Canada, USA and beyond....

Wow.... what a slack arse.....23rd April my last post!!! hehehe

Well things have certainly changed since April.  After hanging out in Whistler for a week Darryl, John, Ange and myself headed over to Vancouver Island.  We dropped Ange in Victoria and the boys and I headed up to Tofino.  Tofino was a great little spot!  We soaked up some sun, took a boat ride to Hot Springs Cove and broke in the tent on it's first time camping.  The weather was absolutely stunning, although still quite cool at night.  The scenery was jaw dropping and I took 100's of photos before eventually arriving back in Victoria.

                               

                  

                                                                                    

After Vancouver Island the boys and I began our 5 week road trip around the western side of the USA.  I'll do a small recap on the more major points we visited on our way..........

We crossed the Canadian/USA border in Vancouver and headed down to Seattle.  A day was spent in Seattle exploring the famous Pike's Market on the waterfront, walking along the piers and through the streets of downtown Seattle.  I managed to find a swine statue to sit on hehe.

From Seattle we headed north west to the Olympic Peninsula.  We were discovered some great camping spots, a few waterfalls, a wee bit of snow and for all the girls..... I went to the home of Twilight!!  Forks... also passing though Port Angeles and La Push.  Strangely enough I was just reading the 2nd twilight book at the time and was most excited to know I was in the home of Twilight.  We stayed in the worst motel in Forks too....mmm...the toilet seat was a big cushion thing... weird!!!!

Upon leaving the Olympic Peninsula we carried on down south.... straight through the state of Oregon (boring as)... and eventually got to the Napa Valley.  Napa Valley is a beautiful area where they grow lots of wine and delicious fresh food.  Yum yum !!  From Napa Valley we headed down to San Francisco and experienced all the touristy things San Fran has to offer:  Golden Gate Bridge, Pier 39, Alcatraz (cool place to explore), the exploratorium... ohhh and the library to find some free internet hehe.

From San Fran we headed to my most favourite place in the USA.... Yosemite National Park.  This place was sooooooo awesome.  We camped for 3 days....did lots of exploring and a massive hike up to the top of Yosemite Falls.  The hike took 6 hours to complete! I drank 3 litres of water, near suffered heat exhausion and killed most of the muscles in my legs but the view was out of this world overlooking the mountains and canyons.  I think my favourite part was getting a photo of me hanging off the side of the cliff...ahahaha... much to the disgust of most of my friends and family.

                                    

                

From Yosemite we headed to the big city of Los Angeles and camped in Malibu just outside of LA for $10 each a nite...bargain!!  Camping included an amazing view, dolphins swimming

 past and a horde load of noisey kids that I wanted to shoot.  We spent 2 days at Disneyland, explored Hollywood - which was the biggest disappointment of all... what a boring dirty hole that place is, went for a cruise through Beverly Hills and wrestled with the cars on the highways doing near on 140kms an hour everywhere!!  Exit LA......Hello Vegas!!

Viva..... Las Vegas!!  I had 3 heavenly nights of a motel room to myself.  No boys!!! yay!!!!!  The only negative - it was like 50 degress outside..... OMG HOT AS!!! I only spent $20 on pokies and spent the majority of my time exploring all the awesome hotels/casinos on 'the strip'.  Vegas is an amazing place, both day and night.  John and I also went and saw 'KA' - Cirque du Soleil's latest show in the

 MGM Grand.  WOW....awesome stuff.

After 3 nights of my own bedroom/bathroom - goodbye luxury.... we headed through Hoover Dam and found the awe inspiring Grand Canyon.  The Grand canyon is a strange place to visit...... the scale of how massive it is makes it very hard to believe what your seeing through your own eyes is real.  It truly is one of the 7 wonders of the world.  

After a tiresome long few weeks we arrived at our final touristy area - Yellowstone National Park.  It was very cool here... with some snow still on the ground.  The days were warm but the nights very cold.  I had to apply a load more layers to keep warm hehe.  Not like Vegas!  The park was divided into 5 different areas - waterfalls, canyons, geothermal areas, mud pools!  A lot of it reminded me of Rotorua... minus the stink.   There were deer and buffalo everywhere.... the buffalo even came and camped with us one night..... below are photos of our welcoming party, old faithful geyser and some of the terraced geothermal area.

  

So that was for the most part our trip.... the short version! :)  We then returned back to Vancouver Island where we caught up with Ange on the strawberry fields for a few days before I left everyone and returned back to NZ for two weeks to get my Irish working visa!!  Yes I know.... i'm constantly changing my mind as to where I want to be....hahaha.

So i'm now in the UK for a few weeks sorting my next adventure over in Ireland and catching up with a few friends.  Summer in Ireland should be awesome.... loads of tourist things to visit, alcohol to be drunk and sexy accents to listen to...!!!!

Ciao for now....... xoxoxo

Whistler!!

Well i've just about completed day 7 at Whistler.  It's been a busy 7 days filled with lots of snowboarding, enjoying the Telus Festival and occasional partying haha.

I've been staying in a 4 storied condo in the area of Creekside in Whistler.  It's pretty flash and very Canadian.  Sharing with 8 other people has been an interesting experience!!  I've seen a lot over the past week including men cooking and cleaning (no i'm serious - true story)!!  We have had a bear come and visit and eat the food that was chucked up over our balcony hahaha.  We have piles of alcohol bottles as high was the mountain behind us and a fridge almost empty of it's food.  

Whistler has two mountains:  Whistler and Blackcomb.  Both mountains have been awesome to snowboard on but the highlight was definately the Peak to Peak gondola which is brand new and goes between the tops of both mountains.  

 Peak to Peak facts:

*  Each gondola cabin can hold 28 people and can transport 2050 people/hr each way. 

*  It's speed is 7.5 seconds per minute 

*  Ride time 11 minutes T

*  Total distance 4.4 km  

*  Length of unsupported span  -  3.024km/1.88 miles (straight line between the two towers       that are furthest apart) and 

*  Highest Point above the ground is 436m/1427 feet over Fitzsimmons Creek

It was awesome to ride on.... just not when it had a sway on haha!!

I only saw a little bit of the Telus Festival that has been on here.  Theres been a lot of live music, free give aways (I have razors and parfume to last a year now), interactive activities and competitions.  The half pipe competitions were awesome to watch... the air the skiers and snowboarders get off the half pipe is amazing!

The weather has been quite interesting.  One day it's bright blue skies, the next it's raining, the next it's foggy, then snowing - repeat.  So I wasn't really used to this as weather back in Panorama was always consistant.  The mountains have been quite icey to ride on but later on in the afternoons they softened up to nice slushly snow.  

Today we ventured up to the summit of Whistler mountain... took some great photos and jumped on the Inukshuk  -  the rock statue thats the symbol of the 2010 Olympics.  It's meaning is:  Safe travelling in Northern America.  It was really cold and my hands couldn't stay out of my gloves for very long to take photos in fear of them freezing off hehehe.  Which was strange as when you got back down to the village I was back in a t-shirt again.

So I think I can officially say 'Whistler... I came, I saw and i've conquered'.

Next stop... Vancouver Island :) 

Canada, eh?

So I guess I should have started blogging when I arrived in Canada on the 26th November 2008....but we all know good things take time.

So it's actually the end of my winter season over here now.  For those of you that don't know - i've been situated up in a mountain ski resort called 'Panorama' in the Canadian Rockies, British Columbia for the past 4 1/2 months.  I thought I would share a few of my more memorable moments of living and working in Panorama and to all of those who thought I wouldn't withstand the cold - up yours...hahahaha!!!

So I arrived quite late at night when I first got to Panorama... I remember jumping off the bus and seeing sooo many young people all standing around like a herd of sheep wondering where to go.  I eventually got sorted and headed off down to 'Monument Lodge' - my accomodation to be for the next 4 months.  I was greeted in my apartment by the roomie - Steve from NZ (yes, i was stoked with his name haha) and my next door neighbour Brad.  My room was quite small but was made very homely and kiwi in no time!  I then met my other two flatmates - Emily and Ritchie from Aussie.

In the days to follow... I explored the resort, started work at Canski (the retail shop), made loads more friends... and got accustomed to drinking in the T-Bar.  

The resort was covered in snow when arrived - it was absolutely beautiful.  A real winter wonderland - buildings and roofs covered in snow, roads covered in snow, big icicles hanging from the roofs.  I was 'well' impressed!  The temperature was less desirable.  The coldest the season got down to was -40 degree.  Yes thats bloody cold!!  holy balls.  I quickly got used to my nose and eye lash hair freezing, walking on slippery ice and how to keep warm *wink wink*.

Canski was a great place to work at - I made some amazing friends, learnt a lot about retail and i'm now officially a t-shirt folding extraordinaire .  My income was an amazing $8.73 an hour - I have been extremely rich.   No... hang on I lie...hahaha.  My work mates soon got accustomed to me real fast.  My boss took a little longer - he's Canadian, what more can i say.  I had a mission to embarrass my work mates every time I was at work - either with a joke, a fart, a burp or something slightly more impressive if i was on form that particular day.  Lets just say I think I made a lasting impression on everyone i worked with.  There wasn't a day go by where I didn't get a slap, a laugh, a strange look or a 'ohhhhh Hollie....' from my workmates.

Unfortunately my health wasnt so flash at times... i managed to have the flu for about 2 months of being here.  Go Hollie's immaculate immune system hahaha.  Instead of filling myself stupid on Christmas day... i had my head in the bog for 9 hours.... sadly no Christmas chicken for me last year.  I also had a memorable experience of nearly cutting the whole end of my finger off.  Mental note - don't put finger under frozen bagel whilst trying to cut right through it with a massive meat knife.  

So I started as a skiier here and i've ended up a snowboarder.  I threw the ski's in mid season - skiing sucks.  Sorry for all the skiiers out there but seriously - how on earth you get two legs to work together - i have no idea.  So the ski's got tossed and the 'HolliePop' came into action.   Yeah the HolliePop!!  Even though i only started mid season - i love snowboarding  and have finally been told i look like a proper snowboarder - so all good.  I can even ride black runs and carve it up!!! yeah!!!  Luckily I haven't damaged myself either all season.

Many a drunk night was spent in the two bars on the mountain  -TBar & the Jackpine.  Life's been tough really.... snowboard, work, drink, eat and sleep.  REPEAT....

I made many amazing friends.... to say the least... my partner in crime SOS Angela, Steve, Emily, Stef, Joe, Brad, Sarah the teacher, the LOVE BOX, Eva Beaver, Laura, Emma, Sally, Justin,  Craig, Tom, Cottom and so so many more.

I have managed to get to the following ski resorts over the season  -  Lake Louise, Sunshine, Revelstoke, Kicking Horse.  All amazing places with all their individual positives and out of this world views.  

Getting to these places became even more exciting once 'the slug' was purchased!  Darryl and I became the proud owners of a 1993 Mercury Villager people mover.  It's called the slug due to it's colour and not so supped up race car engine hahaha.  I can tell you - carrying groceries from the supermarket to the bus stop and from the upper mountain to staff accommodation wore thin very fast.  

My Pano experience has been made even more awesome by my friend Joe - a big thankyou to you for taking me to Grey's (flashest restaurant on the resort) twice, Wildfire (second flashest restaurant), Heli-Plex (third flashest restaurant) aaaaaahahahaha are we seeing a food theme here Hollie or what??? ahahaha..... sorry distracted by the food.    Shoeshowing, dog sledding, days spent away at Lake Louise, Banff, White swan and also teaching me how to snowboard.  You are such an amazing guy and one im surely going to miss a lot!!  Love you Joe Joe xo

So by all accounts it's been an amazing journey so far... the snows all but melted in most places but all good things must come to an end.  Tomorrow Ange, Darryl and I head off into the yonder to Vancouver then Whistler for a week of snowboarding, partying and enjoying some time off to relax.  Well it will be the same as being at Panorama - only we don't get paid LOL !  I am surely going to miss that $8.73 an hour.... damn haha.

After Whistler it's road trips on!!  USA and Mexico look out... here I come!!  

Look out for a new blog.... coming to this space - sometime soon  xox