I can share some lovely pix with you all plus stick some posts up that I've been writing for a while in anticipation of this day :) I was going to link the photos up through here but that proved to be major hassle so I've set up a photo thingy at flickr (which will also let me post photos to here should I so desire in future). You should be able to view them at http://flickr.com/photos/snowiscold/.

If that isn't working then let me know! Otherwise, enjoy :)

First tracks

Went up the mountain for the first time today, which put a TOTALLY different face on living here (for the better)! Up til now it’s been kinda weird living in a resort town with no resort, if you get me. I was actually pretty excited to be going up, so much so that I had an early night and got up at 7a.m. (unprecedented thus far) to make sure I wasn’t going to miss the early lifts. I’d arranged to go up with Beth to give her a hand with learning the art, and after I’d sat around outside Spicy sports (her place of work) waiting for her to get changed, plus bumped into Dan and Oli outside, we all headed up at around 8.56a.m. I wasn’t sure how much to layer up since it was my first time out so I whacked on 5 layers comprising thermals, t-shirt, microfleece, hoody and (new) jacket. Bloody good job I did cuz I was pretty much on the money as far as the temperature went, although I’m going to have to invest in a balaclava thingy (which I was planning on buying anyway) soon to keep the wind off my face at the top as I nearly got brainfreeze on one of the chairlifts! I also debuted my new helmet ;) should look totally ninja when I have my full face balaclava thing too, lol.

Anyway back to the point… On arriving at the top of the catskinner chairlift I agreed with Beth to go and do a couple of runs solo to find my feet whilst she did the same (at a somewhat more gentle pace, being only her 3rd day out boarding) then I’d catch her up either on the run or at the top of the chairlift and give her some pointers.

The first run I did was a fairly tame green run called ‘Easy Out’. The snow was pretty hardpacked and the first run down was pretty sketchy, but by the end of the day I was flying down at pretty much my regular pace :) I had heard some horror stories about people trashing their boards on rocks during early season so I was a bit wary of that, and by the end of the day the run we’d been doing was pretty trashed at the top with some tree bits and stones kicking about. I managed to avoid doing serious damage though but something has made my edge go kinda serrated in one place, argh.

After my second run I headed back up to the top and, predictably, Beth was nowhere to be seen. Normally I would have been able to get her on the walkie talkies that I have, but the charger for them has turned out to not be multivoltage (seeing as the stupid North Americans run on 110V) so it’s probably destroyed :) bugger. So I tried calling with no success.. Then I decided to hammer it down a black run to try and see if she was on the chairlift, which ran above that piste – no joy, but on the chairlift up I saw her still going down the same green run, lol. When I eventually caught up with her it turned out she’d only managed one run in the time I’d done four and had taken a nasty knock on the coccyx, so she went for a coffee break and I continued exploring alone. Whilst stopping to pick my line down the next blue run I bumped into Jen and her bloke Ant, so I cruised around with them for about another hour before stopping for lunch. I was going to treat myself to something but on seeing the prices I decided to eat my crushed ham sandwiches instead that I’d made that morning, efficient eh?! (Which were crushed when I fell earlier by overdoing it down the same black run, sliding down on my back underneath the snow cannons and getting a trouserful of wet in the process..)

At lunch we met Kash (Ant’s mate from Bournemouth uni), Lewis and Matt, but we made it a fairly short lunch break as I wanted to max my time out after purchasing a day ticket for $41 (although that’s still cheaper than going to Tamworth or Milton Keynes!) so I headed out again with Matt and Lewis to see what kinda standard they were up to ;) after having stopped my legs were feeling some serious burn though so I was glad to reach the bottom of the first run!

After a couple more times down Matt stopped to give Oli a hand (as it was his first day out and Dan had abandoned him) so me and Lewis sessioned the green run a bit more, caught up with Beth and her newly found friend Lara and tried to give them a hand with their technique.
By the end of the day Beth was linking her turns pretty good but Lara was at the point of exhaustion so my efforts with her were somewhat wasted! In fact I made sure she got home ok because they were about to shut the lifts and the only way down was to go down a run which was closed and unpatrolled, which I didn’t think was a good idea seeing as I’d somehow lost everyone else! It’s a good job I didn’t because by the time we got the chairlift down it had started snowing and the lower parts of the runs were shrouded in cloud. Oh yeah, and on the chairlift down, I realised I’d spent the whole day boarding without insurance as it didn’t start until the 24th ;)

Job Hunting

Today we went job hunting. It sucked. As I may have previously mentioned, there were supposed to be more jobs posted by Intrawest on the 20th, note ‘supposed’, mind you I wasn’t expecting a great deal cuz the woman on the phone did say that realistically she didn’t expect more jobs to be put on there until the start of December, and given their previous performance and adherance to their word… so, yea.. we went job hunting today. There was a job fair at the Four Seasons resort – for housekeeping positions – yep that’s right, a whole job fair for housekeeping positions. And you had to have 2 interviews (which was going to be 3 until a million people turned up, as per out here) to get a job. I managed to get the chief steward as my first interviewer, great. The interview went well but I don’t think he was too keen on my goatee… or the fact that I forgot to shave this morning cuz there was a bit of a queue for the shower :) lol. After that bombed out (actually they said they’d give me a call within a week, which means rejection seeing as no-one here will actually tell you you’re not going to get a job) we went round the hotels in the village looking for anything going. Me and Si managed to make the process light hearted but it was a pretty miserable day, so when we bumped into Sean in the village (Dunc’s mate from uni, probs his first mention) we thought it was only reasonable to go get a pitcher to ease the pain. Except Si forgot his ID (well to tell you the truth Dave has got Si’s drivers license and Lewis has got mine – until Friday anyway cuz then’s his b’day) so we got chucked off the patio :D after that we had to go to the Dubh Linn gate cuz they never ID, do pitchers of Irish lager for $10, and have a darts board :) a game of killer later then back home for some chill time before hitting the slopes for the first time tomorrow, booya. Will let you know how it is…

Night X

Whistler first impressions

NB: I started writing this a couple days after we got here, so sorry if there's any incohesion as it's now the 25th! I've back-dated the post for continuity's sake.

Whistler… Well I’m not sure what I expected it to be like, but it’s not like I expected. That doesn’t really make much sense but that’s a good way to describe it :) Unlike most cities over here it just kinda sprawls (although we have been informed that it’s one of the most modern communities in the world). What surprised me about it was the amount of space between everything because in most French resorts everything is crammed into not a lot of space, but then I suppose that’s not the North American way, is it…
Anyway, the hostel we stayed in, the ‘Shoestring lodge’ was an improvement on the Vancouver hostel but still not fantastic by any stretch (check the room photo lol), plus we discovered possibly the noisiest sleeper ever in the guy who we were sharing with to start off with :) oh and the bathroom was pretty minging, hostelling is great eh! Having said that though, as soon as we moved out of there into our house we missed the squalor and bustle of it and it’s so easy to meet people, but it’s also nice to have a base where you can unpack and have a bit of quiet. Living out of a backpack is a serious pain in the arse unless you’re willing to unpack and repack at each new place, which I wasn’t, hence it did my head in :)

To start with we were going out a fair bit cuz to be honest there’s not that much else to do at the minute and also to meet everyone who’s up here. Well not everyone but lots of people who you randomly bump into plus many friends of friends (of friends…) although that’s kinda hit the wallet a bit hard! The first weeks were always gonna be like that though innit. Last night managed to take a night off from drinking to go to the cinema, and even managed to not drink any alcohol for a whole day on Tuesday (gasp) [note that I started writing this a while ago so the rate of spending – therefore drinking - has, necessarily, been slowed quite a lot since then, but I’ll get to that later!]. In the first week though we had the Halloween party night, which was absolutely awesome. See we’d all picked up these costumes whilst we were in Vancouver in anticipation of the Halloween celebration up in Whistler. Matt was a naughty nurse, Si was Hula Harry, Paul was Pom Pom Paul (rofl), I was a beauty queen, Lewis was some kind of warrior princess/She-Ra and Tim and Dunc picked up some random dresses and wigs at a later date to join in the cross dressing theme. I think the costumes all set us back about 40 bucks (~£20) but it was well worth it for the comedy value (sure you’ll agree when you see the pics). We went with an early drinking theme once again – think we started about 5pm whilst getting into costume before going upstairs to the Gator grill for some quality Mexican scran before heading out. First off we went to a bar called ‘Citta’ (pronounced Cheetah – a pretty cool bar that has different offers each day) and met some hotties from Victoria. Not sure what they must have thought of us turning up in drag but to be honest I reckon the ladies were loving it, especially the squeezing of large fake foamy breasts, although my cries of “like for like” seemed to fall on deaf ears :) after a couple of beers there we went to a club called Moe Joe’s after failing to get into Tommy Africas as originally planned because the queue (or line-up in Canadian) was ridiculous. Having said that I’d just managed to muscle my way to the front when the other guys decided we were going to leave and go somewhere else so I was a bit narked! We had a quality night although I was a bit disappointed that none of us won the fancy dress competition. When we got home there were a bunch of peeps outside the hostel having a smoke and I bumped into Al’s housemate from Nottingham – Jamie – who has ended up living in the house above ours, it’s a very small world… In fact it’s so small that I also met another guy called Si Mountain or suttin like that who knows Al and Jamie from uni! Anyway back on track – we got home and Si decided it was a good idea to throw all the tissue paper that had been contributing to his ample frontage into a tree outside the hostel. Then Paul went to sleep in Kim’s bed because she’d said she was staying somewhere else, but then Kim came home, saw someone in her bed, went and got security and the guy dragged Paul out of bed by his ankle, still in costume hahaha. Paul then RAN home from our hostel back to creekside (a good few miles in the freezing cold, nutter. He is from Kendal though, home of the mint cake!). So yeah I think that’s pretty much the story of Halloween night, you’re prolly bored of hearing about it :)

Aside from socialising (joking), the most important issues here are:

1) Housing
2) Job

With much emphasis on housing. Even if you’re in staff housing, cuz as we’ve since discovered this is in no way guaranteed… So yes, let me tell you about the job situation…

Turned up for my first interview on the 3rd November (wow that was a long time ago), millions of people everywhere, very busy etc etc. So I’d heard that if you checked in early then you could get an interview ahead of your slot. Mine was at 10.30am so I got there at like 9.45 after getting a cab half way there cuz I thought I was going to be late and didn’t get seen til about 10.45… Annoying. Anyway the interview went really well and I got called back for a second interview the next day (kinda necessary since the 4th was the last day of the recruitment fair) and spoke to the guy who was in charge of the interviews for the position that day, which was also good and he took my name etc., so I thought sweet that seems all good. Also I was told at least twice that I would have a one on one interview the following day. I turned up for my interview and ended up being interviewed by 3 guys along with another couple of Aussie guys (i.e. a 3 on 3 interview, although this didn’t surprise me greatly as I’d heard similar reports from friends about their interviews) which obviously wasn’t as good as a one on one but still, I thought it went pretty well so I was fairly confident about getting a job. Heh.

Unfortunately we all had to wait until the 8th or 9th of November before ringing to find out whether we’d got a job or not. I was supposed to ring up on the 9th because, I guess, my interview was in the latter half of the week. The day came though and I’d heard a sneaky rumour that you could find out on either day but they’d just told everyone a time to space the whole thing out. As it was I phoned at like 8.30pm on the 8th along with my friend Sara who’d also gone for the same position, albeit in a different store (Intrawest, who own the mountains, own a bunch of different stores which are scattered about the place). Had to hold for about 20 minutes which was a bit annoying, especially when they told me that they were afraid they couldn’t offer me a position at this time :) Sara got hers though, which, more importantly, means that she gets to stay in staff housing. In fact all the guys we met in Vancouver from Leeds uni got jobs with the mountain so they all get to stay in their room. Unfortunately Dunc didn’t get his job as a liftie so is faced with the prospect of being evicted from staff housing unless he gets a job when he reapplies (which myself, Si and probably Lewis are going to do too, being the only people left in our house without jobs :) [update: Dunc has since found a job as a housekeeper and a place to live in Creekside, so it’s all good!]
Of all the people I’ve spoken to about their jobs, far, far more people didn’t get the job than did. This spawned many conspiracy theories about the recruitment process, especially that it seems as if Intrawest tried to maintain a 50:50 male to female ratio in their staff even though there’s apparently 6 times as many guys as girls in Whistler (which I’m not sure I believe, although there’s definitely more guys), which meant that nearly every girl I spoke to had got a job (along with about 5 other job offers – basically if you’re a fit girl out here then you’ve got it made! One shop even tried to poach my friend Beth after she’d already been employed, lol. She is fit though ;p)
So anyway, that night after finding out I hadn’t got a job we just all got really wasted and went into town, it’s the only way. Can’t remember where we went though, ah well.

Think I’ll cut this there because I know it’s a bit of a chore reading huge chunks at one time (*cough* Gurpal) so I’ll post some more going out stuff and general info later on so you can take it in piece by piece (and spread out the excitement – ahem), plus I think my housemates are getting annoyed by the fact I’ve been on the computer since I got up 4 hours ago solidly :p

Tata for now guys, apologies if I've written nonsense! X

Internet eedjuts

Hey guys,

sorry this has been so quiet the past couple of weeks, i'm in the process of writing more stuff to go on here and we were supposed to be getting the internet at our place last Tuesday but the fools at Telus didn't send us out a modem cuz they didn't think we needed one (?!) so we're still waiting on that... Rest assured that more will be appearing soon though!

Brief news though - Blackcomb mountain opened yesterday, there's 90cm of snow up top but at resort it's still v patchy. It's snowing today lightly but more is needed! It's supposed to be dumping tomorrow though I think so I might sneak up the mountain one day this week. Still haven't got a job (and hence a pass) yet but that's set to change in the next few days I think! Will keep ya posted anyway... :)

Hope all are well X

Whistler residence :)

Hey all,

bit slow on this but have moved into a house thingy in Whistler, address is...

8436B Matterhorn Drive
Alpine Meadows
Whistler
BC
V0N 1B8

hope all are well!

Vancouver

Well I just got to a PC up in Whistler, so thought would offer an overview of events in Vancouver now I have more than 10 minutes to spare to write stuff down before the computer KOs... [actually I finished this post on si's laptop 4 days afterwards cuz I used up 3 hours of internet access househunting that day and it costs bucks!]

Vancouver is one of the nicest places I've been, surrounded by the Pacific ocean on one side and mountains on the other, skiing practically on your doorstep when Grouse mountain opens plus some nice beaches too. Also hundreds and hundreds of nice bars and restaurants!! Also an apparent abundance of pleasant (natured and to look at) barmaids who are happy to work hard for your tips ;)

Speaking of tips, there's a hugely complicated system of tipping over here... 10% is pretty much expected wherever you go, and people get pissed if you don't give them that :) my friend matt (not quite sure why she picked on him over everybody else but there we go) managed to majorly upset the barmaid in the bar we ended up at every day by not tipping enough on a $150 bill so she had to make up the 10% out of her own pocket to appease the rest of the staff, lol. We accounted it to drunkenness plus general difficulty in raising enough money from everybody to cover just the bill alone! Oh and the taxi driver who drove us from the airport was a bit pissed cuz we only tipped him 9 cents, oops. We weren't to know! Also there's tax (government sales tax I believe) on every price that is quoted here, slightly confusing as there are different rates for different things and everything seems cheaper than it actually is.. Fortunately beer is cheaper than at home, although I've still managed to spend $300 in 4 days, hmm.

So yeah, first day we got here we were all pretty wrecked having set off at 5 in the morning from home, travelled on the plane for near 15 hours (which sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half after we were supposed to take off whilst they fixed an "oil filter" in the left engine, v reassuring), sorting out visas through immigration, moving my considerable amount of stuff around.. so we only managed to stay out 'til about half eight and were in bed for 9! Lame. We managed to catch some Bavaria (Brazilian beer brewed in Canada, apparently) special night action whilst we were there though, think we got through about 5 buckets between 5 of us. Then woke up around 4 in the morning thinking hmm it's lunchtime and I shouldn't be in bed, but yeah getting over that now with the on/off night drinking system that's being employed. [actually it's become more like every day drinking since we got to Whistler, but I'll cover that in the next post!]

The next day we headed down to the SWAP office in Vancouver to see if we could get in on an earlier orientation meeting to sort out social insurance number, banking, mobile phones etc. The meeting was actually pretty good, some useful info and stuff plus the staff were very helpful, so perhaps shouldn't have been so cynical about handing over money to BUNAC! We met some guys at the meeting who we'd seen the day before on the plane trip, plus randomly bumped into another girl who some of the guys (self included) had been in touch with before we left! Then we went searching for a couple of snowboard shops to kill some time before going en masse to get phones, then headed to the pub at 4... briefly managed to go home to get showered then we went down to some other guys' (well, one guy, Tim, two girls, Jess and Sarah) hostel then worked our way up Granville street before ending up in a, er, strip joint cuz that was the only place we could see that was willing to let us in with bags! :) quite funny as we had 3 girls with us. Also quite funny that, having not paid to go in, the beer was actually cheaper than most of the bars we'd been at previously. Tim was totally wasted and decided to start taking pictures of the girls with his digicam (looool). Unsurprisingly this drew the bouncers' attention and I thought his camera was probably done for, but, being outside England, the bouncer was fortunately very friendly and understanding (in fact I don't think he did much other than laugh the whole time we were there) so he got off with a slapped wrist and deleted pictures.. Don't think I was loving it quite as much as everyone else but was pretty funny!

Day after that we went over the bridge to South Van and checked out a bunch of board shops. The equipment was crazy cheap - they had boards for at most half the price of what they are in England. I checked out a few jackets but have decided to leave off purchasing everything 'til everything is sorted up in Whistler! Not sure how much I'll have to play with you see. So yeah, went to a few shops, had a very lengthy chat with one of the boardshop girls, then met up with the guys for lunch at a sushi place (not the best idea when everyone is hung over), which was pretty interesting. Si had some weird fizzy explode in the mouth fish egg style things, cool :) in general everyone made a very poor attempt at finishing off the food, Lewis in particular having left all his breakfast except for one piece of toast and then only managing to eat one tuna roll at the sushi place hehe. Possibly the worst display of eating I've ever seen :) after we were done not eating raw fish we walked all the way to the opposite end of the city centre (serious mileage) and checked out Stanley Park. The guys wanted everyone to get rollerblades, well Si especially seeing as he plays ice hockey and could demonstrate how much better he was than everyone else ;) but me and Duncan decided the Santa Monica Boulevard style beach cruisers would be a much better option so hired them instead. Didn't get very far round though cuz we were pretty late in the day and Matt and Jen made a poor go at blading and ended up walking back! Grabbed some dinner then we got home everyone was pretty wrecked so everyone just KO'd.

On the next (and last full) day the hardcore among us (Paul, Si and Lewis) went back to Stanley Park and got some rollerblades (everyone this time). It looked like a poor decision for a while because I stacked it in the middle of the road just outside the shop (was quite a nasty hill down to the park entrance) so had to scramble across before the red man started flashing at me. Managed to get the hang of it after a while though and we got all the way round in about 2 hours I think. Was a cool excursion and managed to take a few nice pictures, but I'm sure I missed a bunch of it because I was very conscious of getting over confident and doing some damage :) after that we trekked (everything is pretty much a trek) back across town in search of dinner via the main shopping street. Some of you guys (*cough* Chloe) would have loved it with all the boutiques being in one place! Had some weird burrito type thing which sounded good and was cheap (main reason for choosing that) but was actually literally meat in a tube.. Yuk. Went for a cheeky beer midday stylee then back to the hostel to dump some stuff and get changed quickly before getting out on the beers proper. Sat outside a bar and got a few jugs in, waitress came out and had a go at Matt as mentioned above, then realised that she was making a mistake by being assy and became SUPER FRIENDLY (North Americans love their 'super' adjectives, especially the girl who gave us our orientation talk, I was cracking up) with Paul mainly. In her favour she was wearing a cracking little black dress, and was also very fine, although it later transpired that she was a bit of a ho as was spotted with numerous different men throughout the night. Oh then a tramp came up to us (which is a very common occurrence in Vancouver, apparently all the homeless people in Canada amass there because everywhere else gets SUPER COLD. I must have had at least 7 guys come up to me asking for change one day whilst we were walking about), so yeah the tramp came up to us and asked us for some change. We'd met another tramp earlier in the day, well I say met but he actually just came up to us and said, "do you want me to climb that tree", so inspired by that plus the liquid dinner we said, "we'll give you some money if you climb that pole" (lol) he went for the wrong one so we sent him across the street to climb the designated lamppost. The guy literally ran straight across the street, grabbed a newspaper dispenser to climb on top of and wrapped himself round the post, spurred on vociferously by the crowd of rowdy brits on the other side of the road (plus Welsh, Duncan, and Irish, Mark, dudes), was funny as. After a substantial amount of beer I decided it was probably best if I got something to eat, plus we wanted to check out a different bar which was opposite our hostel (the Royal, next to the HI central, which has parties on alternate Wednesdays), so we set off in search of $1 pizza (well actually its 93 cents but the aforementioned tax on everything makes it up to $1 on da nose) while the rest of the guys went into the club next door to the bar we were in. We (Duncan and I) were determined to find pizza for one buck and went on a mission. The first place we asked in was $1.10 a slice - obviously an extortionate amount to charge so we told the owner of course. He kindly directed us to a place down the road which DID have $1 pizza though, but we ended up walking miles in search of it :) the Royal was kinda dead but bumped into a couple of guys from Warwick uni(!) in there, and another girl from Warwick proper (England is so small).
The club we went to was actually pretty cool, and surprisingly busy for a Wednesday night, plus they had vodka cranberry for $2 :D we had a go at lighting up the dancefloor as per, and then I managed to find courage to actually go and talk to a girl I had been admiring :) transpires that everyone outside Gloucester is actually happy to talk to you, and she turned out to be a really cool chick as well as being foxy! She's just broken up with her boyfriend of 4 years tho, so probably that'll be that..but I did say that maybe she'll get an invite up to our phat pad in Whistler though at some point ;)

So yeah, our last day was unsurprisingly blurry and pretty much all that took place was getting the Greyhound bus up to Whistler! After a bitching bacon and cream cheese bagel from the place next door to our hostel. Think we managed to go on a brief sightseeing tour of the place, but will leave that to the next post as this is a bit of an essay already! In short, Vancouver rocks! Will definitely go and spend more time there.

Hope the fans are appeased :)
Until next time...