A lot has happened since the last post, basically im going to write a bit of an essay and then have all the latest photos straight afterwards because it takes far too long to synchronise them with the rest of the text. if you want to know anymore about anything than let me know!!!
Ok so after my first night in Vancouver I got up and met Jake, Sandra and Chris and we headed to the Museum of Anthropology which is at University of British Columbia (UBC). It was mainly focused on indian culture and artefacts but also had a lot of stuff from africa, and pretty much all of asia, it was interesting and some of the stuff was amazing, but i thought it could of been done a lot better and didnt flow very well so i was a bit bored of it after a while. but outside was a frozen pond which was fun to play with. It snowed all afternoon and we didnt end up getting out of there till about 430 when it was dark so we just headed home, Ollie got in at about 7 and was exhausted so we left him be while Jake Sandra Chris and I headed to the vaporiser bar, all I will say is that it was a pretty interesting experience and if you want to know more then ask me...
The next day we got up had some breakfast and then went and wandered around the city and did a bit of shopping,there is a clothing shop here called roots and their logo is a beaver...only in Canada...then we chilled in the afternoon before going to the ice hockey- Vancouver Canucks V Calgary Flames, it was amazing! there were no massive hockey fights but a lot of big checks into the glass and for about a minute it looked like there was going to be a fight but to no avail... it is a really fast and energy draining game, they switch players pretty much every 2 minutes and i asked a canadian guy why, he said because its almost like being in a fight and after a minute you are exhausted. My camera was out of battery but ollie got some photos so i will upload those when i get them off him.
The next day it was raning...again, it pretty much doesnt stop here. and sandra and jake had to head back to Jakes uni for class, so Ollie and i did a bit more exploring, we went to Canada place which is a boardwalk/touristy type area which has amazing views across the river to north vancouver. Then we headed into gastown which is where the city first started, there are some amazing old buildings and cobbled streets and really intricate lamp posts, it looks like a mix between New York and London. it also has the worlds first ever steam powered clock which is a huge tourist attraction, just for the sake of being an attraction, its interesting but not worth travelling the globe for haha. that afternoon we finally had a meal at The famous Furniture warehouse, which is pretty much a small restaraunt that used to sell furniture, the good thing about it is that most of the stuff on the menu costs 4.95 and is actually really good, that is until u add HST and tips.
That night we said goodbye to Sandra Jake and Chris and then caught the train back to the airport where we met some of the other guys doing the ski instructor course with us. we got in a van and we started heading to Whistler! we stopped at Squamish, a town about half an hour out of Vancouver so we could go to Wal-Mart to stock up on stuff before we hit the ridiculously over priced supermarkets in whistler.
Wal-mart is ridiculous, pretty much you name it, they sell it, except for fresh fruit and vegetables, if its not in a packet its not worthy. ahah
theres everything from food to cosmetics, clothing, plasma screen TV's, hardware, jewlery, furniture and in the american ones they have alcohol and guns, canadians are a little more sensible so we didnt get to see that.
Then we headed into whistler and got dropped off at our accomodation. by that time it was 11 at night, the house we are in is ridiculous, if you havent seen from my facebook, it has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a big fireplace, a hot tob, plasma screen TV, GOOD wireless internet, a fully fitted kitchen, really high ceilings you can ski off the mountain into our backyard, i reckon its easily worth 3 or 4 million dollars. The people we are staying with are really nice, theres an irish couple in their early 30's, a hawaiin girl who is 18, but i thought she was about 25, another irish guy and an english girl both of which would be in their late 20's/early 30's and as im sitting here typing we are waiting on another guy to arrive who is apparently in his early 20's.
Today was a really fun day, we didnt get to go skiing which was initially a bummer, everyone else doing the course are spread throughout the town in different houses so we all met at our house at 9am and went over rules, equipment etc. then we headed into the village and got shown a few shops and places to store skis and stuff, then we went and picked up our season passes then headed into a bar where the poms started buying drinks for everyone...at 11 in the morning. then at about 130 we split into groups to do a photo scavanger hunt it basically took us around the whole town so we could see everything, the highlight was when we had to get a photo of everyone in the group doing a shot, we also had to get a photo of the funniest thing we saw, so we just asked what the funniest shot they had was. the guy at the bar said do a muff diver, so we did, its a martini glass filled with whip cream and then you put a shot of baileys in it and cover that with more whipped cream and chocolate sauce, then you have to drink the shot with nothing other than your mouth...soooo messy ahaha.
the photos ended up winning us the hunt when we met back at merlins bar, which is really cool. they had a band doing some really good covers and one of the old ski instructors-probably in his 60's got up on the bar wearing ski boots and started busting out, everyone in the bar, even the dirty park rats who normally think they are cooler than everyone else were in hysterics, it was the funniest and nicest thing i have seen in a while, and i got a minute video of it...which i will try and upload it but it might not work.
Then we headed to a shop called Can-ski to get our boots looked at and adjusted. which i thought would take about half an hour, but the boot technitian spent about an hour and a half talking to us about everybit of equipment, how they work, how they should be comfortable and a whole load of other crap no one wanted to hear, he knew his stuff and was a really good boot fitter but i have never met anyone who talked so much in my life, and he was monotonal which made it all that much better!
then we had some pizza and headed home, tomorrow we have a free day so we are going to get the first chairlift up and explore!
if i am not completley exhausted i will do another post tomorrow night because as you can see there is too much going on to leave it too long.
Without a doubt THE most creative, intelligent and just generally sick hip-hop group of all time.
