Happy New Year From Canada!

Happy New Year everyone! If Carlsberg did years… our 2013 would be hard to beat!

New Years Eve topped off an awesome year with some great new friends in Whistler. With the clubs charging $100+ to get in, we ended 2013 in a bar, Dusty’s which was free before 9. Free things are hard to come by in Whistler so safe to say a lot of people go! We got there at 6 to make sure we got in, so 6 hours of drinking before counting the New Year in!

Here are some of my favourite photos from 2013… not a bad year, starting with Bradford City’s historic cup run and ending in Whistler, Canada!

View From the Hotel Room

I’m not one to make New Year resolutions that will be broken by 3rd January so instead here are a few things on my new year to do list:

• Improve snowboarding –  Try steeper runs and attempt jumps (nothing to crazy though!)
• Heli-boarding
• Bungee jump
• Road trip around the States
• Go to Brazil for the World Cup – Get our football fix back!
• Visit Amazon rainforest
• Travel more of South America

New year wish list in Whistler:
– More snow – we really need it!
– Tourists to go away
– At least 3 days a week to snowboard & reach 50 days of riding
– Get Kyle to actually write a blog!

All the best to everyone in 2014!

McDonalds Reunited in Canada For Christmas!

What a week this has been! My mum and dad came over from Bradford and brother from Saskatoon for Christmas. I’ve just had to say another emotional goodbye, but we’ve had such an amazing week in Whistler and few days in Vancouver!

So my mum and dad flew over on Friday, after a hectic day at work I met them at their nice little apartment in Whistler village (courtesy of airbnb – highly recommended!). Straight to the pub for a beer we went, in true McDonald / Whistler fashion!

Luckily we ha a bit of snow the night before they came so Whistler was all pretty and snowy again! I had quite a few shifts at work, so tried to fit showing them around and doing touristy things between that. We went to lost lake and Alta lake which looked very different to how they did a few months ago, with all the snow on top of the now frozen water. Cue pictures…

2 Extreme Sports in Less Than 24 Hours

Hi, my name is Laura and I’m an adrenaline junkie. I’ve been clean for 0 days now…

Okay so it turns out I’m a sucker for the thrill of extreme sports. Yesterday we did the bobsleigh here in Whistler, then not even 24 hours later I’ve just done the skeleton ride too!

Whistler is one of just three places in the world where the public can access the same track that olympic athletes use for the skeleton, bobsleigh and luge AND it’s the fastest & steepest track in the world AND it’s the exact same one that was used in the 2010 Winter Olympics! So yesterday, thanks to a cheap locals offer ending soon, we tried out the bobsleigh.

Cool Runnings has obviously put the sport on the map so to be able to do it in real life is pretty surreal. I was so excited to do it… then we got there and drove up to the start which was when I realised just how steep and long the track was. The nerves obviously kicked in, the driver came over and made some standard jokes about it being his first time driving then we were all set to go. As the smallest I sat in the second seat behind the driver, then Kyle and our friend Gary just behind him. Helmets on, we were good to go…. feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up it’s bobsled time (we forgot to bring a lucky egg). The first few seconds felt quite timid, then all of a sudden we turned round a corner and picked up pretty fast speeds! The turns on the corners were insane, it’s exactly like you see on the tv with helmets banging everywhere. It was impossible to try see what was happening as as soon as you turned your head to look it would be jolted back the other way. We hit speeds of 126km/h so yup pretty fast!

Hello Canada!

We’ve now been in Canada for 5 days… I’m already rubbish with keeping up with this blog but it’s been a mad few days and Vancouver is amazing!

Vancouver is the nicest city I’ve ever visited (in my small life to date but it will be hard to beat!). It’s got everything in one place: skyscrapers, shopping markets, sea, beach, mountains. So far we:

– Went on a bike ride around Stanley park (not just a park, see pictures!)
– Went to the Capilano suspension bridge
– Done all the grown up things like opening a bank account, get our national insurance numbers and got a Canadian number
– Bought all my snowboard gear
– Drank lots of beer
– Spent Halloween in Vancouver. It is mad here bigger than New Years.
-Tried Poutine (chips, gravy, cheese curd – a strange Canadian thing)

In 10 Days Time…

In 10 days time I’ll be…

– Jobless (just until I start at Whistler Blackcomb)
– Flat-less
– Car-less (though have been for a month!)
– Sat in the airport bar with fellow Working Holiday Clubbers heading to Vancouver
– Stressing that I’ve forgot something but not caring as much as usual as I’m going to Canada baby!
– In disbelief that we’ve actually taken the plunge to do this

Can’t believe how quickly the last few weeks have gone. I feel like I’ve wrote a still to do list loads of times and still not completed it. Here we go again… Still to do:

– Finish packing up our flat
– Finish packing our lives into 2 suitcases and hand luggage (actually started now, go me!)
– Finish at work (4 and a half days working days left!)
– Print all documents
– Check into flight

Three Weeks Today…

Arggghhhh can’t even explain how excited I am! It’s getting harder and harder to get up for work (doesn’t help it’s dark now when my alarm goes off) But also starting to panic that we’ll run out of time to get everything done. Still need to pack up our flat, buy a few more bits then pack our 2 suitcases. Still no idea how we are going to fit clothes for three different climates for about a year into a suitcase each without going over the 23kg limit!

My blog has hit over 1,000 views already now, so big thanks to everyone who has been reading so far. Hopefully I’ll have more interesting things to write about in 3 weeks time and have some photos and footage from my GoPro to share so it’s not just me rambling!

29 Days to Go!

Arrggghhh only 29 days til we fly to Vancouver! I can’t believe how quick it’s come round, it seems only yesterday we were talking about it being 5 months away! I’ve only got 17 days left at work too 🙂

Starting to panic at how much we’ve still got to do though, as I’m spending all the time I should be doing something productive watching videos of Whistler on Youtube/searching Whistler on Instagram & Twitter.

Already Sorted

– Flights

– Jobs – Thanks to The Working Holiday Club we’ve got our jobs sorted before flying out

– Insurance (got a great deal with skicover.com – £489 for both of us and it covers everything we need!)

– Accommodation in Vancouver

– Staff accommodation in Whistler

Still To Do

– Stock up on Winter clothes

– Attempt to get fit – Just a little fitter than I am now would help so I can attempt to snowboard at least 3 times a week!

– Pack – Attempt to fit everything we need for a year into one suitcase and hand luggage!

– Move out of flat

Roll on 28th October! 🙂

Whistler To-Do List

One of the things I’m looking forward to about live and working in Whistler is living like a local and a tourist at the same time. We’ll get to know all the cool places the locals go (if locals actually exist, heard it’s mainly Aussies), how to avoid lift queues in a morning (hopefully!), learn which runs have the best powder stashes and get discounted food & drinks! But we’ll also have time to do all the touristy type things. Here’s my Whistler to-do list:

• Achieve 75 days snowboarding
• Zip lining & bungee jumping
• Bob sleighing at the Whistler Sliding Centre
• Snow mobiling
• Heli-boarding (or at least cat-boarding)
• Master t-bar drag lifts
• Attempt the student lifestyle again  (just swapping the studying with working)
• Learn to do jumps and tricks on my board
• Do a double black run (possible double black but not getting carried away)
• Get a google tan
• Do fresh tracks a few times (get on the first gondola up the mountain and have a big buffet breakfast)
• Go to the coca-cola tube park
• Back country boarding / tree runs
• Make lots of videos with my GoPro
• Go to the fire and ice show
• Work and play hard!
• Have an awesome time and make the most of every minute

Not to do list

• Get injured
• Not have fun
• Take enough photos / videos

One Way Ticket to Canada = Booked

It’s actually happening… we’ve booked our one way flight to Vancouver!!!!

28th October and we will be out of here! That’s just 65 days and 45 working days. And only 99 days until the opening day at Whistler, hope I’m not working that day…

We got a pretty cheap flight, £289 Gatwick to Vancouver with Air Transit. Pretty budget airline but who cares for that price?! Can get a snowboard or GoPro with the money I’ll save with not going with BA.

Job – check! Thanks to Andy and the Working Holiday Club.
Flights – check!
Transfers from Vancouver to Whistler – check!
Insurance – Meh, will sort soon…
Vancouver accommodation – Need to book
Staff accommodation – Will be sorted soon!
Work notice handed in – Check!
GoPro Camera – Buying today, thanks to a Wowcher offer!

Cannot contain my excitement right now!

Whistler v Banff – The Pros and Cons (without going to either!)

One thing we knew for sure when we decided to take a career beak and move to Canada was that we wanted to go to a ski resort and find work there. While there is a lot of choice for what are meant to be amazing ski resorts in Canada (Banff, Fernie, Jasper, Lake Louise, Tremblant, Whistler, Great White) we quite quickly narrowed it down to Whistler and Banff.

We changed our minds a dozen of times. First I was 100% set on Whistler, while Kyle wanted to go to Banff, then we both changed our minds until we both decided back on Whistler! Here is how we came to our decision (a lot of internet research & speaking to people who’d been to both):

Whistler Blackcomb

Pros

– The biggest ski resort in North America

– Incredible scenery and mountains

– Ski in , ski out

– Huge choice of terrain

– Plenty to explore in a season

Cons

– The biggest ski resort in North America (maybe it’s too big for some people)

– More expensive

– Wages are low in ski resort