Canada Week Two: Skiing, Shivering and Sports Social

We had a fantastic evening meeting all the new Nonstoppers at the Rose and Crown pub. It has set the scene for a great 3 weeks on our instructor course. Although you have to feel sorry for the 4 girls on the course as they are being constantly mobbed by numerous guys... surprising not me though as I am just having fun being here and bleerrgh 6 months is plenty of time to work my charm :)

Our first day skiing at Sunshine blew my mind. Fresh, deep, fluffy white powder lay like a pure white blanket over the three mountains that make up the resort. However it wasn't quite deep enough and pretty much all of us (Myself, Yannick 1 and 2 and the Cougar Boys) ended up with some vicious scrapes in our skis! However, the exhilarating, smile on your face feeling that we all got was well worth it. In the evening we went for the welcome meal at the Elk and Oarsman , again just getting to know more and more of the crew. There are 3 Glaswegians on the course who have a severe case of verbal diarrhoea, and they look to be the in-flight entertainment for the three weeks!

So onto the course.... So far we have been learning loads of new stuff, getting us away from the European parallel (legs locked looking like a nancy boy who should probably be part of a boy band) and onto Canadian style (a little more duuuuude and a little less westlife). The temperature has been painfully cold. On Monday the gondola was closed as it was minus 51 degrees! Sitting on the lifts, huddled against the biting cold, ice whipped into your face by the wind that blows straight through as many layers as you are wearing onto your shivering body is not for the feint hearted. But when the cloud breaks and the sun bursts through, as they say 'the juice is worth the squeeze!'. Some of the scenery, no all of the scenery here is outstandingly beautiful.

In terms of the skiing, we have been trying out skiing on one ski, no poles, poles behind the legs, screaming some great carving turns and YESSSS the BIG one ... snowplow! Its been, god I don't know how many years, but I have still got this ultimate ski move. Haha its great to see normally very stylish (almost as stylish as Mum) turn into hideous, as-bad-as-Nick-Clegg-is-at-keeping-promises, skiers in a matter of seconds! But is always useful to go back to basics.

I have renewed my gym membership and I still have my little followers so we are still getting strange looks when I'm teaching three other guys how to do some new exercises. But its great to be able to keep in shape... and having a good steam and hot tub after a hard day ripping down the slopes is hardly a bad thing! On Monday we had a day off so we decided to go out after the ski tuning technical session. We played ring of fire with a few new Canadian inputs, always a great way to drink too much, but its good as the alcohol is sooo expensive here. On Tuesday we watched Harry Potter, what a film! My respect for Dobby is up here now ... right up there in the clouds. I feel a little part of me is missing now... :( The sports social night ... yeaaah right up my street. Literally as the sports centre is up Beaver St, my team took on Emily and Co, demolishing the football. I got so into it that I ended up trying to;do an overhead kick, not the best of my ideas, in fact almost up there with trying to get out of the car when there were two lions about, but anyway fun fun! And then the problemo of the week. Me and Hans decided that we would be a little crazy at wake up at 2:30 in the morning to go to Lake Louise as there was a press conference for this weekends Winterstart Worldcup downhill races, and we were going to get free breakfast, free merchandise and a chance to chat to some of the world cup skiers (Bode Miller etc), so we treached out in the freezing cold for the bus at 3:15 and did it show ... well note the 'going to' not 'went to' phrase.. NO IT DID NOT!! We still don't know why, and we're not bothered about waking up early but having missed such a good opportunity (and a free breakfast grrr).

My job hunt is going well. I walked down Banff Ave selling myself to every shop I could set my eyes on and I have got an interview at Monod Sports (loads of greeeat gear so if I get a job then il be able to get great discounts :) ) The rest of the Beaver gang arrive today so it will be great to meet everyone. Ohh I forgot to mention that once again I have been trekking back to the ski lounge almost daily still as I managed to snap the buckle on the left boot, almost unheard of apparently and bugger bugger bugger, its just another annoyance but hey things happen I guess. Im in some rental boots for now and my toes are rioting against me!

Missing everyone back home... keep me posted of stuff :)

PS Congrats Kirst and Ceit, blow that UCAS s**t away!!

Canada Week 1: Banff, Bears and Boots

They say that 'a Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe!'  Now so far I cannot verify that this is true, but I have 6 months of skiing, ice hockey, partying and presumably canoeing to find out! I have been here for a week now and have already fallen in love with the town of Banff.

Once again my flight was a nightmare! They decided to move my flight forward so that it was 15 minutes after I checked in... but everything was ok, due to the bad weather it wasn't going to leave straight away. So there we were, Mum and myself, chatting about how I was going to sort my bank (oh yeah haha I kind of screwed up my banking system and didn't have a pin) when on the tanoy ... 'Will customer Andrew Abraham please go straight to gate 140'. Holy shit.. bugger bugger so we sprinted off to security and then BAM as i'm going through the x-ray machine (well obviously I'm not going through but my bags were) it broke with my laptop inside. So as im standing there as everyone diddy daddles around and the tanoy comes on again. 'Andrew Abraham get y'all ass to gate 140 now biaaatch' I think a black women going through the menopause had come onto shift by now! So I sprint through to the gate and breathlessly arrive only to be told 'awww there's no rush sweetie (sooo patronising) the plane's grounded for the next hour'. Idiots on the tanoy! And then on the flight.. the turbulence was so bad that I was almost vomited onto the ceiling. I guess it didn't help that I was surrounded by a gaggle of Chinese hyperventilating into sick bags! The rest of the journey passed much more smoothly.. literally as we were not being so battered by the wind, and I arrived to Canada in their early evening.

Over my first week I have been getting familiar with the town, meeting plenty of new people and sorting my life to settle into the swing of things for the upcoming winter months. It took me four or five days to get my body into the correct time zone, and on the first night out (just like in Vassiliki) I was being bought vodka red bulls to keep me awake! Its so strange here; the wildlife just doesn't give a s**t about people. Today as I was coming back from town I was making a head on collision with two reindeer and guess who lost in this Canadian game of chicken! I maintain that they only won due to superior numbers! By the way this picture is a mountain goat NOT a reindeer, but I like the picture so I threw it in :)

Ok so the boot fittings. I have been into the Ski Lounge so often that pretty much all of the guys working in their know me by name, and in some cases by the shape and pronation of my feet. It took over and hour and a half for me to get 'measured' but by god are the boots comfy!! Well the left one is perfect, whilst I have taken the right on back on a number occasions to get my moneys worth... I mean I did pay $640!! We went skiing to Lake Louise on Wednesday and it was great to test out all my new kit even if there was only one slope actually running.

On Monday, Alistair and myself made the rather epic trip up to Norquay through very 'grizzly bear' country! It was good to get up and see some very impressive views, plus I was able to meet Gord (future employer) and sort my Tri-Area Pass :)

I am trying to be as keen as I can be for work. So far I have got myself an interview to potentially be a babysitter, but a bit of a no no on under fives for Roo! I can read bedtime stories (love doing the accents), play kids games and generally muck around with the kids but changing nappies ..hmmm I think not! 

 The snow has finally come in and tomorrow I'm going to Sunshine Village with a load of guys from Cougar house to get properly in the swing of things. Hopefully it should be a really good day as in the evening we are going out for drinks with the Nonstop guys on our course!

Vassiliki Part III

So we continued with our course. One day Ally decided to try and smear herself all over the floor by crashing head first into a bin and falling onto the pavement! Urmm on Wednesday I had my presentation which went quite well :) ... we had to include fruit and veg so I spent the evening before making little banana boats and then we crashed them into each other blah blah blah kind had to be there in the moment!! The rest of the course went swimmingly, and we blitzed through it until the final assessment on Thursday where we dominated the exercises and I went for a taster session with some of the windsurf chums. Firstly I took Max and Andreina and they were both happily tacking after 20 mins and then I took Nick who absolutely loved it!

After we had all passed our course we played loads of kids games in our very giddy state!! First up was CHEAP DRUGS (basically you put the base of a windsurf mast on your chest and spin looking at the top to make you super dizzy, and then you have to carry a cup of water back to your team).. and then Goblins, Wizards and Giants (very similar to rock, paper, scissors but different) and I ended up accidentally expressing my devout love of wizards to the group.. and then finally a bit of ninja as its such a classic :) In the evening we went for a lovely meal and then off to drink at Wildwind cocktails. The girls made Max and myself drink the most girlly drinks we could find... so we ended up glugging down cosmopolitans for most of the evening. This then made mine and Lucinda's cycling technique (Lucinda would sit on the front of the handle bars as I rode) much more tricky as for some unexplainable reason I lost all my coordination!!

The next day was a race day and BOOOOM again I managed not to loose, but in fact came 2nd out of 11 boats and gained myself a lovely pint of just above freezing beer. It was fantastic watching Ally projectile vomit from the boat in between races 1 and 2, the day before she was our instructor and now this hahah very amusing!!

So the fancy dress for this Club Vass was Cowboys and Indians., and man did we go overkeen on the old fancy dress. Myself and Nick made a tipee and then dressed up as little Indian children. The rest of the fish dressed as other Indian duuudddes so we were our own very little tribe. As we arrived we carried the tipee into the middle of the crowd and set up camp, only God knows why we didn't win the fancy dress competition! Again I only got 4 hours sleep for the second night ... but I think I managed to find an equal on the dance floor in Andreina, man we went crazy with the dancing!

 I woke up again with a teeny weeny headache but I was also mighty keen to get every last moment in Vass so I rallied the troops and we went to play basketball. I played the week before with the instructors and vass working boys plus Becky and had got well into it! It was so much fun with Harriet, Nick, Max, Hannah and Andriena. I got the luckiest basket ever in the sense that it hit the post on the back, bounced to the gods and then fell plum in the middle of the basket .. they say it was luck I maintain it was skill ... undoubted, hard earned, naturally born with, sweat ridden SKILL of the utmost brilliance :)

So on our last day they let us go mental at Wildwind as well! It was between a force 5 and 6, and I took the Hobbie cat 15 and 16 with Hannah and Emma. OH MY GOD they fly like f**k!! I have never had such a fun time on the water! We pitch poled in a gust (ie capsize forward) and I was pinged like a pathetic rag doll over Emma on the other trapeze and around the mast into the water. Again later after our monumental struggle to right the boat I was in the water as the elastic connecting my harness snapped and I was washed overboard by a humongous wave. But as the tiller extension was caught the boat kept sailing and I was pulled submerged under water behind the boat for what felt like a kilometer.. who knows with the speed we were going?! 

On the last evening Lucinda and myself took two mountain bikes and went for a ride along the postcard route- it was very spectacular scenery and a lovely trip. It rounded off a perfect day .. well I say rounded off, we went out for one last Hurray at Zeus Bar and haha I was so knackered by my last two nights of hardcore boozing I fell asleep at the bar .. NOT once but TWICE. It was a good ploy as everyone bought me vodka red bulls to kick me back into action! 

 And so came the end of my trip to Greece.  

'Vassiliki, Hobie Cats, Zeus Bar, Wizards and all the Fish!'          



Vassiliki Part II

Finally after a rather stressful journey I have arrived in Canada!! Its currently 4:30 in the morning, so thats 11:30 back home; thought I'd finish my Vassiliki write up as I have a few spare moments with everyone else asleep. So yes right bacjk to Greece!

On Friday it was RACE DAY and having done our practise on Thursday we were set to dominate the Wildwind clients! (When I say practise.. hmm a little lienient. I was in the Laser 2k with Suise on the helm, we went for a tack, hit by a gust, threw myself out to balance .. Oops where are the toe straps.. SPLOOSH! A very funny spectacle for everyone else). In the end I came 4th out of 25 boats so not a bad showing seen as its been a while since I donned the bright yellow watch for racing. In the eveneing it was the Club Vass fancy dress BBQ with the obscure theme of 'Dahab Dreaming'. On reccomendation I went as the Red C/Red Sea, where I massacred my weetabix box to look like the letter C and then spray painted it bright red. To be honest it was a fairly lame fancy dress but it was a little bit outside the box. The deal for the 10 Euro BBQ was free punch.. everytime you drank a glass you stacked it. I remember the number 12....!

Saturday quite rightly was a bit of a headachey blur. Didn't achieve a lot through my subconcious state of 'oww my head hurts!' On Sunday we kicked off the Instructor course which was a little bit more hardcore. Days from 8 till 7 were a bit more full on, but by now I have realised that its so much cheaper and easier to just buy sandwiches rather than try and make them, so that made the mornings easier.

I think it was on Sunday that I decided to go for a run up the BIG mountain behind the resort. Everyone kind of thought it was pretty mental but it was a fantastic run, even if I did get lost and subsequently raped by thorns, and the views of the sun going down was so cool.

 Monday, woooo, it was my birthday :) It was such a good day, Started off with the girls (Lucinda, Emma, Hannah, Violet and Celeste) getting my a birthday cake- it was very sweet and very unexpected! Then we decided the wind was too good to bother doing the course so we went blasting all afternoon. Even the 2k's could shift going downwind with the kite up! Everyone was going to go out for a meal to celebrate but as it was lots of people had work (presentations to prepare etc) so we just went out for a few quiet beers.

Vassiliki Part I

'Your flight number as been changed, but everything is fine.. there is nothing to worry about.' Oh how wrong that check-in girl was! 7 hours later I was still at Manchester Terminal 1 waiting to board my flight to Prevaza. My flight out couldn't have been more stressful, as I sat waiting in Manchester knowing that my taxi man at the other end would be grinning from ear to ear getting 5 hours worth of my money for doing sweet F A! However in the end I got to Vassiliki and met Barnsey.. the flying fish lead person thingymajig, and holy shit he had the craziest facial hair ever! During the stages of mitosis he must have fallen somewhere into the gray area of not quite human and not quite goat either, but he was 'super' friendly and all in all a good chap.

Greece's weather was in direct opposite to NW England. In the morning, when I got up at 3 am, it was a mixture of sleet, driving rain and misery, but by 8 o clock, despite my journey from HELL, I was relaxing with my new 'fishy' friends with a pint of Mythos (local and cheap lager) as the sun set in board shorts and a t-shirt. In complete contrast to the last 7 years of education, surrounded by particularly exuberant males (some of whom may have been a little too touchy-feely ... no names, Melvin) there was only girls on my course :) And although everyone else had already been there for either 6 or 4 weeks, once I finally could remember everyone's names, everything was lovely and dandy.

On the first day of the course we had Eric kick in. Eric is some crazy wind shizzle that goes cross-shore early afternoon at literally the perfect strength for blasting. It was so good to get planning on the Laser Ones, but I did ruin my hands. Gota remember gloves next time! But despite the blood on my fingers I left the water with a massive grin on my face. The wind was consistent, very little movement .. just like back home at work on Ullswater ... hmm wait a second?!

On Wednesday we went on a day-sail. Pretty cool really, as we just chilled sun bathing on the boats, then on the beech, then back to Club Vass. Went for some very very chilled beers in the evening and ended up cooking some of the randomest concoctions of food ever seen. Working on a budget never allows the extravagant over keen prawn starters like I do at home! ...Well I've done it at least once. Our instructor, Captain Hew, was awesome at singing and playing the guitar. Either that or we were hugely pissed as it was Ally's birthday. Sung 'Crazy Moose' until we had no voices left and then went to Zeus Bar .. the Vassiliki version of Toast really, but less scummy and much more lenient when you dance on their tables and bar!

                                                                         

On Tuesdays and Thursdays we did 'fitness' ie either mountain biking or basketball. I went for the biking option with Lucinda, Becky, Max and Susie. The first ride was a gentle cruise up to a small, very rustic Greek village through vine yards and past barking dogs, whilst the second ride was up to the infamous Two Towers (not the L of the R ones though I was in Lefkas not Mordor). It was a steep climb up, but the views from the top mmm mmm! Downhill rattled me to death but my bike (No 9) just seemed to swallow up any obstacles so I didn't die, which I guess was a bonus. The sailing on these days was OKish but the wind wasn't anywhere near as good as the first Monday. Tried some windsurfing as well, ended up very internally damp but having mastered the 'Becky Roll' chuffed that I had mastered a grade A-star plus windsurf move!

Botswana Safari Part IV

Today we were visited by Horatio the Hornbill from the Lion King. Except he isn't a cool talking bird in real life but a savage little bugger who kept trying to eat my food! We continued down towards South Africa, and then BOOM! We had been shaken to pieces, our hearing permanently damaged (well lets be honest mine was hardly perfect to begin with) and maybe infertile by this point due to the corrugated roads of the Kgalagadhi NP, but the possibility of ruined bodies was overcome by our first real sightings of a family of cheetah! They were chilled to the point of smoking marijuana, and were an absolute treat to watch.

Bit of drama from Polentswa camp; may have forgotten to put the handbrake on NC Land Rover and it may possibly have very almost crashed into YYT, but it didn't so no biggie eh?! I have a new life ambition! I must must must get onto the wall of shame at Nossob Camp. Having spent the last 2 weeks breaking most of the rules of the park it seems only appropriate that we should serve our punishment. Clearly John and Nancy as ring leaders should get the longest sentences ... I mean Nancy did lick lion faeces!

For the last couple of days we drove relentlessly deep into South Africa. Hazza P Book 7 saved the day and made for a very enjoyable journey through post world cup South Africa. We never finished the book, about 2 chapters from the end and I don't think I can ever recover the tension and excitement in that car again! We finished our safariing at Pilanesburg NP in a slightly more relaxed fashion than we started. I felt a bit of a keeno with our safari-decked out Land Rovers (extra fuel, branches on top, huge bull bars, monster tyres etc) as a chubby family sped past in a Mercedes. Highlights included huge rhinos, a baby giraffe (umbilical cord still attached), and 3 lion with a meal for all meals in the shape of a dead elephant!

 Lovely last meal. Don't think I'll ever be able to forget the 'stir fry' man. Massive thanks to our TOP NOTCH guides in J and N (obviously that's John and Nancy not John and Nicky)! You guys were such fantastic company, endless knowledge and all in all great!