Southern California bound

I spent most the final day at Whistler packing my bag and relaxing at the hostel. I did end up going to the village to see some free outdoor concerts, for which it was drizzling, with the threat of rain. It was ironic that the bands that were playing that afternoon played some surf rock music. The first artist I caught was Hayley Sales, which I was very impressed by. She played some beautiful acoustic/surf rock and entertained the slowly growing crowd despite the threat of rain. I was so impressed by her band, in fact, that I decided to buy her EP at the merchandise tent for $5.

Next up, and the final band to perform at the outdoor music series for the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, were Aussie band The Beautiful Girls, and they rocked the crowd both soft and hard. I would say that it was a fitting end to the festival, but I had only really attended this event for the entire festival, so I can't really talk. In any case, it was a nice end to my Whistler trip. I caught the bus to Vancouver the next morning where I took care of some things early on before meeting up with the others who had just come from Whistler.

A long evening in Vancouver

After taking a quick afternoon nap in my hostel room, the Pano crew got together and invaded a nearby tattoo and piercing parlor. Six people ended up getting a piercing (myself not being among those six) and all of them were generally satisfied with their decorative yet pricey purchase. We all went for sushi afterwards (and oh boy that sushi was great) before heading back to the hostel to watch game 7 of the playoff series between the Vancouver Canucks and the Dallas Stars.

It was quite a spectacle watching a playoff game in Vancouver. Whenever the home team would score, you would know it, even if you weren't watching the game, because of the screams of ecstasy from pubs in the streets and the beeps of horns from passing cars. I did, however, watch the gripping final game of the series, and Vancouver ended up victorious 4-1, after 2 late open net goals.

We headed over to watch Electric Six afterwards, and marveled at the jubilation on the streets, as fans, both on foot and in vehicles, expressed their joy at their home team going on to the next round. I can only hope that I will be able to watch the next series, which will be against the Anaheim Ducks. On a slightly tangential note, it was good to see the Golden State Warriors not only make it to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years, but also upset the western conference's number 1 ranked team, the Dallas Mavericks, in the first game of the series. Maybe both of my teams can make a double against Dallas this year.

Anyway, we showed up at the concert just as the support act was finishing up. Much of the Pano crew was there, and soon after all of us had a Jager Bomb, Electric Six got on stage, and things started getting crazy. The band exuded a unique presence, something that I had not seen before, not even in some high-energy gigs that I've been to before. The mosh pit was not very big, but it somehow managed to be the most - I don't want to say violent, but I guess a word to describe it would be animated - crowd I have ever encountered. The fact that it was a small venue made sure that the craziness continued. The security was quite lax, and I ended up crowd surfing no less than 3 times without once being called to come down.

All in all, the gig was off the hook, and well worth the $20 cover charge. The group splintered off after the show, and a few of us decided to visit some bars. After a bit of bar hopping and a few more pieces of sushi, I finally ended up going to sleep at around 2:30, only to wake up 2 hours later to get ready to go to the train station to make my way to LA.

A long train ride to LA

I'm writing this while I am on the Coast Starlight train from Seattle to LA. This leg of the trip to LA, which will last about 34-35 hours, comes after a good 3-and-a-half-hour bus ride from Vancouver to Seattle at about 5:30 in the morning. I'll end up arriving in LA tomorrow evening at about 8, making it a bit of a marathon. Thankfully I've brought along a book and the new Pokemon game to keep me entertained, and will hopefully last me the entire trip. Otherwise, there's always the moving scenery, which reminds me a bit of the train trips around England and a around Wollongong. It's rather nice, but I'm much looking forward to getting off at LA so that I can finally make my way to Coachella. It's been a long time coming, and I'm quite excited.

Training day

This is my second stint on the laptop, writing a blog entry during this train trip, and I must say that I will be very happy once I get out of here. That's not to say that it's been enjoyable, because it certainly has been. I've seen some great sights along the way, and I've met a couple of Brits from Whistler who are also heading over to Coachella. The reason why I've grown rather tired of the trip is the amount of time in which the train is running late. As it stands it is somewhere between 2 and 3 hours behind schedule. What's funny is that apparently that's actually pretty good for this service. I've actually managed to finish reading Ender's Game (great book), volume 3 of Scott Pilgrim (which didn't really take too long as it was a graphic novel), and have made steady progress into Pokemon Diamond. It was certainly worth the experience to travel using this method, but next time I'll be going on the plane for long trips.

I live!

Short entry - I made it out of that train alive. Woohoo! Man, that was a painfully boring last few hours. Anyway, right now I have to hold up my laptop above chest level next to a door in order to get any wireless signal, so this update shall be short. At least the post itself was big. Indio tomorrow! I'll give a full Coachella rundown and hopefully a long-awaited picture update when I get back.

Whistler

The last few days of Panorama were probably a bit less bittersweet than expected, mainly due to the frenzy of packing and cleaning. In the end, it was a nice way to farewell the season. I had the last few days off work, which was really nice, and took some of the pressure off getting things sorted before having to leave. I pretty much had everything packed before the staff party, which was huge. Almost everybody was drinking out in the Great Hall deck, and there was a bit of skiing and snowboarding on the bottom of the hill too. There were a lot of emails exchanged and a lot of goodbyes.

The day after had a very familiar feel to it. Walking around the village was eerily quiet, with primarily staff wandering the streets, much like how it was at the very start of the season when we had all gotten there. It had come around full circle, and was kind of appropriate considering how the season had gone. A ragtag group of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and people from all over the world had come to Panorama to enjoy the snow. They had gotten that and much more, and the last day here was a reminder of just how that journey had started.

As the airport shuttle bus, which I had arranged for a handful of us, arrived at the staff lodging, it was time to say a final goodbye to the place which had produced so many memories, much of which will probably last a lifetime. A good 10 minutes or so passed after we loaded the luggage trailer as a huge round of hugs and farewells (and a few tears) commenced. It seemed for a moment that nobody wanted to leave, but once the van started, we knew that, at least for some of us, it was only the start of the adventure.

In my previous overseas trip, I had a small section to sum up each stop, and although I don't intend to do this for every single city that I visit during this trip, I decided I should bring it back, with some slight adjustments, for each significant leg of the trip. And so, without further adieu, I present you the new and improved travel stats section, version 2.0.

Panorama overview

Dates of residence: Dec 01, 2006 - Apr 17, 2007
Nicknames: Man-o-rama, Pano-drama, home
Days on the hill: 39 days snowboarding, 2 days skiing, 1 day Nording skiing, 7 days snowboarding at other resorts
Theme song/s: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here, Green Day - Good Riddance

Whistralia

After spending a night in Vancouver so that I could see Social Distortion, I headed over to Whistler to meet with a few of the Panorama crew, and it turns out that there are a fair few of us here. Another group of people that are featured predominantly in Whistler are the Aussies, hence the nickname Whistralia.

So far it's day 4 of my stay here, and it's been very enjoyable. The terrain here is just incredible, and I've been able to find some powder in the past few days. The unfortunate thing is that because Whistler is so well-known and well-renowned, it attracts a huge amount of tourists, meaning any run that is easily accessible is tracked out within seconds of any powder hitting it. You really need to look for the good spots.

Yesterday, I did some backcountry riding. It was great to get fresh tracks, but the 1 and a half hour ski-out/hike-out was more than a pain and a half. I was really exhausted by the end of it, and took it easy last night. It's about 12:30 right now and I haven't even decided whether or not I will go out on the hill today. I probably will, but not for very long.

Anyway, I guess that's it from me for now. I haven't had a chance to upload any new photos lately due to how busy it was before leaving Panorama, and the fact that there were a few power outages in that period that prevented Internet access. The next update will probably come when I hit LA or San Francisco.

Fun in the sun

Saturday was both national stretchy day and national one-piece day. This meant lots of wacky outfits out on the hill. Not only that, but it was also quite a warm day (and by warm I mean around 10-15 degrees) so a big group of staff got together in various forms of attire and had a relaxing sunbathe at the summit hut, which brought back nice memories of Australia Day. The most memorable moment was when MJ showed up wearing a maternity bathing suit... and not much else but his skis. Talk about one-pieces.

I did a bit of one-piece skiing myself, before I dressed up in a different kind of one-piece - an Easter Bunny costume. I worked as the bunny for a couple of hours on Saturday night for a kids event where they had inflatable playgrounds (which some not-so-young kids momentarily hijacked) and performers. It was quite a scary experience having so many kids have so many different reactions to you while in costume.

It wasn't as scary as the next day, however. I didn't need to put the costume back on, but I was 'hiding' Easter eggs for a big Easter egg hunt in the village. It wasn't exactly hiding because the kids would hound you the moment they saw that you were carrying around a bag full of Easter eggs. Those kids are good. After a while they would yell out, as if part of an angry mob, "follow that man!" Needless to say, I was relieved when the eggs ran out.

On Sunday afternoon, there was a big air competition out on the hill. I completely missed the competition due to poor anticipation (I left home too late), but I did manage to catch a massive snowball fight that happened at the end of the competition. It was great because it was still nice and warm and a large portion of staff had drawn battle lines and were throwing snowballs at each other. I eventually joined in, and didn't get wet until afterwards, when a few of us decided it was a good idea to toboggan down the bottom of Showoff (the ski run directly next to the Mile One Quad) using only a canvas banner. By the end of it, the four of us were unavoidably covered in wet snow. It was lots of fun.

Perhaps one of the finest periods of the week was Monday night - the final jam night of the season. I finally got up and sang for the first time in a long time, but the best bit was when a group of people from the housekeeping department (myself included) got up on stage and sang Stand By Me. It was very moving... but also mostly very amusing because we were all quite drunk. The other songs I sang To Her Door (Paul Kelly), Black (Pearl Jam), and Good Riddance (Green Day), and did an encore request for Ian (singing Last Kiss) before everybody got up on stage again at the very end and did a spectacular rendition of American Pie for the final song of jam night '06/07. I'm pretty sure a few of us woke up the building when we got home after singing American Pie again really loudly.

Quest for the cup

The Stanley Cup Playoffs started today. It was great to see hockey playoff action live on TV, something that I don't think I'll ever see again when I return to Australia (at least for as long as I stay in Australia). I was feeling a bit sick so I didn't stay up longer than about 10, right after the San Jose Sharks won a thriller double overtime game against the Predators. I figured the game that my team, the Vancouver Canucks, were playing (against Dallas) wouldn't really be as exciting, so I went to sleep. When I woke up in the middle of the night, at about 1:30, the game was still going, locked up at 4-4 on quadruple overtime. It was crazy, and I was glad that I managed to catch the end of it. The Canucks managed to get a goal late in the fourth overtime period to win the opening match in the series. At that moment, I knew I was definitely gonna miss the hockey on the TV.

I've got photos and videos of events described above, but I've been far too busy or tired to post any up. I'll probably have them up by the end of the week, as tomorrow (a.k.a. today) is my last day of work... which I suppose I should go back to sleep for. I hope I'm feeling better in the morning, because I sure need that money for my travels.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... again?

The weather is cruel. After almost all the snow had disappeared from anywhere in the lower village, the temperature dropped on Monday morning and gave us a huge dump of snow. Naturally, as is always the case on every powder day this year, I was working. The bad thing was that I couldn't get any time off work until Wednesday afternoon, so I only caught the back end of some awesome snow. Still, it was pretty sweet seeing powder this late in the season. I'm doubting it'll snow some more, but I've said that countless times in the past few weeks and the weather keeps proving me wrong, so anything can happen in the last week of Panorama's season.

"Spring" snow at the lower village

Photos from March can be viewed here.