Krissy

Found this huge entry about my trip to Canada back in 2006. Thought I’d post it up for something different.

 

 

After about 4 hours of sleep, I get up to get ready to head off to Canada!! Left Sydney around 11AM. The flight to Honolulu was about 9 or so hours, which was just too long for me!

 

When we got to Honolulu we had to disembark the plane, go through the airport and go through US Customs where they got our fingerprint and photograph, you know, in case we become terrorists. Then after going through weird back staircases we end up outside the airport(!) where you have to go back in through security again and then back to the same gate where we got off the plane!!

 

So silly, we are in the country for an hour and have to go through all that crap. By this stage is 1AM (Hawaii time) but we are just feeling absolutely buggered (especially Nath as he had been on a plane since 11PM the night before!!)

 

I’d also like to add that the Honolulu airport is pretty crap – very old looking, and quite open – no real walls to the building, everything is undercover but it’s like a huge balcony rather than a building! No air con either, but I guess when it is all open like that then air con probably won’t work!

 

Finally got back on the plane, with another 6 hours to go until Vancouver. Once we finally arrived, we were quickly through the airport (no real strict quarantine like they have here!!) and in a taxi on our way to the hotel.

 

It was cold (8°) and quite rainy. Apparently there had been rain for the past 22 days or so.

 

When we got to the hotel, we were so tired from flying, and although you should try to stay up to get over the jet lag, we just had no energy to! Crashed for about 5 hours or so, then thought we should get up and have dinner then go to bed early.

 

By 6 it was already pitch black outside!! It seemed more like 9PM rather than 6PM! Walking around ‘downtown’ Vancouver, I found it seemed to be quite dirty (that may have just been the rain making it look not-so-nice) and lots of homeless people around too.

 

After a quick dinner, we headed off to bed for a long day of shopping in store for us the next day!!

 

 

Woke up later than we would have liked, but the sun doesn’t rise till after 8AM, so I think that’s why!

 

Had breakfast in some small diner. Let me say this now, we are some of the most generous tippers around, as we just rounded everything up, I think most people got 20% rather than the 10-15% you should tip!

 

Then off shopping for ski gear! Nathan had to drag me past all these clothes and shoe shops as they weren’t relevant to what we had to buy. After umm-ing and ahh-ing over the choices (and saying flat NOs to the suits that were going to cost $1000) I finally decided on this white (with a bit of green) jacket with white pants, plus buying another jacket for going out.

 

Also spent a ridiculous amount of money on makeup too (the exact amount I won’t reveal, but it cost more than my ski suit).

 

 

Even though we had explored most of the shopping areas the day before, we were still in need of accessories – goggles, gloves, beanies, socks etc. So with our map and looking very tourist like, we head off to explore all the shopping areas in downtown Vancouver.

 

Unfortunately, the other shopping areas were either boutiques, galleries or cafes. We ended up finding the tourist centre, where we asked where would be a good place to find ski gear. The lady pointed out a few shops a few blocks away, but also suggested some shops that we could get to by bus, or to head off to this other shop which was at a shopping centre that we could get to via train.

 

After looking at the shops close by and finding nothing, we decided the train would be the easier option, and headed off on the SkyTrain. When we got to the centre, we couldn’t see the shop on the store directory, so we asked information. They told us that the shop was actually on ‘Broadway’ which was no where near the centre! We were not happy we had been sent to somewhere totally wrong!

 

We managed to find an internet café, and looked up the address of the shop online. After looking at our map, we figured we could get the train back and get off at a different station, then walk a few blocks and we would be there.

 

By this stage it was nearing 4 o’clock, and remember that the sun sets early here! The few blocks ended up being a nice hike uphill. By this stage we were both so tired as we had been walking around since the morning trying to find shops (and we had walked around almost all of downtown Vancouver!)

 

When we finally get to our destination, we discover the whole street is just shop after shop of ski gear and accessories. Now why couldn’t we have found this yesterday!! By 6 o’clock we had finally purchased the rest of our gear, so it was a taxi ride back to the hotel (we were so over walking) for an early night as the next day we were off to Banff!!

 

 

 

So much for an early night. The people next door to us in the hotel room decided that drinking and being very noisy was the way to go. We had headed off to bed at around 10, as we had to get up at 5AM, and about 10.30 they decided to make lots of noise which was quite frustrating. Luckily about ½ hour later they left the room so it was peace and quiet… UNTIL 3AM when they came back and decided to continue the party in their room.

 

So when we got up at 5AM, I proceeded to be as noisy as possible (they had gone to bed by this stage), and I definitely heard them getting woken up by our noise. Hope they had big hangovers.

 

Off to the airport we went for our 8AM flight to Calgary. The flight was nice and short – only an hour and a half. In Calgary we met up with Nathan’s dad Greg and his partner Marg.

Then it was onto the bus to Banff! The bus took about an hour and a half also. We settled into the apartment we were staying in at the Rundle Manor, then went for a walk around the town. Quite a few shops here too, mainly ski ones and tourist shops.

 

Had a nice quiet night in anticipation of skiing the next day!!

 

 

 

My first day of really seeing lots and lots of snow. So far I had seen snow covered mountains from the plane and in the distance from Banff, but I hadn’t been where there was LOTS of it. Banff was snow covered, but of course it was all moved always on the roads and footpaths so the effect wasn’t really there.

 

From Banff, you have a choice of 3 mountains to go to – Lake Louise, Sunshine Villange and Mt Norquay. We headed up to Sunshine, as that is where Nathan’s brother Kieren is working for the season.

 

A 15 minute bus ride later, we got to Sunshine. Kieren met us at the bottom of the mountain where we hired our ski gear, and then headed up the gondola to the main part of the mountain.

 

If you have been skiing or boarding before, some mountains have chairlifts and gondolas at the base of the mountain, so you can just strap on your gear, get on a chair lift and away you go. At Sunshine, you HAVE to get the gondola up the mountain before you can get to any chairlifts.

 

First we went to the ‘Java Lift’ which is a coffee shop that is part of the Sunshine Inn, where Kieren’s girlfriend Kelly works. It was the first time we had all met Kelly as Kieren met her when he had been in London.

 

The boys, being so experienced and all, headed off to do their own thing – Greg and Nathan skiing and Kieren snowboarding, and left us girls for our first ski lesson!

 

We started off on the bunny hill and just learnt the basics – how to snowplough ie how to slow down so you don’t go flying down the mountain and turn into a snowball (OK so maybe that isn’t technically possible, but I can picture this happening to me).

 

The learning area was quite cute, instead of a chairlift they had this thing called ‘the magic carpet’ which was like a travellator in the ground that you just stood on and it took you to the top of the little slope.

 

After two hours, we had enough (it really hurts your legs after a while!) so it was off to the coffee shop to warm up!

 

For dinner, Nathan and I headed off to Earls, which we heard was really good. The food was good, huge servings that I didn’t even eat half off! Unfortunately they were out of some of the ingredients of the dish Nathan wanted, so I think he was a bit disappointed he couldn’t get his original choice.

 

 

We all seem to be slack in getting up early! I think it is because the sun rises so late that it feels like you are getting up in the middle of the night, not at 7AM!

 

Today is Kieren’s birthday, so Nathan and I planned to stay on the mountain to help him celebrate.

 

We headed up to Sunshine again, where we hired the ‘pro’ gear (go the 50% discount!) this time.

 

Marg and I had our second lesson, this time with Jarod, a friend of Kieren’s. Jarod decided to be more adventurous and actually attempt to take us up onto a REAL slope.

 

To get to the chairlift he wanted us to go down, we had to ski down a section called ‘Banff Ave’ which is a gradual slope that you can ski or board down all the way to the bottom of the mountain (called the ‘ski out’).

 

Apart from killing my knees (you need to bend the knees in to do the snowplough, and doing that for ages on a slope just kills), I made it fairly quickly (for me at least, I was scared of going too fast!!) down towards the chairlift.

 

Marg however, was going at a snail’s pace, so I was just standing there waiting for ages for her and Jarod to reach me. I decided where I was standing, which was just around a corner on the inside, was probably not the best spot to stand, so I made my way to the opposite side of the bend so other people coming down could see me more clearly, and I could see back up the slope.

 

BIG MISTAKE. I was facing inwards to the run, so with my skis pointing back towards the edge of the compacted snow. Next thing you know, I just feel myself sliding back and sinking into powder, thinking ‘Oh shit’. I ended up with my legs higher than my head, up to my shoulders in snow!! I just sat there for a while thinking ‘WTF am I going to do?!?’

 

Meanwhile, all these people going past, some laughing, some going ‘Are you OK?’ I just said ‘Yeah, I’m fine, my instructor is coming soon’, but thinking ‘how am I going to get out of this’). I eventually managed to get my skis off and climb out of the hole I had created, which was not easy when you just seem to sink more into the snow.

 

It wasn’t until a few more minutes later that Marg and Jarod finally came along. Next thing it was onto the chairlift for the first time. Jarod told us to ‘lean forward’ when we had to get off. So what do we do – lean back, and fall straight onto our asses.

 

Next was the first time down a real slope. I’ll admit it – I was terrified. So, instead of crashing into the trees, I decided that crashing on purpose was far safer (there is some sort of logic in this I think). The whole way down was lots of crashing of purpose and skis flying off. I also managed to put a slice in my pants from cutting it on the edge of the skis. I was not happy with that!

 

After our lesson, we got ready and then went to have dinner to celebrate Kieren’s birthday. Whilst waiting for Kelly to finish her shift at the Java Lift, we sat in front of the fire and played a game of Pictionary – Nathan and I vs Greg and Kieren. The boys won and were quite victorious about it to.

 

We then had a nice dinner, then Marg and Greg left to go back to Banff. They got to ride in Sunshine Suzy which is this huge 4WD with tracks instead of wheels.

 

Nathan and I stayed as Kieren was having a party in the pub, Trappers. The theme – Beach Party! And yes, costumes were supposedly mandatory. Nathan and I were sensible and wore warm clothes (well we forgot to bring beach clothes up with us) but everyone else was wearing their boardies, thongs, bikinis, you name it! Keep in mind it was about -15 outside. Crazy people, I was cold enough as it was and I was wearing thermals.

 

Nath and I called it an early night as we were exhausted from the past 2 days of skiing.

 

 

 

Woke up with extremely sore knees from the skiing. So painful! I decided that I wanted to try boarding (as Nathan had changed to boarding the previous day).

 

So I swapped my skis for a board, and Nathan took me onto the bunny hill for a quick lesson before my proper lesson started. Not sure how much I actually achieved in the quick lesson but at least I got an idea of what it was like.

 

I then got to have my lesson, with a guy named Johnny. He was good, cos he held my hand when he was teaching me. Learnt some snowboard basics and got told I had done pretty well for a beginner!

 

After the lesson I decided that I liked snowboarding much more than skiing, so decided to switch over permanently.

 

 

 

Decided that a day off was in order due to our sore, sore legs. Didn’t really do much, just lazed around all day recovering from the pain!

 

The pain in my knees was like someone stabbing a knife in the side of them – not pleasant at all!

 

Did a bit of touristy stuff and looked around at a few shops.

 

 

 

Time to get back into it! This time we had a full day lesson, with Jarod (the same guy I had for skiing).

 

There was a bigger group of us this time, learnt a bit more, such as how to do turns. We just continually went down the same green run. The first time it took everyone well over an hour to go up the chairlift and get down the mountain. By the end of the day it was only taking us all 20 minutes so we definitely improved!

 

However, lots and lots of falling today, bruised knees and butts from all the falling!

 

 

Today we decided to do our own thing rather than have a lesson. We were both pretty tired though, plus I was too scared to face the board directly down the mountain, so there were a few arguments!!

 

Nathan also had the beginnings of a cold, so he wasn’t feeling 100%.

 

That night, we decided to have a hot rock massage. It was soo relaxing, and with all the sore muscles it was just the thing.

 

 

Feeling much better than the previous day, and me feeling more adventurous, we went on a few different runs from the main one we had been going down before.

 

The snow had been falling heaps, so on some of the runs there was just so much powder everywhere! Our feet were basically buried in powder, and when gliding along it was just such a cool feeling.

 

As I was feeling more adventurous, I was more willing to point my board down the mountain. You see, I am scared (OK terrified) of going too fast. But I tried to get over my fear!

 

However, I will start off OK but then I start to think about going fast, then I freak out so I loose my balance and fall over. Took quite a few spectacular spills, with me not just falling over, my flying across the ground for several metres. Also falling backwards when facing up the mountain, and I will tell you now, falling backwards when behind you is sloping is not fun. You tend to get a bit winded!

 

Towards the end of the day we had to give up as the visibility just went to shit, we couldn’t see anything, barely a few metres in front of us.

 

We waited around for Kieren and Kelly as they were going to spend the night with us.

 

Marg’s daughter, Melissa, had also arrived – she was staying for a few days.

 

We all went out to dinner – Earls again as the rest of them wanted to try it. Nathan got to have the dish he wanted last time though!

 

So far, this has been one of the best days boarding as we were doing our own thing and I felt much more confident on the board!

 

 

 

Today was another day off as Nathan was feeling pretty terrible due to his cold. We just went around and looked at some shops, but spent most of the day inside whilst Nathan rested.

 

 

 

Nathan was feeling a lot better, so we headed up early to have an all day lesson. This time there was only 4 of us in the class, and we had a NZ girl Karla teaching us.

 

Learnt lots more about technique and how to do things properly. Also did some blue runs (which are generally more downhill, and no flat bits like you get on greens).

 

Managed to get my worse injury – when getting off the chairlift, I fell back, so Nathan who was next to me pushed me so I wouldn’t fall on him, so I then fell forward, and my knee landed on the binding on the board. OUCH! Ended up with massive bruise on my knee, and also a bit of twinge in my leg after this.

 

Fell over lots too, but by now I was pretty used to it!!

 

 

By this stage I had caught Nathan’s cold so wasn’t starting to feel that well. We went up to the mountain anyway, but when we got there I just felt like absolute crap. We had lunch at the Chimney Corner, but after that my head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton wool, so I took an early bus back and slept in the afternoon.

 

Nathan stayed up on the mountain where he brought down gear as Kieren and Kelly had a few days off work so they planned to stay with us for a few days.

 

We all headed off to Lake Louise to see what it was like. The journey to Lake Louise is 45 minutes so it is a bit of a trek compared to Sunshine!!

 

The hire place on Sunshine wouldn’t let us take the pro gear off the mountain, so they gave us the mid-performance gear instead. Oh what a disaster.

 

After going up the chairlift and strapping into our boards, Nathan and I head off down the mountain. Oh the agony!! The boards we had were just… CRAP. The bindings on the boards just dug into the back of our legs, plus our toes hung over the edge of the board so we couldn’t go down properly.

 

We ended up just taking a green run down and walked down most of the mountain as we just couldn’t handle the pain in our legs.

 

The conditions of the slopes were pretty icy anyway (you could just hear the screeching of the board against the ice) so even if we had good boards it probably wouldn’t have been that much fun.

 

We headed back early as we were so annoyed at having the crappy boards and bindings.

 

Later that night, we all sat around and played a game of Texas Hold Em poker (with matches, not real $$). I was terrible, but I think Marg and Kieren were the clear winners with their huge piles of matches.

 

 

Today it actually got HOT!! Well not exactly boiling, but it managed to get into the positive temperatures (around 5°).

 

Spent the morning doing some last minute present shopping.

 

Then in the afternoon, we head off to go dog sledding! Since it was ‘warm’ I didn’t rug up much, no thermals, and just a tshirt and singlet under my jacket. I’m glad I had my beanie on though.

 

We went all the way via Canmore (a town just outside Banff) where we went up to the mountains. Of course, up on the mountain out of the sun, it got pretty cold.

 

We bundled up in the sled, and away we went. The dogs were a cross of huskies and greyhounds (for their pulling power and stamina). It was interesting being in this sled right along the ground with 8 dogs pulling you along! And the dogs weren’t overly big either, so it is amazing how they can just pull you that far!

 

However, my lack of warm clothing led me to be absolutely freezing. I seriously thought that my toes would fall off.

 

Found out some interesting facts too – quite a few movies have been filmed in the area – such as The Shining, (Anthony Hopkins movie) and the new Brad Pitt one, Jesse James. I think that it is just cheaper for them to film in Canada.

 

 

 

We couldn’t go back to Sunshine for our last day as on Monday, due to the high winds, the gondola had a few cars blow off (no one in them though!) so the mountain was effectively closed down.

It was only open to the hotel guests, where they had to ferry people up 8 at a time in Sunshine Suzy.

 

Instead we decided to go to up to the Banff Gondola and Hot Springs.

The view from the top of the Gondola are amazing – just the snow-covered mountains and the valleys, it looks so pretty. Took heaps of photos of mountains to last me a life time!

 

After the breathtaking views, we headed to the Hot Springs. Basically it is a pool (but sourced from the Hot Springs). The temperature in the pool is about 40°, but outside it was -2°! It was quite strange as it was so nice and warm in the pool but absolutely freezing outside!

Kieren came down to stay with us for our last night. We went and had a drink at Wild Bill’s then to the Maple Leaf for a yummy dinner. There was quite a range of game to be had- venison, elk, quail, and bison. Kieren ended up eating his meal, half of mine, half of my dessert and about 2 bread baskets of bread. He’s like a bottomless pit!

 

 

 

Our last day! Up nice and early as the bus to Calgary was picking us up at 9AM.We had all packed the previous day, so were all ready to go.

 

The bus trip to Calgary was long, as we were the first people picked up so we had to go pick up all these other people from other hotels. Also, once we were headed for Calgary, the sun came up so it heated up the inside of the bus, and it just felt really stuffy inside so I started to get a headache.

 

Once we got to the airport, we went through the self-check in machine at Calgary, and we were issued with the boarding passes for both flights.

 

The boarding pass for the international flight did not have a seat number on it. As we knew this flight would be long, we wanted to request a seat near the exit for the extra leg room. We questioned this with the lady at the second step of the check-in process why the pass didn’t have a seat number on it. After looking on her computer, she said something about the flight being oversold, and we could sort it out in Vancouver. As we had about a six hour gap between our flights, we thought that we would have plenty of time to question this when we got to Vancouver.

 

When we got to Vancouver, we were a bit lost! On the flight they told us to go to ‘Level 3’ where we would go through US Customs and collected our luggage. We followed the signs and got to an entry point where the man told us if we proceeded past we couldn’t leave this area, so we were better off to stay in the outside part of the terminal until closer to our boarding time.

 

So we went back to the front of the terminal. We still wanted to get our tickets sorted, so I found an Air Canada counter and asked the guy. He told me that the seats get issued at the gate and we just needed to go via customs first.

 

Now, for something entirely stupid, they have US Customs (and I am thinking it is US owned ‘land’ too) in a Canadian airport. Again we got fingerprinted and photographed by them.

 

After proceeding through US Customs, we went to the luggage collection area. After picking up our luggage, we noticed an Air Canada desk. We spoke to the lady at the counter to question about our boarding passes and seat allocations. From speaking to her we found out that we were on standby for our flight. She offered to try getting us onto the earlier flight provided there were available seats. We questioned her why we did not have a seat allocation for our original flight, and she said that the flight was oversold so they couldn’t allocate us a seat until boarding time at the gate. So now, we were on standby for both flights.

 

At this stage we were both in a state of ‘WTF’ as no one could answer why we weren’t just allocated seats!

 

We waited at the gate where they were boarding the first flight. I went up to the attendant at the desk to ask about our seats, and he said he would page us at about 5.30PM if there were any seats left on the flight. I again questioned about being on standby for our original flight, and he said that it just happens and we have to wait and see what our options are first (if they could put us onto the earlier flight) and then sort it out from there.

 

The flight boarded, and we were not paged. After the flight had closed off boarding the attendant informed us and all the other passengers waiting on standby that we would have to wait and see what happens with the next flight.

 

At around 7PM the same attendant came to the gate for the 8PM flight.  I queued up again to ask about our seating, and I was told (in a fairly rude manner) “I can’t do anything about your seating now; you will have to wait till 7.30PM until the flight is boarded. Don’t worry you will get a seat”.

 

By this stage, I was quite upset over the whole matter. Since 11AM that morning we had been basically given the brush off over the matter, and no one could answer as to why we could not be allocated seats, except for the flight was ‘oversold’ and ‘there’s nothing we can really do about it’. After the initial boarding calls for the flight, we were paged and finally allocated seats. However, this was now less than half an hour before take-off. We were lucky though as we managed to get a seat in the front row, so we had extra leg room AND were able to get off the plane quickly!

 

However, on the flight we were also next to the restroom, so that kind of sucked. Do you know how many people couldn’t open the door! About 90% of people stood there pulling, thumping, even trying to open the cupboard opposite where the flight attendants had their luggage! The door did have a sign on it that said PUSH, in English and French, but they still couldn’t open the door. I was seriously annoyed by the end at these stupid people!!

 

About 18 hours later, feeling really tired and sore (its just too hard to sleep on planes) we finally arrived in Sydney!

 

A quick stop at duty free for last minute pressies, then through Customs. Luckily as we declared stuff (had $400 over goods and some food – chocolate and maple syrup) they just asked what we had on us, told them and they just waved us through – no suitcase inspection needed!

 

Once we stepped outside, we just felt sooo hot. It was probably about 24°, which really isn’t that hot, but after 3 weeks over temperatures outside under 10°, we were practically melting!

 

A fairly quick taxi ride home were we crashed from 12PM Saturday arvo, until 5AM Sunday. Talk about jetlag!

 

We had an excellent time there, and personally I can’t wait to go boarding again! Although next time we will definitely buy our own gear (boots and board) rather than put up with gear that may be dodgy!