Part Six - Living 9 to 5 - Whistler, Canada
Whistler, Canada
Or should that be working 9 to 5 a la Dolly Parton.
Working in Whistler was the next major priority. I, Michael, was still on the hunt for a job. I at this point am still being a little picky. I could probably get a job doing a job I wouldn't like but I think it is worth spending a bit more time trying to get a job I will enjoy plus be of greater use on my CV in the future.
Jenny has had lots of excitement with her new job. She has done two full days now (over a two week period) and starts full-time on the 28th November, when the Ski School opens.
In the meantime she has got her signed her employment contract, got her free (well included in salary) ski-pass and picked up her new turquoise uniform! The uniform looks very smart, is all brand new but is a little on the big side for Jenny. She is having to return it for some tailoring adjustments.
I will let Jenny tell you a bit more about what she has been doing at work….
My first few days of work were before the season had officially started, so we were still in the set up stage. This meant lots of unpacking of boxes and setting up charging docks and GPS devices (tags) in various locations. It will be my job to look after 3,000 tags and make sure they are all returned to us each day. It's been fun getting to know Whistler a little better as I have been working in around 7 different locations! I then started working full time on 28th November when our snow school opened for lessons. The school teaches kids from ages 3 - 18. The 3-4 year olds are my favourites, they are all kitted out in big fluffy warm jackets, so big that their arms stick out to the sides, and most of them have never walked in ski boots before, so they look very cute trying to walk from their meeting place to the gondola! I start work at 7.30am and work until around 12-1pm ish, then have a long break until 3pm when I head back to help round up all the GPS tags. I like these hours as it means I can ski in my lunch hour! The people I am working with all seem really nice and friendly and there has already been a few snow school parties! Anyways, back to Michael for now...
I cannot believe how much we have done in the seven or so weeks we have been in Whistler now. When I look at the pictures we have done so much in our time here.
We returned to the Reuse It Centre again as Jenny wanted to look for hat and goggles and I was keen-ish to go as it meant cakes from Pure Bread!! Yum yum.
As well as that we visited the Bizarre Bazaar in the WCC, which was nothing special, but a photo is included. See if you can spot me in the picture!
Jenny also had her first ski lesson and met a very nice American girl who funnily enough was called Jenny. Not only that it was also her first ski lesson, and the other Jenny was also born in June 1984 just like my Jenny. I will let Jenny tell you about her experience and the dinner we had at 'their’ house the following day…
It's Jenny again! My first ski lesson was great. I get them for free as an employee, they are usually around $160 - $180 per lesson! It was just the two of us (me and Jenn from Seattle) with a really nice instructor Robbie. Robbie took to calling us Jen1 and Jen2 for the entire day haha. Anyways, we started out by heading halfway up the mountain to a beginners learning area. As neither of us knew anything about skiing, Robbie gave us lots of helpful tips including the best way to carry our skis, do up our boots etc. We spent the morning finding our ski-legs on a very small slope, almost like a snowy field. We practiced 'sliding' in skis, then learnt how to stop (very important!!), how to walk up the hill wearing skis, how to snowplow and finally started doing some short ski runs! We returned to the village where the three of us had lunch in a restaurant, then headed back up to the same learning area. Except this time we had progressed onto the magic carpet! For those who are not familiar with skiing, this is a small run that is best for beginners with a very slow conveyor belt (the magic carpet) taking you up the side of the slope. It felt great to actually ski down a slope, even though it was not at all steep! We practiced skiing faster, stopping at speed and finally learnt how to turn. This brought us right up to the end of the lesson where we took a path down to the end of a proper ski run where we were able to ski the 200m or so back to the gondola. All in all, a great lesson and I could not believe how far I had come in just one day! Still plenty more to learn, but a good start!
My co-skier Jenn was here in Whistler for the US Thanksgiving weekend. Back home in Seattle (about 4-5hrs drive) she works as a nanny for a family who have a house in Whistler. They were unable to come for Thanksgiving this year so they very kindly let Jenn use the place for the week. Jenn's husband Dan had to work so was not coming up until the next day. So, as Michael already told you, Jenn and I got on really well and found we had a lot in common. After our lesson we went for a couple of drinks and Jenn invited us round to their holiday house for dinner the next evening. The house was the most beautiful I have seen in Whistler! Three floors, 4 bedrooms, a huge fireplace, a balcony with a BBQ and a hot tub on the decking! Michael and I had a great time there and it was really nice to meet Dan too. They are just a really nice and friendly couple. They also had a cute little dog Finn! Jenn and Dan have made us promise that if we ever go to Seattle we will stay with them! How nice!
Michael again…We also found time to visit Araxi, one of the top three restaurants in the Whistler area. For $32, until 27/11/13, you get a five course meal! The idea behind it is to give everyone the opportunity to taste the delights on offer in the hope that if you are in a customer facing role and a guest is looking for a dinner recommendation you can see "I had a great meal at Araxi! Go There." We both enjoyed the meal, it was nice to go out out (as Mickey Flanagan would say). The food was good but not something I would probably pay full price for which would be somewhere over $100. They messed up our dinner as they missed out a course so we told them and they were super apologetic, almost to the point where you start to wish you had not said anything! Haha. Anyway the problem was sorted and by way of an apology they brought us a free glass of dessert wine each! Jenny was very pleased as I don’t drink wine so she got two glasses! Haha. You can see from the pictures I had steak, and that was very good.
Monday rolled around and it was Jenny’s first day off since working five days so she seized the opportunity to go on another ski lesson! Jenny had progressed from level one to a level two skier so she was keen to progress some more.
After the ski lesson we spent the evening having fun together by going to the Games Night @ the Library. It was good fun and we met some nice people. There are many people there who are in the same boat as us which is nice. We met two German guys who live in a camper van in the parking lot! They told us that it gets REALLY cold in there so that they spend most of their time hanging out in the library or bars (spending a fortune on drinks). Anyway they are looking for something a bit more winter friendly but have little money and not much luck! We were further amazed by their story when we asked them if the ski or snowboard. “Neither” was their answer and they ended up in Whistler just because they like the town! Crazy guys! Living in a freezing camper van with no job and no real interest in the main function of Whistler, the mountain!
Jenny had her first day back at work after working five days on and two days off. So Wednesday morning she goes off as normal and I have a cup of tea. Then about 15 mins later I get an email saying can you go look for my hat at the bus stop as I fell over and lost it! I went down to find it and was worried about how she was as falling over on ice is not fun. I could not find her hat and I waited to hear more from her. Jenny emailed, she had really hurt her ribs as she had fallen over so quickly and been caught by surprise that she didn’t have time to put her hands down to break her fall.
Jenny found her hat in the hood of her coat, luckily she didn’t bang her head on the ground. After about an hour the pain in her ribs subsided and she began to feel just a dull ache! Poor Jennybar!
As I was worried about her I headed in to town to meet her for lunch (at Peaked Pies, see photo of dessert pie we had)! The story would be quite funny if it wasn’t so painful! Jenny was waiting for the bus and as it approached she was trying to get her bus pass out of her pocket when she walked across a very large and thick piece of black ice. Before she knew it she was on her back, on the floor, with the wind knocked out of her, her hat missing and the contents of her pocket spread all over the floor! As well as this the bus came but thankfully had seen her spread on the floor and stopped and was being held up as it couldn’t turn the corner as Jenny was lying in his path!
Eventually Jenny got her breath back enough for someone to help her off the floor and help her gather up her things that she had thrown in the air, including her driving license! Jenny got on the bus thinking the pain would go soon but when she got to work she was still really feeling it so a co-worker looked after her and said if she didn’t improve soon that she would ask the ski patrol to look at her, who deal with this sort of thing all the time! Thankfully the sharp pain subsided eventually and it meant an uncomfortable day (and night) with very sore ribs!
Jenny is well on the road to recovery now and is feeling fine but is annoyed that she has not been able to go skiing on her lunch break for the last couple of days. Jenny is also more cautious with the ice now and is planning on buying a flame thrower to get her revenge!! Haha.
Part of the reason for the ubiquitous quantity of ice is it has been unusually cold! It is amusing to watch people come off the mountain looking permanently shocked and very pink! Some of the people look like if you slapped them in the face the shock on frozen skin might kill them!
Today (07/12/13) and the last couple of days in the village it has dropped to -15 Celsius and up to (or down to) -40 Celsius on the mountain, taking into account wind chill! Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow as it is going to be MUCH warmer….only -5 Celsius!! LOL!
You can look at one of the photos to see my cold weather precautions! The bandanaz Jenny and I won are really coming in handy at the moment!
This week was another big one for Whistler as it was the Whistler Film Festival! Attended by over 10,000 visitors (so we were told) including press, guests (listed separately as I guess they don’t pay) and celebrities. This year it is Richard Dreyfus, Jason Priestly (of Beverly Hills 90210 fame) and a few other actors I am not familiar with.
Both Jenny and I are volunteering at the film festival, I have two 6 hour shifts and Jenny has one 6 hour shift.
I have done my first shift volunteering and it was fun if a little boring. There is not much to do when you are a ticket taker and usher. You are busy the 30mins before the film starts, then do nothing until the film ends and this is repeated for the 3 films in my shift. It was good fun though to meet some new people and chat.
The other bonus to volunteering is for every shift you do you get two tickets for a movie, being shown in the film festival. In addition to this for volunteering you also get a toque (Canadian for beanie hat), one free Starbucks hot chocolate for everyday of the festival, a goody bag (not got this yet) plus a volunteer party.
I have been really impressed with the free hat and the movies Jenny and I have seen. The free hat is Columbia (brand) and features their fancy heat lining that looks all shiny and metal. It is meant to be super heat efficient and reflects / captures the heat to keep you warm. I must say it does do a good job of keeping me warm and I think looks quite good too.
The movies Jenny and I have seen for free are Prisoners and Best Man Down. Prisoners features Hugh Jackman, Jake Gylenhall (spelling?), Terrance Howard and Melissa Leo. The film is a thriller about the abduction of two young girls and is very tense and frightening in parts. I highly recommend the film, but not for the very sensitive of nature. Before the screening of the film there was a Q&A with one of the main characters, Melissa Leo. No disrespect but sadly I had little idea who she was and having not seen the film yet didn’t know that she is such a good actor. She played Benecio Del Toro’s wife in 21 Grams in case you have seen that film. The Q&A was ok although I can see why the lady is an actor, she does better when the words are provided to her as opposed to thinking them up herself! Haha.
The other film we saw with our free tickets (well free but we volunteered for them) was Best Man Down, starring Justin Long. This was another REALLY good film. Sad, funny and inspiring with some impressive acting and actors. I would strongly recommend this film too. More user friendly than Prisoners but still a thought provoking film. The film is about a couple who get married, Justin Long is the groom, and his best man dies on the night of their wedding. The film then sees the aftermath as the bride & groom abandon their honeymoon and organise a funeral for the groom to discover he didn’t know his “best” friend as well as he thought. It sounds rather depressing but it is a funny film in parts with some sad bits and some very poignant scenes.
The film festival makes me think of the very sad and surprising news of the death of Paul Walker, most famous to me as one of the main characters from the Fast and the Furious movies. Strange that someone who features in films about driving cars very fast on public roads should die in a car crash. Having read a few car magazines in my time I have read before that the Porsche Carrera GT is not a car to be messed with!
Jenny and I have our final (or one and only in Jenny’s case) shift working as a volunteer at the WFF (Whistler Film Festival) on Sunday.
Before Jenny started her shift we went to see The Crash Reel ( thecrashreel.com/ & http://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/12/06 /snowboarder-kevin-pearces-crash-reel-c omes-to-whistler-film-festival/ ). The film inspired and touched me and brought many a tear to my eye. It is the story of a snow boarder (Kevin Pearce) who suffers a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) whilst performing stunts on a huge half pipe. He ends up in a coma and spends three months in hospital and is lucky to be alive. Let alone lucky to be alive he is fully mobile and returned to snowboarding although not to the former glories he reached prior to his accident when he was tipped to represent the USA at the 2010 Olympic Games. I strongly recommend it as it is funny in parts, especially some of the scenes with his brother who has Down Syndrome but ultimately it left my sad yet inspired. After the film, the director, Lucy Walker, took part in a Q&A session. It was really cool to sit there and see the director of a film which has just really impressed me, especially as it was FREE and the director is from London!
Love is… Jenny has a new appreciation as to what love is. Love is when you get off the bus @ 2150 in the freezing cold dark hoping to get to the corner shop before it closes to buy milk so your Jennifer can have her cereal before work on Monday morning! Then walking for 15 minutes uphill to home carrying the cold milk!
A few other funny pictures that you will see below – a mother dragging her child! At first we thought it was a dog in a small sled until we realised it was a woman dragging a small child lying down in a sled. It is funny to see a woman just casually walking along only to see behind her a child lying face down on a piece of plastic!
Also whilst Jenny was flicking through a book about Prince Harry (Jenny likes the Royal Family) we found a picture of him that would be now considered “doing a Miley Cyrus!” No he wasn’t twerking, although what we know of Harry there probably is pictures of him out there somewhere doing that! Haha. No he was sticking his tongue out in the fashion that Miley seems to do all the time if the tabloid photos are to be believed! She must have a sore tongue from doing that so much, right?
The other picture was of Prince Charles, William and Harry all skiing in Whistler back in early 1998! All the best peeps come to Whistler don’t you know!! Haha.
Found this article on the BBC website, thought it quite interesting!
Booming Canada recruits British and Irish workers - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-2505 4229