Friday morning we were blessed by the gods and woke up to a frosting of the land. I wasn't as excited as others, but when I went out to touch the railing I realised it was all slush, wet snow. The snow falls from the sky, lands on your jacket and melts, none of this brushing off business just yet.

Last night we partied hard at the opening of the Board Lounge, a specialist shop, mostly stocked in Burton boards and outerwear. I helped to set up the shop a couple of days ago and it looks wicked. After the official opening we all headed to the Man for a few drinks (or in my case, $90 worth on a tab) and some dancing. I was almost removed from the establishment but was lucky enough to be escorted by friends who were slightly more sober who explained that I was "alright, man! she just missed a step is all.." and bailed me out at least five times. I fell asleep on my neighbour's couch and finally went to bed at roughly 4:30am, then woke up for work at 7am. Fortunately it wasn't busy and I was sent home two hours later and slept until the afternoon.

What will tonight consist of? Can Jaimee be removed from the pub? Who knows?!?!!

Some may argue that this is a "travel" journal, as I have never disagreed with, but I AM going to disagree with ANYONE who says that my working in Falls Creek is not some sort of journey or travel.
For instance, I have travelled the land of Victoria via car to my new home on the 1st and have also walked incredible distances (uphill as well) to various ticket booths, offices and places of interest since I have been here. Not to mention the extremely important hike I take to the bar every night. So yes, I am travelling.

There's no snow yet, not even a random dump or slight frosting, though the weather and sky tease us with the possibility. The lifties are getting agitated and a lot of people have gone home until the streets are white. Our training days are almost at an end with only one more day tomorrow and a test this afternoon. I personally am a little disgruntled about the fact that they've been giving us training in ticket selling and suggesting that we would only sell tickets, when the job I applied for was in retail. If I get placed in the ticket box, I'll still give it a go, but I'd rather a position in one of the retail stores. A few other girls feel the same. We'll see how it all turns out I suppose, half of us haven't even been placed yet for our jobs.

Bring on the snooowwww!!

My time at Lake Disease came to an end. I fixed everything that was bad there with me and other people and everything is dandy and I'm in San Francisco. Today I walked roughly 10km from Pier 5 along the water to the Golden Gate bridge (look on a map). It's a long way.

I'm coming home soon! Yay!

It's been puking down with snow since early morning (time is unknown but we're thinking 3am/4am) and the powder today on fresh tracks was knee-deep! Total insanity! Best powder day I've had!

I've had an interesting past few days. Everyone is leaving and soon I will be leaving, but it all feels quite surreal. I spent two/three days of work finding everything a little too hilarious because after my recent break-up I wrote my now former boyfriend a letter, but I was too trashed to remember what I wrote in it exactly. But the point is, he's now everywhere and doing his best to ignore me, it's all very confusing and it makes me laugh. Must've been one hell of a letter.

Personal issues/comedy aside, I've had two very exciting days in the field of wintersports. I ventured out yesterday with my housemate Hugh and our friend Tom for an epic day of skiing. We met up with a few people along the way, but made sure to eat lunch with housemate Alex and his lovely girlfriend Laura. After lunch we all went out together, before we ate I'd only had one bad crash involving me going over a slight jump at a billion kilometres an hour and into the white spray of a snowboarder and then rolling down the rest of the run. I didn't hurt myself, that's all that matters.
So yes, we head out after eating and during the course of the afternoon I crashed twice more. Once was because there was absolutely NO visibility on this one backside run and I slipped and my ski went flying off and spun through the air just missing a small child. Second fall was the best and the last. I was following Hugh off a small roller leading into a steep part of the run, I went over it, had a sketchy landing and then realised I was too unstable and fast to slow down right away, so I go straight, but then Tom turned later than I anticipated and BAM! I go over his skis and hit his poles. Next thing I know I'm sliding on my back down the rest of the hill, my skis are halfway up where I'd just been sliding down and my goggles are askew across my face. Alex comes flying down and rips everything off my face and everyone else soon arrives and some foreign accent asks me if I'm okay and all I can do is laugh and say "owww". So I'm still lying in the snow hoping nothing is broken and there's blood all over my mouth where my lip decided to bleed and I eventually get up and put my skis back on. Everyone thought I was broken or dead or plain old unconscious, but you can't even see where my lip was bleeding and I only have a sore left upper thigh with slight bruising, some more bruising on my left arm and my left thumb is jarred. Other than that I'm great.

So TODAY the same group minus Tom decided to go cross-country skiing! Yay! We only went a couple of kilometres around the lake, but we made it to the Louise Falls which are frozen and beautiful and we climbed up the snow to get a closer look. I'll post photos of it soon. We stacked loads, I only stacked once on my own, but the other falls were all because Rachael/Laura had slipped in front of me and I still don't know how to stop when going fast on cross-country skis. So falling is the only option. I landed on my sore side a couple of times, so I'll have bruises on bruises, but no pain no gain! We had an eventful day, resulting in snow angels, milkshakes and delicious foods. I'm exhausted now and have to do washing.

All in all, let's go skiing when I go to an Australian hill!

Well well well, what to report!

Firsts of all, I have to mention what a FANTASTIC day I had last Wednesday. I slept in until 10:30ish and didn't go up to the hill until around noon, but did get in a few runs on my board, then switched to some Every Thang skis and went out with Kim. We did one run because
a) Kim's ankle is destroyed
and
b) The Every Thangs suuuucked
So I decided around that time that I wanted to buy ex-rental Rossignol Bandits but I hadn't taken any out yet, but I knew a few people who have them and love them. Kim and I got hungry and went to Powderkeg for bagel skins (yummmm). Then we gave up and went home.
The day before was good too, Kylie left and it was actually a really nice day minus her departure. I didn't go out riding or anything, just cleaned the unit and hung out with Megan.
Anywho, so the Bandit skis didn't come back to rentals until yesterday and they got a special treatment in repairs, then I had a ride break and took them out for a test run. AMAZING SKIS. I only did two runs because I went on the backside to check out this great ski run (I'd always done it on a board) and then had to take the longest ever lift back to the top to get down the frontside. I made it back to work on time, but there's nothing better than a ride after lunch to make the day go faster and give you that jolt of adrenalin.
Anywho, I had other issues after work and resorted to drinking WAAAY too much and doing a repeat of that time I was 16 and in NZ and puked loads. This is the second ever hangover I've ever had and I HATED it with a passion and threw up four times in the morning at work. I came right just before lunch and only feel shame for the way I behaved last night.
We all have to lash out every now and then, right?

Yeah, so today is Saturday and I am going to bed extra early. I'll be home soon.

Okay, the past couple of days have been most spectacular. I realise I've left a few people in the dark about what REALLY goes on in my Canadian life, so here it goes, a full-detailed description of the past three days.

Day One (Monday):
After a hustling and bustling day at work selling t-shirts in the retail giftshop (located upstairs from the retail store and by myself) I took advantage of the weekly staff grocery trip to Banff and bought my beloved Stepchild snowboard. I didn't get enough time to thoroughly search for bindings, so I stressed on the bus and went into Safeway instead. Luckily enough, Charisse, Megan and I went out for dinner and had delicious Japanese so my stomach was so full that I had no desire to buy any bad foods. We went home at 10pm and I cried over the extra empty bed in my room. Turns out they won't be filling it anytime soon.

Day Two (Tuesday/Yesterday):
I had the usual shift at work in the retail store, that is the cliche 9-5 shift, then I went into Banff without telling any of my housemates so I could buy some bindings for my board. Turns out I knew pretty much what all the stores had except for this one shop that I love going into (mostly because the guys are awesome) and looked at some Salomon bindings for roughly $200. I said I'd think about it over dinner, but on the way to food I ran into Joe who was on his way back from Revelstoke, so I had someone to waste time with until 9pm. I went back and bought the bindings, I asked the guy if he could give me a sweet deal and I got them for $130 (woo!). After Joe went grocery shopping we took the bus home and he put my bindings on my board for me. I then had to go up to Jamie's house (a co-worker) and check out her boots that are too small for her, but amazingly enough she was coming down just as I was leaving my place. So she checked out my board and new bindings and the boots fit perfectly. That was pretty much the end of the excitement for the night, I had to go to bed early to wake up early.

Day Three (Wednesday/TODAY! YAY!):
Today was AMAZING. I woke up at around 7ish and went to the gym for a 45 minute workout followed by a milo breakfast and then an early start on my boarding. I did all my favourite runs and got a feel for the board, like they said in the shop, it's definitely a fun board to be on. I only stacked a couple of times, but nothing serious. I boarded alone for the entire day, but I think I needed the alone-time to build confidence. My day actually finished a bit earlier than anticipated and I took the 3:10pm shuttle home from the hill. I did about 4 easy runs to end the day and my housemate Alex, who's a snowboard instructor, had me take up 2 of his kids (or as he likes to call them, his "minions") on the lift and I actually went down twice before they were back at the bottom of the lift again, they were fairly small children though. I ended up matching their one run with my two runs, so I took them up a second time. Well, kids aside I'm back at home once more. Tonight we have a staff party for our whole department (rentals, repairs and retail) and we're going curling in Banff... I'm still not entirely sure what curling is, although I've seen it on tv a few times. From what I've gathered it looks like lawn bowls on ice. Totally revved for THAT one. There's a bar though, so it'll be more like drunk-kids-attempting-ice-lawn-bowls. Better drunk than never I suppose.

Well now, THAT'S what I call a detailed update. No more of these paragraph pieces. Keep in touch kids!

Peace ooouuutttt.

So so so. Not much has happened except that I have become an AMAZING skiier, I've bought an INCREDIBLE snowboard (Stepchild Chick Stick) and things are great. Less great things include: my roommate is leaving tomorrow (nooo! don't leave me Doris!!) and daylight savings just happened so we lost an hour of sleep last night.
I can't think of much else to report on, except that I'm a pretty wicked everything on the snow.

Love and miss you all!

It's getting warmer here, the past two days of sun have started to melt the snow, making it very icy. I'm assuming snowboarding conditions are pretty bad, but I wouldn't know since I was working for the past 5 days and today I'm just chilling out, trying to get over this cold. It's been almost a week now since I've been sick but it's a lot better than what it was before.
Housing problems have finished and I moved into where this girl used to live in the place I was couchsurfing, so I now have a lovely German roommate called Doris and the rest of my housemates are amazing. Last night we all went out to Banff for groceries and dinner, I splurged on beauty products to heal my dry skin. The wind here burns when you get up to the top of the mountain.
Regardless of melting snow, today is really quite beautiful. If I have enough energy I'll pull out the ol' DSLR and snap a few, maybe even document them important people in my life right now.
My job has the best perks ever it turns out, not only do I get free rentals, but I also get commission which I can over totally overboard on. A couple of days ago I picked up a sweet pair of black Smith Anthem goggles I've been holding out the back and I pretty much get a bunch of other stuff I want for free. I felt I deserved to take the goggles now because I sold two boards that day. I also need shell ski pants and I want this nice brown Oakley hoodie.
I suppose I should go and make some lunch or something... if you ever want to call, the number is 1-403-522-1101

STAY GOOD.

Once again I have found myself in Lake Disease/Louise in the over-populated Chucktown. Job opportunities have come about and today I plan on discussing such employment with retail at the ski hill. My chances look okay since I know some people in retail already and I previously worked for RCR. Enough about work.

Kylie has been kind enough to give up her bed for me, since she loves the couch so much, which is good because we went boarding on my first full day and I managed to destroy my totally muscular arms and needed a firm bedding to sleep on. The snow is AMAZING, except boarding on softer snow than Australia can prove to be a little more difficult and makes you go a lot faster than usual. Also the way that the runs go it's hard to go down heel-side while riding normal, so I've been a bit goofy. Toe-side and I aren't friends, it leaves me physically spinning in the snow and bent of the waist trying not to fall over. Everyone here is awesome, I've made a heaps of friends already. Surprisingly, even though the average temperature is -10, it's not as cold as you'd expect. Clothing needed when boarding is really only thermals, padded ski pants and a ski jacket, also the obvious essentials like gloves and a beanie, but you warm up pretty fast.

Today Megan and I are going to the hill for lunch and then we're going for a leisurely skate on Lake Louise. After watching the guys play ice hockey last night at Chucktown I'm in the mood for it.

When I can be bothered to drag my massive camera out, I'll take some photos of snow.

I'm home! Smother me with phone calls before I die from jetlag!

Okays, so there are some similarities with my trip to Amsterdam and my previous trip to New York. The similarities being that a) I love it here and b) I woke up to find MY ENTIRE DORM ROOM FILLED WITH BOYS. That's right, yet again I have been placed in a hostel room occupied with only boys. I even filled out in my reservation to have a female-only room, but when I questioned them about it they said they only had mixed rooms available. NY was.. THERE'S A KITTY IN THE INTERNET CAFE! AWWW! KITTTYYYYYYY!!!!... like I was saying, in NY I didn't have a choice because they ONLY had mixed rooms. Aww, kitty tried to bite me! So cute! Big orange kitty!

BACK TO TRAIN OF THOUGHT.

So, my room is all-male except for myself. I wonder if they walked in and were a little shocked, I would be. I wonder if they thought I was a boy. I would. Oh well, I find it easier to make friends with boys anyway, mostly because girls travel in packs (except for myself it seems) and don't want to associate with lone travellers, but guys are always open for a chat. They all have accents too, oh what a hard life I lead!

Even though my trip has been halted and I only have a week left of Europe, I figure I'll continue on as usual. I've already been having a lovely time in Paris, dad rescued me from Barcelona and we took a train here. I've seen the Arc De Triomphe, walked down Champs Elysees, visited Notre Dame and many other wonderful things. Tonight I'm staying at a small hostel and have already made a fez friends, but tomorrow I leave for Barcelona to collect my stolen belongings and then straight for Amsterdam (can't wait!) and then home! But for now I shall go visit the Eiffel Tower and have a glass of kir.

See you back at home on the 23rd! (that's a friday so let's take advantage of the weekend and my homecoming)

A spot of bother it seems. I head home sooner than expected due to bad people in Barcelona stealing all my stuff, although I still have my phone and my passport has been found. What a way to end the year!

(everything is okay)

Happy Guy Fawkes Day! In celebration Natalie and I watched V For Vendetta last night, amongst the booms of fireworks that have plagued this week.

So I'm back in lovely London. Yesterday Nat took me to Camden Market as well as some sightseeing in the city including Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Thames River, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament. We indulged in a few yummy foods at the market and I splurged and bought a summer dress for £1. Today I went for a walk around Fulham and Hammersmith areas and then took a train to meet my aunt Megan and my new baby cousin Abe (who is ADORABLE!!) and later met up with Natalie at Hammersmith and we ate cottage pie for dinner. Tomorrow's happenings are currently unknown.

Ireland is beautiful. I will definitely go back there when I'm older and can hire a car, then drive throughout the country. There is nothing more fantastic than standing on a beach and being able to admire the hilly green mountains and the ocean at the same time.
I loved Manchester and visiting Jason was nice. I made him dinner that lasted us two nights, it was Nasi Goreng and reminded me of being at home. We spent Halloween in the city and saw a gig, it was fairly good, afterwards we treated ourselves to a midnight snack of pizza, garlic pizza and chips. We went to his friend's house and ate, tried to watch constantly freezing movies and then soon retired after beating the playstation with an opened hand. We headed back to Alsager (where Jason lives) and it's all blurry. I went back into Manchester to visit Ali and Dave, a couple I worked with in Lake Louise and spent my last night at their place, then met up with Jason the next day in the city, before coming back to my pretty Lon-Don. I'll update with a couple of pictures I suppose, when I can be bothered. I miss you all and will send out a few postcards soon, if you want one, just let me know!

Oh yeah, part of my hair is pink... it's fading though. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE.

Hi. I'm currently in Portlaoise (Port "Leesh"), Ireland. Today I went to Dublin with dad and we called the day early due to a spot of rain after visiting Trinity College. I love it here, it's green and beautiful. I head to Manchester on Tuesday and then back to London after that. Until then, here are photos way back from Seattle and onwards.

( photoblog. )

It's official. I love New York.

--

Oh yeah, Niagara Falls is nice too, very beautiful place. If you get the chance, go there, but go to the Canadian side.

I leave Chicago today, I'm pretty sad because I've met some amazing people here. Last night I went out to a midnight screening of 30 days of night, it's awesome, see it if you can. updating on a wii, it's taking too long so I'll repost in niagara falls.

Hi friends,
I'm currently enjoying the eternal sunshine that is southern California. Yesterday Kylie and I visited Disneyland and today we went to Huntington Beach where some shopping was done. I bought nothing, but fell in love with a hoodie that was roughly $66. Although the US dollar is down and the Canadian dollar is up, so I guess it's the time to buy up. Aussie dollar is also doing very well against the US dollar, so it IS a very good time to be here. Anywho, I head to Chicago on the 14th and will be there roughly until the 19th, but nothing is set in stone just yet.
Kylie's waiting for me so we can go in the spa. Miss you all!
Sunshine and love.

I returned home from Portland, OR last night. I was down there visiting my friend Alex, who didn't show me much of the city considering he lives there. Regardless it was still nice and the weather was good (spots of rain, blue sky and sunshine), I tried to shop but my better side always takes over and tells me "NO!" everytime I pick an item up and head towards the cashier. I met a nice girl from Nevada in my room at the hostel and she introduced me to the other girl in our dorm from Finland and we all went out for dinner to a place called McMenamin's. They have a few restaurants in the city, they take old places and restore and convert them into a wonderful dining experience. We were in what seemed like an old pub or saloon-type thing. They have another place on the other side of town that used to be an old elementary school, maybe next time I can check it out.
On my second and last day I managed to get completely lost in Washington Park. If you ever get the chance to go to Portland, try to get over there and take a few of the trails. I started from the bottom of the park and made my way up to the Japanese Garden, but to get there I took the Overlook Trail to the Visitor's Centre, then the Oak Trail down to the Wildwood Trail leading to the Japanese Garden Trail, all in my Gallaz ballerina flats. I did get a couple of blisters and slipped in the mud on my way out of the park (I thought I'd be sneaky and take a shortcut across a grass patch instead of the road... water+dirt=mud). In all, I was only lost for about 4 hours so it wasn't too bad. I did a LOT of walking in that time and got very, very dirty. The Japanese Garden was pretty, although I didn't really take my time with it, I overlapped the tour group twice. Still enjoyed it though.
I finished off the day with some more window shopping and coffee with my friend. We sat in the city square and I bought a giant burrito that took me all day and night to eat (I finished it on the bus back to Seattle). We said our goodbyes outside the hostel where I picked up my bag and I walked back to the bus stop, boarded the bus, left Portland. I got a text message a bit later from my friend and he tells me that 15 minutes after I left, it started pouring with rain. Australians must bring the drought with them. Or just the nice weather.