Getting more gear...

Today we headed down to the Turkey Sale in the village which is the annual clear-out that all the ski and board shops here have at Thanksgiving (which is on Monday, its a month earlier than the USA. We guess its because harvest is earlier, but hey. We know nothing.). I've already got a board and Jon picked up a really nice ex-rental board for $100 and we're going to go get some bindings tomorrow. Theres a snowboard factory down the road thats having a sale and a factory tour tomorrow which should be pretty cool. We're also going to get a couple of shitty boards to learn on so we don't wreck our good ones (for y'all old people, when it starts to snow, you can really bugger your board up because theres still rocks sticking up) and we should be able to get some for about thirty bucks. Anyway, I bought gloves and thermals and some little metal stars to stick on my board for grip. I spent $142 I can't really afford but I'm all set for the whole season now.

Also today: Bear no. 2 - About bloody time. He was a teeny little bear - so teeny I didn't even notice he was there! Jon was like, theres a bear! I was like... what? He was just outside our house down the side, nomming something and generally being uninterested. I got some crappy photos of him.

Anyway, its starting to get bloody cold. Will probably not be doing too much this week as I spent all my pay on sweeeeeet gear (and Hallowe'en costume!) Also, we might have to pay for our season passes because we can't apply for any boarding-related volunteer positions as we were idiots and told them we were novices. There are some other positions, but they're really shit front-of-house restaurant jobs (read: cleaning up peoples crap) and so if we dont get good enough benefits we'll just suck it up and buy the pass. Our work has a scheme you can get the pass for $1300 and it usually costs $1900. So while thats not ideal, if we dont get free lessons which you would with other volunteer positions, we dont really want to do the same sort of rubbishy job we're doing already. No free beer? Pffffft.

Robyn xxx

C-c-cold

Cold night tonight! Right now it's 3C in the valley and it's only 10.30pm, so it's going to get colder. It's -8 at the peak, and it's snowy up there! There are webcams at various points up there, check them out.

Jon

Getting paid and buying gear!

We got paid!!! Last Friday we got our first paycheques, and they are actual cheques too, rather than bank deposits. So, to celebrate we went down the re-use it centre to look for some gear and Robyn found a rather nice board and bindings. There's another picture here, along with some pictures of Eddie (Doug's dog, we'll miss him when he goes) and some of the house in general. The board was $150, and is in good shape, it has one notable ding on the nose, and a couple of minor scratches, but is generally fine, and the bindings are almost new Burton Customs, probably worth $250 new. (Burton is pretty much the top brand for snowboarding).

The pictures of the house aren't that great and don't really do it justice. The central chimney makes it nice and homely, which will be good come mid-winter when it's -25C outside, but doesn't make it easy to take pictures of anything. As you can see, our room is quite small, it's pretty much just the bed with a bit of floor around down one side and a chest of drawers at the bottom, but it's a lot more than some people will be having here this winter, and they'll probably be paying $1000 per month. There's plenty of space in here for us, and there's storage elsewhere in the house for our big stuff, cases, bikes, boards, and porch where all the wet gear will get kept come winter.

In general news, I'm feeling better now after my bout of manflu, still snuffly but much better. We're not really getting out and doing much at the moment, because the rainy season has finally hit, and it's getting chilly too. Not so great for our boss Ali, who's off on a cycle holiday for two weeks around Montreal with his girlfriend. We get to be in charge of the hostel for a couple of days until the big boss, Max, is back from his extended honeymoon... fun for us! We also sent in our applications to be Mountain Safety volunteers this winter, if we get it, we get a free lift pass, some uniform outerwear, and discount in the mountain shops... hopefully we'll get it, apparently they're usually pretty short so the signs are good.

It's just about time for me to go to work... sigh...

Jon (and Robyn)