Indio

Well, I'm back from Coachella, and had an absolute blast. The following is my full write-up on the event. It's not exactly a review of any of the artists that played (although I will have some opinions on that) but rather a recollection of my time there, just like most of my entries on this blog. Be warned, it's quite a long entry.

Day 0 (Prelude to a festival)

I woke up early on Thursday morning to try to co-ordinate where I would meet up with John, Kelly, and Cam. We decided to meet up at the LA Greyhound station at 2. That proceeded to fall to pieces the moment I got to the Greyhound station in Hollywood, where there were several bus loads of people waiting in line just to get to the LA station. Thankfully, there was a direct bus to Indio, which I only slightly hesitated to catch. I later found out that the LA Greyhound station was packed with people going to Coachella.

I got to the Empire Polo Fields at about 3 in the afternoon. The line to get into the campgrounds was pretty short at the time, and I got my bags inspected by security but had to stand there waiting for the others, as Kelly still had my ticket, including my camping ticket. I got a call from John at about 4 saying that they had just gotten on the bus at LA, which meant I needed to wait another 3 or so hours. The wait was both boring and interesting. It showed me just how badly organized certain aspects of the event was.

The Coachella campground queue

First of all, there were 3 lines to get into the campgrounds, nowhere near as much as there should have been for the amount of camping tickets they sold. At one point, the queue, which was mostly outdoors, in temperatures well above 30 degrees, was over a hundred meters long, and was moving very slowly. The flow problems came from the fact that the will call line was right past the security check, and a lot of people had will call tickets, so there wasn't a lot of wiggle room, which brings up another funny thing.

At the start, when it wasn't too busy, I was sitting down right past the bag check. A security guard came up to me and told me to move. He said that I was creating a fire hazard by blocking the way there. I can guarantee that if there was a fire, the huge amount of people packed together in a queue with two fences surrounding them would be more of a worry than a single person with 3 small pieces of luggage in an open space. It turned out that getting to the festival early wasn't really that much of an advantage, as I had to line up again once John and co. arrived. They got there at about 8 o'clock, and were also lucky enough to get dropped off at the campground like myself. It should have occurred to them that so many people were coming to the festival and arranged more chartered buses that would stop directly at the polo fields.

Once we got in, we set up camp and got some food from the overpriced food stalls and some beer from the overpriced beer garden. It's not much of a complaint, I guess, because it's to be expected that food and beverages at any musical event would cost a fortune. Our camp consisted of myself, John, Kelly, Cam, Natalie (who found us at the beer garden), and Jesse and Nick, two Aussies John and co. met at the LA station. We had a few drinks and went to sleep, looking forward to the first day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2007.

Day 1 (Burn, baby, burn)

I was promptly woken up by the warm morning sun just before 7 and, although I was very groggy from the lack of sleep, I got up and prepared myself for the day ahead. When everybody was up, we decided that some shopping was in order. We walked over to the local grocery store and bought a few things for the next few days, then caught a cab back to the fields. It was still only 11 at the time, so we sat in the sun doing not much at all until we had the wisdom to head over to the beer garden for some shade. We went in at about 3, walking past the will call queue, which snaked around for what seemed like forever, and had a scout of the field where the festival was held. I felt sorry for the people in the will call line, waiting for their tickets for several hours, and potentially missing bands that they want to see. Yet another mistake on the part of Goldenvoice, the organizers of the festival.

The first gig I watched was Satellite Party. I was very amused by Perry Farrell's antics in between songs, and took note that the bassline in one of the songs was the same bassline from Hybrid's Dreamstalker, suggesting that Hybrid helped out on the album on more than one song (Wish Upon a Dog Star took its lyrics from Hybrid's Dogstar - a track that Perry Farrel did vocals for). The crowd went wild when they played Stop!, a Jane's Addiction song, and some people who had just gotten into the fields had thought that it was actually Jane's Addiction playing.

Perry Farrell and the gang

After Satellite Party finished playing, I wandered around for a couple of hours and eventually caught the end of the Arctic Monkeys. They were okay, but I was never a big fan, and the frontman didn't really have good skills in interacting with the crowd. I had dinner while listening to The Jesus and Mary Chain from afar, not knowing that Scarlett Johansson had supposedly gotten up on stage and sang with the band for a song. After JAMC finished, I went over to the tent where Peeping Tom was scheduled to play. Another celebrity popped up, when Danny deVito, dressed incognito, introduced Peeping Tom. Mike Patton entertained the crowd for the entire set, but was topped by the beatboxer in his band, who was unbelievable.

We all met up back at our designated meeting spot (in front of a couple of bins in one of the beer gardens) and listened to Interpol from a distance. Once Interpol finished, we went to try to get a good view of the main stage, and waited for Björk to make her grand entrance. Björk certainly did not disappoint and performed 16 songs, including many classics, some new songs, and an encore. The DJ was particularly impressive due to a device he was using, called a ReacTable.

Day 2 (Camping out)

I didn't see others for most of the afternoon on day 2. In the morning, a couple of the boys bought a gazebo for the campsite so that we wouldn't have to endure too much of the sun during the day. We chilled there for a while then headed into the fields at about 3 once again. I went to the front of the main stage, and found a good viewpoint, where I would stay for most of the day. I camped out at the front because I wanted to see Arcade Fire close up, and knew that it wouldn't be possible had I gone there later in the day. Regina Spektor was the first artist I saw from that position, and was really great. She seems like a really nice young woman, and played her uncompromising anti-folk music.

Regina Spektor sings a tune

Travis and Kings of Leon were next up, and were not too bad, but I've never been too fond of their music, so I just sat there relaxing, and observing the antics of the crowd, who were crowd surfing more and more as the day went on. By the end of the Kings of Leon set, there was a steady stream of crowd surfers getting yanked out by the security staff. Watching them kept me amused until Arcade Fire went on. Arcade Fire were, to put it simply, explosive. Their energy on the stage was electric, and the band brought the crowd along for the ride. Win Butler even got off the stage and started walking alongside the barriers where the people were. The only bad thing about the act wasn't the band itself, but the damn staff that were spraying the crowd with water. It was a good idea, but they neglected to pay attention to the people holding cameras, trying to take photos or, in my case at the time, videos of the stage. I was in the middle of recording a song they started spraying some water. Idiots.

Arcade Fire

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were on next, and the only complaint I have about them was that they weren't on last, which meant they couldn't go for longer or do any encores. Flea and John Frusciante jammed for a while before Anthony Kiedis and busted out Can't Stop. The crowd, as the cliché goes, went wild. The set was full of hits, with the notable exception of Californication. They did play Dani California, so they probably didn't want to overdo the whole California thing. Flea and John Frusciante did some wicked solos, and even sang a couple of songs by themselves. It has to be said that John Frusciante is one of the best, if not the best, guitarists today, maybe ever. Flea told a joke but stuffed it up. The joke was meant to be "What do you call a sheep with no legs?" ("A cloud.") Instead, he said "what do you call a dead lamb?" The crowd had a big laugh at it. I finally left my position at the front after the Chilis finished, and had a bit of a peek at The Black Keys and The Good, The Bad, and the Queen before heading back to the campgrounds early. All in all, another excellent day of music.

John Frusciante is an absolute legend

Day 3 (Rage against the Rage Against The Machine fans)

The third day of the festival was a bit strange. It was kind of a amplification of everything that was great about the festival as well as everything that was bad about it. It was the first day that we all got into the concert grounds before the first act. We saw Mika and Lupe Fiasco before going to the AT&T tent to use the net for a while. After checking my e-mail as well as the NBA and NHL scores, I headed back to the main stage to see Explosions in the Sky, an experimental rock band who were kinda cool. I didn't stay for the whole thing, though. After a while, I went back to the meeting spot, and met up with Nat.

Creed does indeed suck

We went and saw Rodrigo Y Gabriela, an acoustic rock duo, who were very good, and kind of set a theme for the day in terms of music - seeing a wide variety of music. After a couple of songs, we went to watch the Roots, who put on a great set. The notable highlights were a medley of various songs by other artists, and a phenomenal cover of Dylan's Masters of War. It was probably the best cover of that song that I have ever heard. The first part was sung to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner, which was pure genius.

I stuck around to watch Willie Nelson, which I was very surprised by. I hadn't really listened to a lot of his music before, but once he started he proved why he's been around for so long. There were a few solos from members of his family, including a blues number by his son. I was almost tempted to crowd surf just so I could say that I crowd surfed to Willie Nelson. I wandered around a bit after he finished, catching some of Placebo and José González, then went to see Crowded House.

Neil Finn and the gang played several hits and a few songs from their upcoming album, and was very well-received by all the Aussies and Kiwis. During Don't Dream It's Over, some idiot at the front decided it was a good idea to throw a water bottle at Neil Finn. It hit him and dislodged his microphone, so he needed the help of the crowd to sing the chorus while the mic was replaced. I assume that whoever threw it was a stupid Rage Against The Machine fan who had no sense or respect for other people's musical tastes. I hope that he got beat down by security. Neil Finn had a bit of a laugh about it after the song ended, saying "it was a good shot".

Neil Finn shown on the big screen

Natalie, Kelly, and I were all very pumped up after Crowded House finished their (unfortunately short) set, and all agreed that going to the dance tent to see Paul van Dyk was the best course of action. We stayed there for a few minutes, dancing our asses off, then did the same at the Do Lab, where the music was a bit slower, followed shortly by the Dome, where the DJ from Pendulum was playing some mad drum and bass. After the dance fest that lasted longer than expected, we sat down and watched Manu Chao from afar. There was a huge buzz in the air of the humongous crowd after Manu Chao finished in anticipation of Rage Against The Machine.

Rage came on and put on a great show, but I have to be unbiased and say that it was also a bit disappointing. The crowd was way too large to enjoy the performance completely, and there were a few sound problems throughout the set. When it started, the bass was barely coming through, and once they fixed that, the sound levels for Zack's vocals kept changing, and were sometimes inaudible above the music. It also kind of sucked that I had to skip Adam Freeland and Infected Mushroom so I could see Rage. Still, it was pretty good, and it was pandemonium when they played Wake Up to finish the first part of the set, then finished off the encore with Killing In The Name Of, ad-libbing the words "some of those that burn crosses are the same that hold office" into the lyrics.

We were all feeling pretty dead at the end of the day, but apparently others weren't feeling the same way, because people were partying hard until the very early hours of the morning. It was a good thing that I had earplugs, which helped out in getting me to sleep.

Day 4 (A long epilogue)

We packed up the campsite shortly after waking up and started heading to the bus station before hitching a ride from a local. There was a very long line at the Greyhound station, and only a few buses throughout the day headed to LA, so the others decided to get a taxi to Palm Springs and head to where they were going by rental car. I already had a return ticket, so I decided to wait around. It turned out to be a wait of almost 10 hours, with precious little shade during the middle of the day, and nothing to keep me entertained except for a deck of cards that I purchased after a few hours. I finally got back to LA almost 12 hours after I left the Empire Polo Fields, making for a very boring day of unnecessary nothingness.

After 3 very hot days (in more ways than one) of musical goodness, I ended up seeing around 25 acts (some I stayed for the whole way through and others I didn't), and the ones that stood out definitely made the festival worth the price of admission (which, due to bad timing in terms of exchange rates, was quite expensive) despite all the problems that could have easily been remedied by a bit of common sense. I guess, as was the mantra way back at the health and safety talk at Panorama, common sense is not that common.

I just realized that I've forgotten to mention the various art installations and demonstrations throughout the festival, all of which were very cool. I suck at describing stuff like that, so I won't attempt to try. The pictures should show off a few of them.

Indio overview

Days spent: 5 (although it should only have been 4)
Time spent waiting for something: About half a day (mostly in a queue)
Danny deVito spottings: 1
Theme song/s: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

The seedy streets of downtown Los Angeles

I was picked up by my cousin at the LA Greyhound station, which was located in a very shady area of downtown LA. On the day before Coachella, Jesse had mentioned that they saw a car chase in that area. Now it all made sense why. I stayed at my cousin's house for the night, and he showed me around the area in the morning before I headed back to my aunt's place, where I was almost bitten by the guard dog (random, I know). I later heard that there was a bit of a small riot during an immigrant worker demonstration in downtown.

Photos from the last few weeks of Panorama, the Whistler trip, and the day in Vancouver can be found here, while photos from Coachella, as well as other photos from the USA taken in April can be found here.

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.

Exodus

A considerable chunk of the 2nd and 3rd floor's residents left today. Ben, Leigh, John, Alex, and Shane all drove off for their road trip to various resorts on the way to Whistler (something I would have done if I weren't traveling around in the summer), and Kelly left to go home for a few weeks. So for the next 3 weeks it's going to be eerily quiet around the place. Mind you, it is only 3 weeks left, which in itself is kinda scary. It's really sad to know that our time is almost up, but it's gonna be a damn sweet period right after the season ends, with a week in Whistler, and Coachella almost right after, not to mention one or two gigs in Vancouver before heading to LA.

Ski free

I borrowed Jessalyn's skis for a day last week, and had a lot of fun learning on my own. I actually picked it up pretty quickly. I guess once you know the mechanics of one sport (i.e. skiing or snowboarding) then you can figure out the other easier than somebody who hasn't tried either. Anyway, after a couple of hours I was linking turns comfortably. The only downside was that I could go fast, but I had trouble stopping fast, so I was still very cautious, as there were lots of other people on the hill. Still, it was a great experience, and I can see myself doing more of it as the snow gets softer in the next few weeks.

More photos should be coming soon. I took some great shots when I went up to Taynton Bowl and rode some phenomenal powder last week.

Of course, it doesn't always pan out that way...

Well, just a week after the supposed end to winter conditions (and on the day that the season officially ticked over to spring, no less), the weather decides to pull another one on me, as the summit of Panorama got another dump of snow (about 15cm on Monday night, and more yesterday). I was working yesterday, and, despite it not being a busy day, could not find a way out of work, so I was looking out of the window all day and seeing the snow just puking from the skies. I guess that means that I'm going back up to the summit again after all.

To make things decidedly more interesting, I was (am) meant to go to Lake Louise today for a staff trip. It's $15 I'm thinking about throwing away for another great day of riding at Panorama. I was out bowling last night and told Alex and Shelley that I'd go riding with them today, so I don't exactly want to ditch them to go to Louise for a measly 10cm over the past 2 days, especially when Pano has gotten more snow in the same period of time. That's not to say that they'd pike too, but I'd still feel bad either way.

I still haven't made my final decision. It's 6:30 now, and the bus for Lake Louise leaves at 7:15, so I have about half an hour to choose between Panorama or Lake Louise. I'm kind of leaning towards Panorama.

Speaking of plans going haywire, it seems that even more people are leaving soon. It kind of sucks to see them go, but I guess people have good reasons to stay or to go (as is my case), and I'm gonna farewell everybody else in about 4 weeks anyway, so it's not such a big loss. I'm sure I'll see most of these folks again somewhere in the future.

The last beautiful day

Well, I think I'm done. I think I've gone to the summit for the last time of my stay here. It was almost a perfect ending to my season of doing runs from there too. It all really started two days ago, just before midnight, when, out of nowhere, it started to snow at the village again - something that Panorama hadn't seen for some time.

It continued to dump throughout the morning and early afternoon of the next day (which was yesterday). Add to that the fact that it was in negative degrees for the first time in a while, and it was a recipe for some fresh tracks. The only problem with this situation was that I was both working yesterday and was meant to work today. Thankfully, a series of events occurred that led to me being able to get the day off, and oh, what a day it was.

I didn't actually go riding too much today. I did two runs... one was a practice run while I waited for Taynton Bowl to open up, and the other was through Taynton itself. I had committed to this being my last run at the bowl (unless there's another massive dump of snow before the end of the season), and I wanted to make sure I had some nice powder for it, so I decided not to do Devil's Drop (which I had wanted to do all season) because it was too tracked out, as per usual. Before I headed out, I had an excellent sandwich at the Summit Hut, my last meal at the top of Panorama, and took in some of the beautiful scenery for one last time. It was a shame that I didn't bring my camera along, as it was a beautiful day.

Then, it was time for my last hurrah. It's still a month away from the end of the season, but I knew that this would probably be the last time I would bother to take three lifts up to the top. I took my time to scout out the tracks, and eventually found some attractive powder in between Kinbasket and Whitetail, two of the last runs down the bowl. I didn't hesitate to strap in and there began my final descent, making some fresh tracks and surfing some nice fluffy snow. I was not only riding through good snow but was also riding really well. It was so good that I decided not to go up again, in the fear that I'd have a bad run and spoil my big finale.

It doesn't mean that I won't be going riding at all for the rest of the season, though. I will still do a lot of riding, but I'm probably going to restrict myself to the bottom half, cruising through groomers or getting better at the terrain park. And, of course, there's staff trips, and my end-of-season trip to Whistler. But it's goodbye to the summit of Panorama, at least for 2006/07... I know I'll be back here some day.

KA-SMACK!

My very massive bail about a month ago can be seen here. Enjoy.

Slush

Conditions have been deteriorating over the past couple of weeks, and in more ways than one. First and foremost, spring has decided to come particularly early this year. There's still been some precipitation on the mountain, but the state of the runs are what you would see in an average Australian season - ice or slush - because of the increasing temperatures that haven't allowed for any decent powder. The champagne and summit runs were closed for the first time since the start of the season yesterday due to high winds, and will probably close permanently some time soon due to the lift operator staff thinning out (as a lot of them have left or are leaving).

That seems to be the general theme around work lately. A lot of people are taking off early because for some it's not really worth it to stay - there's not a lot of good snow anymore, and there's only about 4 weeks left in the season. The lifties in particular have been hard hit, and they've had to poach a lot of housekeepers to keep their numbers up, which has meant that we've been losing lots of staff too. Not only that, but a good portion of the support staff in housekeeping have left for other positions or have headed home. It's gotten so bad that I'm taking on a different position tomorrow, just for one day, because the new trainees for that position are still being trained, and are all off tomorrow.

The bad conditions have also thrown my goals out of whack. I no longer intend to ride every run on the mountain because of the cover becoming thin and exposed, and have become consigned to the fact that my 75% coverage will have to do. I've also stopped at 5 other resorts visited throughout the season, as I can ill-afford trips to any of the resorts that are a little further away (with the exception of Whistler after the season). I have a feeling that I'll be back to visit some more resorts somewhere down the line, just not this year.

As for my plans for the season, I have all intentions to stay until the end. I need to save up some money for my post-season travels, and it would be mighty handy having a few more paychecks, and to get my bonus too. They're not making it an easy decision though... there's a staff day on the day after the season ends, which means people would probably head off on the day after. The bad thing is that the buses stop running on the day the season ends, which means a lot of people would be stranded here. I'm trying to get a charter shuttle going from Panorama to Calgary Airport, but it would cost too much if we don't get a full shuttle. I'm hoping for at least 3 or 4 more people, because it would then be worth it to get one. Otherwise, it'd be a free-for-all on the 17th of April to get on that Greyhound to Calgary, which would then be followed by an expensive taxi to Calgary Airport.

The post-season

In any case, my plans for where to go after the season ends are solidifying. Some travel details still need sorting out, but the locations I want to visit are pretty much locked in.

I fly out of Calgary on the 17th, going to Vancouver then heading straight to Whistler for 5 days, as I get 5 days free at any Intrawest resort for finishing my contract (another reason why I want to stay until the end of the season). After that, I'll be heading from Vancouver to LA (by plane or train - that hasn't been decided yet) then catch a bus to Indio for Coachella. I'll probably hang out in LA for a few more days after Coachella, then go to San Francisco for a month or so. I've got tickets to see Arcade Fire at the Greek Theatre in Berkley (which is near San Francisco) on June 1, which I'm really looking forward to, even though I'm already seeing them play a condensed set at Coachella. I then head to Chicago for a few days in mid-June, followed by New York, then to Montréal for the International Festival of Jazz.

Montréal is the first stop of my eastern Canadian adventure, where my goal is to try and visit all the eastern provinces, as well as major cities like Toronto and Québec. Speaking of Toronto, I'll probably be visiting the city twice. The first time will be around the time of my birthday, because I've booked tickets to go see Roger Waters there, and the show just happens to be on my birthday. The second time will be around early September, when I'll be in town for the Toronto International Film Festival. I'm very much looking forward to both of those trips. My last stop will be Vancouver, which is convenient because my flight to Sydney leaves from Vancouver, and because the Vancouver International Film Festival takes place not too long after the Toronto one. I'll probably visit Vancouver Island while I'm there too, as I hear it's beautiful there.

I don't have a great deal of new photos, and most of them are of people partying, so I won't bother uploading them yet. I'll put up some new ones when I get some good shots.

Canadian vacation

I ended up getting a room at the Banff Center's Lloyd Hall for around $70. It was twice what I would have paid at a backpacker's hostel, but all the ones in Banff were booked out for that day. The good thing was that it was a nice little hotel room. It obviously had to be classy-looking because of all the international conventions they had at the Banff Center.

After checking in at the hotel room, I headed into town for some dinner. After seeing the big line-up at The Keg (steakhouse), I went a few doors down to the Elk & Oarsman, a pub and grill. I had a bison burger, which tasted quite nice. Afterwards I ran into a trio of travelers from New Zealand and proceeded to get drunk. There was a guy playing tunes on the stage and knew some NZ and Aussie songs like Crowded House and Paul Kelly. I eventually got drunk enough and went up on stage and sang a couple of songs (rather badly), and I got a free Jager bomb from the barman for my troubles.

Mike turned up at the bar after he finished work, and after a couple of drinks we went across the street to Tommy's, a nice little pub, for a couple more drinks. We had a few games of darts and eventually headed back to the Banff Center with Mike's girlfriend, Lindsay. We hung out for a bit then I crashed at my hotel room until about 10 in the morning.

Splurge!

Despite the late start, Sunday was a pretty full day. I took a scenic trail over into town, which was great. I hadn't done a walk (as in, a nature walk type of walk) in some time, so this was a nice scenic experience. I saw the Banff Springs from a distance and eventually ended up in town after going along the Bow River. By this point, I was pretty hungry, so I stopped over at Evelyn's Again, a coffee chain in Banff (the chain is called Evelyn's, this particular one was Evelyn's Again, the third one in town is Evelyn's Too). The food there was pretty average. There was something advertised as an Aussie Meat Pie, which was nowhere near what an Aussie Meat Pie should be. Needless to say, I was not very impressed with my purchase.

The Bow River meets the bridge at the end of Banff Avenue, and makes for some good photos

What I was happy with, however, were my other purchases on Sunday. I bought some new DVDs and, after meeting up with Mike, some new clothes. I finally bought those gloves I've been looking at buying for ages, as well as a new tuque (what Canadians call a beanie), a shirt, a sweater, and a windproof North Face shell, which was the most expensive of the lot. I won't even say how much I spent on that day of shopping, let alone for the entire trip. It had to happen eventually though, I had been planning to buy new stuff for a while.

At the end of the day, Mike and I were very tired for reasons we could only attribute to the energy drink we had earlier in the day. We lounged a bit at Mike's room then went to see a show at the Banff Center. We saw Mae Moore and Lester Quitzau, a Canadian folk-pop duo. They put on an incredible and entertaining show that everybody in the small intimate audience really enjoyed, myself included. The plan afterwards was to go to Aurora for 25c beers. Sadly, there as a DJ playing that night, and they were charging a big cover charge and coat check fee, so we just went to McDonald's for dinner and went to Tommy's again, where the drinks were also fairly cheap. It was an early night out as we wanted to go to Sunshine for a full day of snowboarding the next day.

Monday was pretty straightforward day to explain. We woke up early, snowboarded until about 4:30, had dinner, and went to bed. An entire day of riding really takes it out of you. Mike and Pat took me out to Sunshine's backcountry, which is not nearly as good as some of the stuff we have inbounds at Panorama, but was still a fun adventure. I started becoming comfortable with jibbing small features in the middle of runs, which we don't really have here at Panorama.

Mike and Pat hike up to do a kicker at Sunshine's backcountry

More complications

I had a long, albeit interrupted, 12-hour sleep and woke up just as Mike was going snowboarding and Lindsay was going to work. I left and took the scenic trail to town again, this time to have breakfast at a much nicer bakery-style place, the Wild Flour. I generally just had a stroll around town and ended up on the other side of the Bow River, doing the start of the Bow Falls trail. Unfortunately, the rest of the trail was closed off for reasons unknown. Consequently, I just went to the Fairmont Banff Springs instead. It's much more grand up-close, and the inside was just insane. There were probably more rooms and more shops in this huge castle than there was in the entire Panorama village. I'd like to think that one day I can afford one or two nights in that place.

They don't call it the 'Castle in the Rockies' for nothing

I headed back downtown after checking out the hotel and had a milkshake from Cow's, which Reader's Digest had once highlighted as having Canada's best ice-cream. I must admit, it was pretty darn tasty. My next stop was meant to be an art gallery at the Banff Center, where I would hang around for the next couple of hours waiting for Mike to get back from snowboarding. Alas, the gallery was closed for the day, and I just sat around the lounge area outside Mike's apartment reading Popular Science and Ender's Game for a couple of hours. Mike was stuck in Sunshine until about 4:30, so when Lindsay got back, she let me leave my stuff in their room while I went out and got dinner.

I had dinner at The Keg, which had one of the most phenomenal steaks I have ever eaten. I had their biggest cut of prime rib, which was 14oz, and it was juicy and tasty all over. The accompanying baked potato was also about as great as the steak. After chomping down this huge cut like a machine, I walked back to the Banff Center to get my stuff. I caught the taxi to the Greyhound station early so that I wouldn't miss the bus, which seemed pointless later on as the bus showed up about 30-40 minutes late.

As we approached Radium, I turned on my phone (which was running out of battery) and tried to make some calls to get a lift back to Panorama (the last bus to Panorama was 9:05, which I was not going to make even in the bus from Banff was on time) but alas, the phone went dead before I had any success. At this point I was consigned to the fact that I had to hitch a ride back up, which would have been hard at 10 at night. By sheer luck, when the bus pulled up to the Petro-Canada station in Invermere, Justin, one of the people from the cash office at Panorama, was waiting there. He was picking up his friend from Toronto, who had just flown in, and so I was fortunate enough to be able to get a ride up from him.

Right now it's back to the normal routine. I was slow at work yesterday due to exhaustion from the Banff trip, and today I'll probably only go riding for a couple of hours before calling it quits. I got a whole weekend of work ahead of me, and I don't wanna be feeling dead for that busy period. New photos are finally up on my Photobucket album for February. The video of me crashing spectacularly at the terrain park should be on Ben's website, but I don't know the URL for that yet.

Banff

I have nowhere to stay tonight. I'm currently in Banff, at the Banff Center, anxiously awaiting on whether or not I can find some lodging for the night because, due to certain complications, my first night's accommodation has fallen through.

Complications

It all started when I woke up late for the bus (as I had mentioned in my post this morning) and had to end up hitching down to town. After about 10 minutes of waiting by the side of the road watching a very small number of cars pass by as I stuck my finger out, a nice man from Calgary (with a rather nice BMW) stopped and told me to hop in. We had a chat, as you do when you get a ride from somebody, and before I knew it, we were at the Petro-Canada gas (a.k.a. petrol) station where the Greyhound buses stopped. I hung around the general area for an hour before going back to the station to wait for the bus, which was, naturally, about 10-15 minutes late.

I caught a bit of sleep on the bus, and when I woke up we were getting close to Banff. Last night, Justin told me that Mike could no longer give me some accommodation for Banff for tonight. I was originally going to stay at Zach's place, but he was going to Edmonton tonight, so I decided I'd try Mike. Alas, that fell through, so now I sit here at the lobby of Mike's accommodation, using the Internet, as I wait for him to find me some slightly less free accommodation at the Banff Center (where he works and lives). Fortunately, I hear it's quite a nice place since they have lots of important international guests visiting here on a regular basis, so maybe it'll be a bit of money to buy a bit of the experience. Anyway, I have to wait for Mike to go on his lunch break before he can try giving the reservations desk another call (as he got put on hold for about 10 minutes just before he had to start work).

To go on a bit of a tangent, but still sticking to the general theme of things not being as simple as they could be, I decided to buy a board bag today. I figured that I'd be needing one for the end of the season when I set off on my adventure and have to haul off my two boards, bindings, and boots, among other things. All the ones that I had seen so far at other places had been too large for my board, so I decided that Banff would be an ideal place to get some more variety in terms of size. I ended up buying an LTD board bag... just a cheap padded carry-on bag (i.e. no wheels). However, it wasn't my first choice. There was this really cool looking Drop bag that I bought, but once I got my board in there, it turned out that the handle was a bit off-center, making it a bit of a pain to carry around. The good thing was that the LTD bag was the same size and the same price, so I went for a straight swap for it. Should teach me to look more closely next time.

Action plan

I'm not sure if I'll get much done today. It's already 4:45, and I'm still waiting on that accommodation to be sorted out. Assuming it does get sorted out, I'll probably just take a leisurely stroll around downtown Banff and maybe buy a couple of items I've been meaning to buy for a while, mainly gloves since mine are breaking apart. There's always tomorrow to do some more shopping (which was one of the main purposes of this trip). I'll probably also get some nice food to eat for dinner, as I am quite famished. I only had a sausage and egg (and hash brown) sandwich for breakfast, and a few snacks for lunch, and the greater variety of food establishments that Banff has compared to Panorama is calling out to me. Mike finishes at midnight tonight, so we'll probably end up going out late. Not quite sure where the night will take us, but it'll be short (bars close at 2) and hopefully pretty damn sweet. The big night will be tomorrow night, when Aurora serves 25c beers, kinda like Cowboys in Calgary but with bigger glasses. Time to get drunk on a dollar again.

The plan for Monday is to go to Sunshine Village for some backcountry snowboarding. Since Mike's a local, he knows all the sweet spots that not a lot of people go to. Jacky, Andy, Tyler, and possibly a few others might be coming to Sunshine on Monday too. I'm not entirely sure that I'll go again on Tuesday. I've only got a reciprocal letter of introduction (for free lift tickets) for Monday, so getting some tickets on Tuesday might be a bit of a hassle. Another hassle is going to be getting home on Tuesday night. The Greyhound gets to Invermere at about 9:30, and the last bus back to Panorama leaves at 9:05. I'm hoping that I can get a ride back from one of the people coming back from bowling.

Oh yeah, speaking of which, there's now a regular bowling get-together every Tuesday. I obviously won't make it this Tuesday, but I went last Tuesday and it was great fun. It's not your regular 10-pin bowling though. This was a Canadian variation on the well-loved sport... 5-pin bowling. It's pretty crazy. You get 5 pins positioned in a V-shape (each pin worth a different amount depending on position), 3 shots at knocking them all down (like regular bowling, you get a strike if you get them all on the first, and a spare if you get them all on the second), and have to aim at these targets with a ball that is about half the size of a regular bowling ball, and has no holes. It certainly takes more precision aiming to get a good score in this variation of the game. It's just about as fun as 10-pin though.

I guess I should get going soon. I gotta wait for Mike for any updates, and I've been hogging this computer for about an hour now. Ciao.

Marathon man

Well, I survived the craziness of working 8 days out of 9, and came out of it in one piece. I am, however, incredibly exhausted and just missed the bus to Invermere that I needed to catch. I guess snowboarding all day on Thursday didn't exactly help.

It all started on that fateful Thursday of last week when I started work, when I thought I'd be working my longest shift ever. Alas, I was mistaken as, after 6 days in a row of hovering around the 10-hour mark, and about 6 or 7 hours of snowboarding on my day off, I experienced a true marathon of a 14-hour shift yesterday. I came home at 11 at night, which threw my plans for Banff completely out of whack. I was meant to sleep early so I could catch the 7:40 bus to Invermere and wait for the Greyhound over to Banff, which leaves at 10:25. Sadly, I woke up at about 7:25 and couldn't be bothered walking over to the bus, which I probably would have missed. The current plan is to hitch a ride down, which usually works out. I hope it does again today.

The actual marathon was meant to happen on Thursday, when I had planned to do a 9am to 9pm snowboarding bonanza. It was all talk though. I was dead tired by 4, and Mark, Jacky's friend, hurt his shoulder on a run, so everybody decided to call it a day early. I guess it was a good thing, as I wouldn't have lived through that 14-hour shift if I had boarded 12 hours the previous day.

Anyway, I better start heading off and try to hitch a ride down to town. Photos when I get back, I promise.

Ch-check it out

Well, I ended up getting that job. They started me off on the same day that they told me I had the job, so it was a bit intense. Add to that the fact that it was a fairly busy day and it all equated to a 12-hour marathon of work. I was actually going to finish at about 7:30, but there was a bit of an emergency at the last minute, which I volunteered to help out in, and I ended up finishing at 9 on the dot, quickly rushing to Laura's going-away dinner soon after, for which I was about an hour and 10 minutes late for. But anyway, I guess it's pretty good that I get paid for 12 hours on a higher rate than what I usually get paid for... and that's just my first day for the week.

The annoying thing is that I gotta work for the next 6 days, making it a full 7 days in a row. It only really sucks because the heavens have finally opened up today and is giving us some insane snowfall, and by the time I have a day off to go snowboarding, all the snow be chopped up. It's a really busy period too, so any new snow is almost guaranteed to be tracked within days of fall. My only hope is that it keeps snowing until Thursday (or it snows HARD on Wednesday).

Road tripping

The Fernie trip on Monday was pretty epic. The resort had gotten 11cm overnight for a 24 hour fall of 14cm, so everybody on the bus was pretty excited to have a great day on the slope, and it certainly didn't disappoint. I rode with Nugget for most of the day, and he's a bit of a crazy snowboarder, so we did some pretty crazy stuff. The most memorable run was the short but oh so sweet ride down one of the Knot Chutes, which were some crazy double black chutes off of one of the ridges. We also managed to get stuck in a creek (with no paddle) after going too deep into some trees. We somehow managed to navigate our way out of there. All in all it was a crazy day, and I was just so tired by the end of the day that I completely skipped jam night.

I went on a bit of a road trip on Tuesday. It was an impulse decision after finding out in the morning that Tyler and Andy were driving Georgie to Calgary (with a slight detour at Banff) so that she could catch her flight home. The general plan was to drop Georgie off then go back to Banff for some sightseeing and shopping. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the Calgary city limits, Tyler's car had a bit of a cough up and the 4-wheel drive gave way. It was still fine in 2-wheel drive mode but they didn't want to risk prolonging the trip so, apart from a stopover at the mechanic at Banff (which was just about closed), the side-trip was canned.

I was meant to go to Lake Louise yesterday but decided not to after feeling lazy in the morning. I got up early, but unlike the morning of the Fernie trip, the snow report on the net wasn't that appealing. It was only about 3cm overnight, and the weather was freezing, so I decided to just surrender my $15 (which is what it costs for a staff trip to another resort - quite a bargain) and chill out at Panorama. I did a few runs, trying out a smaller board that Becky donated to me, and decided to call it a day early on. I ran into Leigh and Ben and we hit the park for the last run of the day. It turned out to be a bad call, as I had a massive bail (caught on camera too) off one of the jumps. Nothing broken, but I got a bit of whiplash and a few bruises.

I'll try to upload that video and some new photos this weekend... if I get the time. It's going to be the busiest period for the resort since Christmas, so it should be a hectic few days in a new position. Talk about trial by fire.

Worn out blues

It's been another full-on week. I had two days boarding at other resorts (Fernie and Kicking Horse), two days of pretty long days at work, and another two days at work when it was fairly quiet. The other day was spent at an interview and in town. The interview went pretty well although I won't find out who they decide will get the position until next week. I hitched a ride to town (I love how easy it is to get a ride down to Invermere) and spent about 60 bucks on groceries, mostly consisting of various meats that will hopefully last me for the next few weeks.

The trip to Fernie was pretty good despite the icy conditions. I spent most of the day doing groomers and had a few runs at the terrain park too. I can definitely see how the resort would be great on a powder day. Kicking Horse had some pretty epic terrain too. The visibility was pretty bad but that was because it was snowing all day, which made for some pretty sweet riding. The only really bad thing that happened that day was Denise having a huge crash. She got a concussion and was taken to the hospital as a precaution. Fortunately, it wasn't anything major.

I have the next three days off, two of which will be more staff trips. Tomorrow shall be a return to Fernie, where it has been snowing on and off for the past week, and on Thursday, I'll finally go back to Lake Louise where it probably won't be as good as it was the first time I went, but hopefully it won't be icy either.

The vibe around the staff housing has been getting a bit weird lately. There have been a lot of parties but they have mostly been for people leaving, so it's kind of a bittersweet feeling. A lot of the people are going back to Aus or NZ because of uni or because they simply want to get on with their regular life. It's strange to see people leaving so early when it's only just halfway through the season.

Going to California

Plans for my post-season travels have been uncertain due to the many options that I've had to choose from... until now.

Earlier in the evening, Ben, John, Kelly, and Leigh were making plans to see Tool in San Diego at around mid-March. I was tempted to go but wasn't sure because of the total cost of that trip, which would have had to have factored in return travel (bus to Calgary then plane from there), concert tickets, and accommodation. I then decided to research other bands who were on tour, and found out that Arcade Fire were doing a few dates to promote their upcoming album, Neon Bible.

The tour date that caught my eye was their appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Coachella have had pretty solid lineups in past years, including some of my favourite bands. I decided to investigate further, and to my amazement, I read through one of the best festival lineups I have ever seen. I had no other choice but to throw caution to the wind and commit to going to this event. The 3-day pass and camping fee alone is around $400 [side-note: I speak in Canadian dollars because that's what is most familiar to me right now] but the 3 headlining acts (Björk, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rage Against The Machine) themselves makes it worth the cover charge.

I guess the loose plan right now will be to visit some relatives in LA and take a 4-day side-trip to Coachella. There's about 6 of us that are going so far. I think most of those people are taking a week-long trip to Mexico right after the season ends, but I don't know if I'll join in on that. It'd probably be a good idea to save some money after that $400 splurge, especially if I want to see a specialist about this rib problem. I'll definitely need to start dipping into the Australian bank account some time soon.

Curling is a dangerous sport (and other winter adventures)

On Sunday, some people from housekeeping and guest services, along with a few others from a variety of departments, went to Invermere for some curling. Curling is one of those sports that you wouldn't think would be very interesting but, upon closer inspection, is quite a neat little game. I would equate it to lawn bowls, with the obvious differences of the lawn being sheets of ice, the balls being stones, and the people sweeping to help the stones along.

Anyway, during a few practice games, I got a bit too enthusiastic about sweeping the ice, and slipped over, falling on the stick, with the stick hitting me square on the ribs. It's been hurting ever since, and was probably not helped by the fact that I took on some more physical activities this week.

On Monday, we had the weekly broomball game where, quite spectacularly, we lost 1-0. Drama was added to the game late in the first half as I scored a goal that was soon disallowed because the ref couldn't see the goal too well (which I thought was a bunch of crap). I was pretty angry for the rest of the game, especially after the other team scored. By the end of the night, the pain in the ribs was intense.

I wasn't going to do anything on Tuesday, but ended up going out to buy some new bindings for my board and tested them out for a few runs. A couple of weeks ago, I had a huge crash on a run rife with moguls. I flipped over a few times and ended up landing on my board. The front strap of the back binding (probably the weakest part of the bindings) ended up snapping, and I had to ride down to the bottom with one dodgey binding. It wasn't really too bad because it was the front strap, and I guess it was bound to happen eventually, seeing as I got those bindings about 6 years ago. Anyway, the new bindings ('06 Burton Cartel) feel so much better than the old relics that I used to ride with (Burton Custom from ages ago).

I wasn't going to do anything on Wednesday, but again I strayed from my plans and went ice skating on Lake Windermere. Cara, my supervisor, knew somewhere to borrow some skates for free, and it was free to skate on the lake, so this helped my current financial situation. Oh, and it was lots of fun to go ice skating again, and with a bunch of friends too. The only downside was that the ice was a bit uneven. That, and I was quite tired by the end of it. Read as: ribs hurt like hell.

They were very sore again today after a few hours of Nordic skiing (aka cross-country skiing). A few of us that went ice skating yesterday decided to give Nordic skiing a try, and we went on a couple of the easy trails, which weren't all that easy due to a few big dips. There were several spills but nobody was seriously hurt and the general consensus was that it'd be great to go again some time.

One of the many great views witnessed while Nordic skiing

Today is also the end of my 3-day weekend, and I now have 3 days straight (possibly more, depending on next week's roster) of work. Fun times. I applied for a different position within the department that has slightly better pay and a bit more consistent hours, so I hope I get that. Otherwise, I'll probably be applying for a transfer to a different department as soon as the 3-month probation period is over (around the start of March) because my current position just isn't getting me as much money as I would like.

$1.86

That's how much I owe the company after rent was taken out of my last pay. It could have been a lot worse, I guess. It's still a bit annoying though.

Earlier in the week there was a staff trip to Kimberley, another nearby resort. We were lucky enough to catch it on a powder day. Unfortunately, I had, in the previous day, accidentally left my board and gear at the office. Consequently, I was riding with Jacky's board and boots all day, which felt a bit weird.

Yesterday saw a massive party at Paradise as the Aussies (and a few non-Aussies too) listened to the Triple J Hottest 100. It was a grand time, matched only by the BBQ today, followed by beers at the summit. As the new batch of photos will reveal, we hoisted the Australian flag up at the summit and generally had a ball.

That's it for now. I'm about to go to an Australia Day party at the Crazy Horse. Hopefully it'll be good, though I won't drink a great deal due to aforementioned money issues and work tomorrow.

Ain't nothin' goin' on but the rent

Well, after (somewhat) recovering from that illness that I had last week, I found myself in the unfortunate position of having 3 out of my 4 days at work with very little to do. I didn't work a great deal of hours, and I'm unsure on whether or not I'll make enough to cover rent.

One of the better things to come out of this week is my new guitar. It's a 1/2 size acoustic guitar that I got from eBay for about 40 bucks, and it's great to finally be able to play some songs in my spare time.

Dave called me the other night to catch up a bit. I was half asleep when the phone rang but couldn't sleep after the call after finding out that a good mate's sister had recently passed away. It's that kind of news that you don't want to hear, especially when you're overseas. You feel so helpless when all you can do is make a phone call and see how they're going.

New photos!

Yay.

The Internet is still as slow as ever in our building, but thankfully, it's working perfectly in our sister building, Paradise (FYI, our building is called Monument), so I've taken the liberty of uploading some photos with their connection. As always, they can be found at this location. Here's one I prepared earlier...

You're probably wondering one of two things right about now: 1) What the hell is he wearing? and; 2) What the hell is that thing next to him?

First, let's go into the story of the suit. I bought this suit waaaay back at the start of the season. It was the week leading up to the '80s theme party, and I desperately wanted to find some really cheesy '80s style fluro ski suit. Out of sheer luck, I found a proper heli-skiing one-piece suit at just about my size at the children's consignment store for a very reasonable $25. I picked it up without hesitation and was quite pleased when I found out it was actually quite a warm and waterproof outfit. In fact, it's a bit warmer than the ski jacket that I brought with me. It's also good for riding in powder because you don't get any snow down your pants (because it's a one-piece). I've been wearing it more than my normal ski gear due to the amount of powder we've been getting.

Now the deal with the wolf in the Santa suit is a bit more straightforward. This was on Christmas Eve when I went riding for a bit in the morning then headed down to the village to chill out for a bit. I found out that Santa was going to be around, and ran into this mascot walking about. I just had to get a photo with it. It turned out there was an actual human Santa as well, but that wasn't nearly as fun as the costumed wolf Santa.

I called in sick again today. I worked yesterday but didn't feel the greatest and couldn't really get a lot done, so when I woke up today, feeling a bit better but still not the best, I decided not to risk overexerting myself for another day and just took the day off. I'm hoping I'll recover over the weekend. I guess I'll just have to pay for rent out of my pocket for the next pay period. The good news is that I got about $360 today (pay day), so I have a tad bit of wiggle room for the next bunch of weeks, as long as I don't splurge too much.

Crazy days and lazy days

It's been more than 2 weeks since my last post, which is probably due to the craziness of the past few weeks. Work has been really busy, and in between work were New Year's celebrations. My first day off for the week was Saturday, and I spent that snowboarding and generally being lazy.

Work has been okay lately. It's been really busy, and I've been really slow, but I'm told it's better to be slow and get everything done than cutting corners to be quick. It's not earning me a lot of dollars, but it's not too bad. Still, I wouldn't mind getting a different position.

Snowboarding-wise, I haven't really gone too often lately, mainly because the resort has been pretty busy, and it's not really worth it to go out a lot unless it's a powder day. I've been trying to cover much of the resort's runs so that I could claim I've done all of the runs by the end of the season. It's looking pretty good so far, but there's still a fair bit to go.

My other mission is to visit as many other resorts as possible. That started on Tuesday, when I went on the staff trip to Lake Louise. The trip wasn't as great as I would have hoped, mainly due to the fact that I've been feeling pretty sick lately. I had almost no energy during the trip and only managed to go up 3 times before giving up. On the plus side, I did have some incredibly tasty (albeit incredibly pricey) prime rib burger.

At the end of the day I had worked up quite a fever and ended up calling in sick today, although half of the reason why I called in sick was because of a temporary limp I had acquired from playing in the staff broomball league. Broomball is a game that is pretty much a bastard child of field hockey, ice hockey, and football (aka soccer). It is played, oddly enough, with brooms and a ball. Similar to ice hockey, you can bat the ball down with you hand, but only the goalie is allowed to grab the ball. Like football, you can kick the ball, but you can only score by using the broom.

Anyway, a teammate and I, and a player from the other side, were all going for the ball. My teammate accidentally hit me square in the calf, and it's literally been a pain to walk ever since. I still have a bit of a limp, but I'll probably go to work tomorrow since I only have 2 working days left (requested the Lake Louise day off and had today off sick), and I want to make rent for the next pay period.

Despite the minor misfortunes of late, it had just recently hit me that I am living in a beautiful and friendly mountain village where I get to snowboard often and am surrounded by great people. Life is good.

Photos may be delayed for a bit longer, since the Internet connection seems to be moving along at a snail's pace lately. It really sucks not having admin or physical access to the router to be able to mess around with settings and whatnot. I'm just mooching off the other staff building's net connection at the moment.

Oh yeah, I hope everybody had a great Christmas holiday period and a safe New Year.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

The double black Christmas thing didn't exactly go to plan, but the good thing was that it was a powder day (15cm new snow) and we got some pretty damn good runs down.

Last night was a massive Christmas celebration at the apartment building. Many people brought down food and everybody had a massive feast. After dinner, gifts were given out as part of a Secret Santa thing that almost the entire building was part of. Anj dressed up as Santa and gave away gifts from everybody to everybody. I got season 2 of Alf on DVD, which was pretty sweet.

I didn't have too much to drink because our beer supply ran out, which turned out to be a good thing because when I woke up on Christmas morning, Santa had given the second best present I could hope for (next to Alf, naturally) - powder. I turned on the TV when I woke up and lo and behold, there was 15cm of fresh powder to be ridden. It was my first ever white Christmas, and the entire day of riding was just incredible, despite a few times when I got a bit buried in powder.

The day was actually full of incidents. Leigh took out a tree (and didn't damage his board), Ben did a few flips due to a crash, and John and I fell into a crevasse in the middle of a run. We ended up calling it a day at about 2:30 in the afternoon because we were all pretty damn tired.

We came home to find the common room completely covered in food scraps. It was nasty. Apparently there was a food fight last night after I had gone to sleep. Hopefully tonight will be another good night, as I have 4 straight days of work to look forward to, and at least two of those are predicted to be powder days.

Photos will be up as soon as I can be bothered to upload them.

I'm dreaming of a double black Christmas

There's a plan going around that involves doing as much of Taynton Bowl as possible on Christmas Day. Taynton Bowl is an expert area of the mountain filled with powdery (or one would hope) double black diamond runs. Interesting times should be had.

On a slightly tangential note, I did my first ever double black run the other day. I took on Elmo at the Extreme Dream Zone (another double black area). Apart from the time when my board hit an exposed tree stump and received some big scratches, it was a pretty good experience (and at the same time told me that I need to improve on those kind of runs).

The view from the summit

Apart from one or two riding days, the week involved mostly work and a whole lot of not much else. The most interesting point was when the lifties were out for a quiet drink, which eventually turned into 4 guys buying large rounds of Jager Bombs for everybody (I think it cost them $122 Canadian each for those rounds). Good times.

Anyway, as this is probably my last post before Christmas (Canadian time), I would like to wish everybody a happy and safe holidays.

Christmas tree!

View of a thousand peaks

Today, we took the run aptly named 'View of 1000 Peaks'. It was quite a beautiful view, though not as breathtaking as the one I witnessed in Innsbruck. Nothing beats the Austrian alps. The run it linked up with was filled with moguls and took us some time to get through. It wasn't a whole lot of fun, but it did improve my skills on those kind of runs.

Last night was jam night again. It was a great celebration of Andy's birthday. He got well drunk, as did a lot of other people. I stayed fairly sober so that I could get up and sing again (and not screw up). I sang Everlong (with somebody else on guitars), and it was fairly well-received. The whole getting up on stage thing is something I could get used to. I believe the next jam night is on New Year's Day, so I have a couple of weeks to practice something new.

Embrace the sun

The Sun Bowl opened up yesterday. The Sun Bowl is a massive area (a bowl to be specific) in Panorama that's not too steep and can get some insane powder. Alas, I was too busy either teaching Kelly how to ride, or going to Invermere to do some shopping, so I missed out on first tracks there.

The sun was shining brilliantly yesterday

Fortunately, it was still good today, and I had an awesome time riding some pretty sweet powder. The groomed runs were also quite good and I got some huge speed down a few of them. I think today was actually my first full day of boarding since I got here. Good to know I can last a day of hard work. The worst part of the day is a toss-up between when I left my lift pass at the apartment in the morning (and had to walk back and get it) or when I crashed on a traverse (after trying to come back from the powder on the side) and landed on my back, smacking me squarely on the back of the head (I feel fine now, though). Methinks I should invest in a helmet. And some warmer gloves, my hands were freezing today.

A few freshies

Last night was the pirate theme weekend party. A lot of creative costumes were spotted. Gordon (aka Nugget - Sydney-sider) was all decked out in pirate gear (see below), but I think he was topped by the guys (whose names I can't remember right now) who showed up in a cardboard pirate ship. At the party I saw Pete, who runs the jam nights, and he said I should get up again tomorrow night. We'll see.

Swashbuckling Nugget

Powder keg

Today, I woke up early to catch the first lifts up to the summit of the mountain. It was knee-deep powder up there, after a 25cm dump in the past 24 hours. It's pretty crazy that the base at the summit is already at 110cm after only one open week. It was without a doubt the biggest powder I've ever ridden in.

Last night was the staff Christmas party, and it wasn't as wild as it could have been. The good thing was that the food was free (nice and tasty turkey and ham) and you got two free drinks. There was also a prize draw. A beginner (Nat) won a heli-skiing adventure day, and a skier won a snowboard. It was pretty amusing.

Photographic goodness

All the (decent) photos from the trip so far can be found here.

Panorama

That's right, folks... I'm still alive.

The following post covers the past Internetless week or so.

I write this as we make our way to Panorama via the company bus. It's been pretty cool driving through Banff National Park, though we didn't go past Lake Louise. I'll have to check it out some other time in the future.

Yesterday, I had a leisurely stroll over to the comic book store as it was no longer really really cold. It was a nice and comfortable -4 or so. I grabbed Scott Pilgrim vol. 2. It was a shame that they didn't have vol. 3 in because there was a sale for manga and digest-sized graphic novels - buy one, get the second at 25% off.

I took a side-trip over to the mall to get a SIM card for my phone. It must be noted that the prices for mobiles here are crazy. Not so much the price of the actual phone but rather the charges for calls. Here you get charged for airtime, so even receiving calls gets billed. You also have to pay for 'extras' that are stock standard for most networks in Australia, such as text messaging, voice messaging, caller ID, etc. In summary, Australia's awesomeness should not be taken for granted.

Anyway, after that whole phone stuff, I headed back to the hostel and waited for Leigh and Ben to arrive. We hung around a bit then went to the store to buy my snowboard boots. I ended up going with the Burton Hail. Not cheap, but incredibly comfortable, and having comfy boots is one of the most important things when snowboarding.

The train station

After dinner, a fair portion of the people from the hostel went to Cowboy's, where they have 25c beers on Thursday nights. Needless to say, it was packed. Everybody got pretty damn drunk and woke up this morning feeling horrible. Regardless, all the Panorama folk were ready for the bus, which left just about on time.

No net access makes Adrian something something...

On the way to Panorama, the bus driver noticed that the staff bus had been stranded on the side of the road. He dropped us off at central check-in and headed back to pick up the staff, leaving everybody without their luggage for about half an hour. When we finally got to our apartment, everybody was very hungry.

A nice view on the way to Panorama

After a short talk from the staff, mostly everybody headed over to the Crazy Horse for some meals and drinks. Myself, Leigh, and Anj (Melbournian) stayed to play pool and have drinks while the others left. I ended up drinking far too much and felt rather hungover this morning. Leigh and I still somehow managed to give our boards a wax in the early hours of the morning after getting back, which wasn't really too useful since it wasn't a low temperature wax and sucked in these conditions.

Ben, Christel (Canberran), John and Kelly (Kiwis) bought some food supplies for us in Invermere while we slept, so there was finally something to eat around the house. We had a quick feed then headed to the lifts because it was staff skiing day. I finally got to try out my new gear. Pretty damn good. The boots are amazingly comfy.

I had two runs down before they stopped letting staff through (since the hill is primarily used for ski racing training), of which one involved a rather spectacular crash, leaving a big scratch on my chin and a lot of snow in my clothes. Regardless, it was fun to be on the snow again. Afterwards, Christel, Jackie (I actually can't recall where she's from at the moment), and I went to get our staff passes.

On the way back to the apartment, we took a different route, and fearing that we'd get lost, Christel and Jackie backtracked to the way they knew. I kept going knowing that I would eventually find the way home, and quite confident that I wouldn't get lost. I did. I took one wrong turn and ended up at central check-in. I still got home before Christel and Jackie though.

By the way, we have discovered that the free Internet in our rooms does not work as of yet, so this post may end up being pretty large. It's really a bit annoying, but hopefully we'll be in business soon enough.

Tonight is apparently a massive staff party at the Crazy Horse, so it should be pretty fun. I hope the guys get back from town soon because I don't wanna be heading over there by myself.

The good times are killing me

Dinner was great. Ben's a cook, so that's always nice to have in an apartment. About 8 of us from the same floor surrounded the insufficiently-sized bench top for a pasta feed. The staff housing, by the way, is set up rather nicely. It's pretty small but certainly spacious enough. My only gripe is that there is virtually no soundproofing, so you can hear the smallest things.

My room

After dinner, a big group of people from the apartment headed over to the Crazy Horse for the big staff party. There were drinks all around, a cover band (who played some songs badly and some songs pretty well), and lots of mingling. I met a lot of people, most of whose names I have already forgotten. I'm really bad with that kind of thing. It was a lot of fun though.

I was not planning on having a big night because it would have been my third in a row, and I have orientation in the morning. Alas, as the story usually goes, I had a pretty big one. Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as the past two nights. My throat still hurts like hell (probably from singing along to Everlong when the band played it), but I can remember most of the night, which is a good sign.

Toby Creek

I'm hoping that orientation doesn't take too long. I need a bit of a rest, and I'd like to get some shopping done down in town (the colloquial term for Invermere). The apartment is in dire need of rice, a rice cooker, soy sauce, and a wok. A little meat would go a long way too. Sadly, I hear that meat here costs a lot, so I might not buy as much as I would hope to get. Still, I do need to use up all that bihon (noodles) that I bought back in Calgary. In hindsight, it seems like it may have been a bad idea to buy so much of it.

The Sunday roast

Half the new people had staff orientation the day after the big party. Most were feeling under the weather during the speeches, but it was a pretty interesting day. It pretty much introduced people to the company and their values, and told us what kind of benefits we'd be getting. After orientation, I headed home and decided I'd have an easy night so I can be fresh for my first day.

The view outside my room

The 2nd floor community decided to roast a turkey, which turned out rather tasty, despite not having any gravy. During the roasting period, the fire alarm went off no less than five times, which led us to believe that it is a rather sensitive alarm. I called it a night early but couldn't find a good run of sleep and woke up for my first day pretty tired.

Work was pretty interesting. We were introduced to the department, how they operate, and were shown around the resort so that we would all know the different buildings. At the end of the day, I pretty much had the layout of the resort down pat.

Last night was fun. We had roast leftovers for dinner, and headed out for John's birthday. We first hit the Jack Pine Pub and soon moved over to the Crazy Horse. Some people left pretty early because they were starting work today, but a few stayed. Fortunately for me, I was one of them, because some random guy was buying rounds of Jager Bombs for everybody. I hear it ended up costing him more than 700 dollars. Ouch.

After the pub, Ian and Gary (Poms), and Kelly and I started to head home. However, I had the grand idea to start throwing snow at people, and it escalated into a snow fight of epic proportions. We all ended up very white from snow and I had a bruised knee. Kelly and I took a short pit stop at the place where the Brits were staying, then headed back to the apartment.

Today, I woke up early and went to Invermere with Vi and Alex (Melbournians) to do some shopping. I ended up getting some useful stuff like soy sauce and a deep frying pan to use as a makeshift wok (since I couldn't find any woks around town). I also bought my costume for the opening week theme, which is The '80s. I got a pink headwarmer and a one-piece ski jumpsuit. Looks very old school.

After grabbing groceries, Vi and Alex realised that they had bought too much. As a result, we ended up having to ring up Mallory (a local) to bring some of the things up for us while we hitchhike up the mountain (which is pretty safe at this time of year because it's only employees that are heading up to Panorama). Becky (another local) drove around and got our stuff then we headed up to the hitchhike point. A nice local named Catrien picked us up in her Golf and we got home before too long.

When I got home I got the Internet working for a brief moment, but it seems to keep dropping out, which is pretty annoying. I really hope they fix that soon.

All the dirty work

When I signed up to be a room attendant, I thought it would be rather cruisy. Not so, it seems. The first few days at work have been pretty hard, and I'm hoping I will soon get the knack of cleaning rooms. Apart from that, it's been pretty much all party. The village has this great atmosphere where everybody has a lot of fun, and I'm glad to be part of it.

This weekend is opening weekend so it's starting to get a lot more lively, with all the people from out of town coming up for the snow. The '80s fashion showoff was really fun. John (from next door) won with his incredible skin-tight fluro purple ski outfit.

That outfit

The net is still not working, which is annoying the hell out of me, but not enough to make my time here a bad one.

Tonight should be a massive party over at Chopper's Landing, carrying on the '80s theme. I'm a bit tired after work and a bit of riding, but I'll tought it out. I got out of work early today, so I decided to hit the slope for a run or two, but the visibility was horrible, so I decided to give up after one run.

Opening weekend

Apparently it was the best opening weekend Panorama has seen in several years. The base was pretty good, but not all the runs were open. That said, for an opening weekend the conditions were pretty damn good. It's about what Thredbo can produce at its peak on the average 'good' season.

Enough about the snow though, and more about the partying. The '80s night at Chopper's Landing was pretty wild. We first hit the Crazy Horse before the big party started. It was pretty busy there already. A few of us hitched a very short ride over to Chopper's landing with a guy more than willing to show us a good set of icy doughnuts in the parking lot. That was a lot of fun. There was an '80s cover band at Chopper's pumping out a lot of tunes, and a lot of people were enjoying themselves despite the slow service on the alcohol.

The day after was not spent recovering, but rather, it was spent snowboarding. I went up 2 lifts and did some pretty steep runs. I started to get my groove back but was also getting rather tired, so I didn't ending up going again too many times. At the end of the day, I was feeling sore, and ended up sleeping at about 8:30.

Nothing like a good view heading up the slopes

The next day at work was pretty relaxed, and it was a good lead-up to the first jam night of the season, which are held every Monday night. I did a fair bit of pre-drinking, and got on stage rather drunkenly. My attempt at singing Good Riddance was impaired by several breaks when I either forgot the lyrics or chords, or both. It was, however, not such a bad experience considering it was my first time on stage in front of a live audience. A lot of the other (also drunken) people were very supportive, so that was cool.

The Internet has finally started to work today, so I'm very happy about that. Apologies for the ultra-long post.