New Years Eve!

Happy New Years to all in Australia!
As i write this its another 6 hours till my new years! :D

Went snowboarding again today, ended up taking a new friend (raquel) and teaching her how to snowboard... Fancy living in the snow all your life and never going snowboarding or skiing... She is from New Brunswick and claims its flat there and thats why she hasnt....Whatever :P

So that was pretty fun, and let me test my teaching skills too.

I got some rail practice in on the park and it was a nice sunny day.

Played around with my binding setup as well. getting closer to where they are the best for me.


I have been working the last few days and have the next 3 days off, so its going to be snowboard time for me!
Missing all my family and friends back home but making new friends here so it keeps me entertained and happy. Have had many fun nights so far!

Had an interesting night a few nights ago... Someone had a bottle of "everclear" which is a 92% alcohol alcohol... Smelt it and it smelt like metho.... Anyway, someone was going to have a shot and i said, "you should light it first" and he did... And i was thinking "i should video this..." But i didnt...

So he picks it up, blows in the glass to try and put it out instead of smothering it with his hand, so the booze spills over the shot glass and he proceeds to pour it onto his face WHILE it is still on fire!!!

Was pretty crazy, but ended up being pretty funny haha.

All the cars over here are so huge, i want 1 just for the hell of it.. Look at this beast!

My current alcohol stash! 1.14l bottle of bacardi (got it for $32) 700ml bottle of bacardi (got it for $18) 1.14l bottle of the glenlivet 12 year old (got for $50ish :D)

yummm

So tonight i am heading to a friends place for some drink before dinner and to snack on some nice cheeses and meats :) and then heading out for dinner followed by some more partying!

Probably end up on the street on new years and celebrate with all that are about watching the fireworks!

The aim is to not drink much and to be able to go snowboarding tomorrow! (after a big breakfast obviously ;))

Waiting on my Go Pro camera soon, turns out (when i emailed them last week) they wanted to confirm my address cause "it didnt look right" fkn idiots... Could have contacted me a week and a half a go about it rather than wait until i was chasing it up... so hopefully it arrives tuesday and i can get some boarding footage!



I am going snow mobiling in Feb sometime and also Heli Boarding! I cannot wait! it is going to be phenomenal!

I hope you all are having an enjoyable summer and i will update you again soon!

Love,
Leon

Christmas eve/day, snow and other things

First up a pic from outside my house :)

Christmas Eve
So for xmas eve i went to Tom and Steph's house for a Pot Luck dinner.
I hadnt met them until that night but was going with a couple of friends.

Rocked up and met them and their room mate Raquel, All very lovely people. we quickly got into the alcohol and finished preparing the food.

My friend Heidi from the netherlands after making some dutch pancakes! yum!!!

Coleslaw, this yummy dish that i cannot remember the name of and turkey!

Sweet potato and walnut dish, mashed potato, turkey and an awesome tasting stuffing

Sitting down for dinner, Heidi, Theresa, Tom and Raquel

Random Stilletto seat :P - Striking a pose

cheers!

Raquel and I

Stephanie, Me and Theresa

Heidi Me Theresa and Stephanie up the front.

Many drinks later and lots and LOTS of food, we ended up finishing our "christmas eve" about 6:30 am :D

I got up at 10 and decided to get on with the day rather than sleep some more.


Christmas Day
Ended up meeting up with Emma (Friend i met recently that is from QLD) and some of her friends and we randomly ended up at a tobogganing slope and going down a few times.
They had made a big ice rink out there and there was someone in a frosty the snow man costume. Was great, They were also doing free hot chocolate :D

Emma and I

Another Heidi, Me and Emma

Awesome clear river

The ice rink made near the fairmont banff springs

Frosty the snow man!

Random Antlers

The back of the fairmont, Banff springs

In the afternoon i went to Heidi's and Heidi, Theresa, Emma and I cooked up some dinner and watched some movies.
By the end of the day i was totally buggered!


Next day i wake up and check the snow reports, Mt Norquay, 6cm... Sunshine village 19cm!!! :D
OUtta bed, get dressed cook up a breakfast feast of ham and eggs and then head out to sunshine village to be greeted with a fresh covering of snow on the mountain.

This is sitting on the edge of a cliff drop off going down into some powder :) That was a fun rush, just have to dodge the rocky bits

And on the way home i took my car to the car wash and gave her a clean.

Ahhhh much nicer!

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Pics of my place (inside)

It was dark when i moved into my place, but will get some pics from the outside soon :)

Here is a couple shots of the inside.

Tv/fireplace, half the loungeroom

kitchen (where i make magic happen ;))

Loungeroom from the entryway

My bedroom :) you can see my tv in the window haha

So far i am pretty happy moved in here. Much more home like and comfortable feel over the hostel. Feel like im living somewhere, not just staying somewhere

Found a place!

So after searching for the past couple weeks for somewhere to live, i finally found 1!!!

No more shared room hostels for me!

Met with them in my lunch break, Was a guy probably late 30's who has lived in banff for 21 years.
Really nice guy and a nice atmosphere in the house.
THere was someone else that rents a room there and is probably late 20's. Both laid back and nice people.
THe house was clean and the loungeroom was nice. Kitchen had all that was needed too.

Bedroom is pretty small but it also has a tv with cable and like 120 channels! So now i have 120 channels and STILL nothing to watch! hahahaha

I move in tomorrow and have just finished packing my stuff up at the hostel.

$600/month fully furnished with cable tv, internet, laundry etc included. Pretty good i reckon :) Much nicer than at the hostel.
Will get some pics after im moved in tomorrow. - still miss my bed back home though!

My shoulder is not as sore as yesterday and from the start of the day till tonight it is moving a lot more without pain. So its on the road to recovery! woo! :) In time for when i get to board next week (maybe on christmas day?)

why you dont stop to take pictures...

Because there could suddenly be no road and you just sink in lots of snow!!! - Hard to see from the pic but the right side of the car is down about 30cm in snow lol

Pretty funny actually yet a little embarassing.
Was on the way up to Mt Norquay to see what it was like (smaller slope about 15mins from town) and driving up the windy road the mountain view was awesome. "lets take a pic" i think... Pull over and instantly the car drops down on the right side... ^$#$...

Had a few randoms stop to try and help, in total had 3 asian guys, another guy and an english guy trying to help push me out. moved the car but couldnt get it back to the road, just slide down :(
Ended up getting a lift to the top and then a nice staff member came and pulled me out in a big ass F350 :)

Back to the mountain and hit the slopes!

Mt Norquay is sorta similar to Thredbo in that most of the runs are intermediate to advanced. They have a pretty good terrain park and on weekends they have a big blow up bag for one of the jumps for practice.

Why my shoulder is currently really sore!!!
So i was hitting some of the jumps and getting some fun air, then i start to experiment some more.
I went to do a switch front side 180 off the smaller jump (for those who dont know what that is, its launching off the jump switch <going with the foot you dont usually have in front, in front> and then while in the air bringing the board around the front of your body to a 180 and landing with your normal foot forward)
Anyway i do this and land on the down ramp leaning back a bit too much, landing on the tail of my board. before i know it im flung forward and plough my left shoulder and head into the icy down ramp...

I think i would of blacked out without a helmet, on the plus side my music kept playing :)

After this i sat for a little but then went back out and just did some normal jumps and started on some rails :) But sudden movements and my shoulder kills me.

Its now night time and sitting it still its fine but then if i use it to push me up or change a weird angle its just pain... Oh well, it will heal soon enough. No pain no gain right - If you aren't falling you aren't challenging yourself.

So back to mt norquay, after a bit more in the park and getting later in the arvo i decide to have a look at the more advanced side of the mountain.

You are greeted with a double chair that goes right up, and then from the top you have spectacular views and 2 double black runs below you and then blacks on the sides.

view from the top

 This picture below was 1 of the double blacks just below the chair. Figured i would take it for a real thigh burner.

Getting off the chair you actually have to walk down some stairs to get onto the run.
You cannot tell from this picture, but if i were to stand straight up i would be close to 45 degrees to the slope of the mountain.

Luckily on this slope there was lots of snow about, but a decent amount of moguls (damn skiiers)
Had fun getting down  but gave it what i could. after the top section there was a couple gully bits which made it easier going up the sides, but my thighs were burning down the bottom.

Norquay was a pretty nice mountain and ill definately be checking it out again.

Kegger! and more snow! :D

So last night i went to a christmas kegger house party in Calgary (which is basically like going from the central coast to sydney to party).

There was like an ugly christmas sweater kinda theme on it, and i think i did pretty well with my limited options :)

The person who invited me i actually met 3 days before at the dancing sasquach (which is a club in banff).

So i drove out there and arrived, met the people there who were all friendly and started drinking.
I was so excited cause they had the stereotypical red plastic cups like they always have in the movies! it was great!

I had a great time. Played some beer pong, and flip cup drinking games which helped the getting drunk process.

Went around and met people there and worked on remembering names. I did surprisingly good at it too! Many people were shocked i remembered their name haha. Good memory!

Had a great night and when i woke up in the morning there had been 15cm of snow!!! HELL YEA! :D

Hope that it snows some more tomorrow so  on my day off on tuesday i can board some fresh powda!

Party hard and first day of work...

So i did end up going out last night, went out well!!!

Started off at the pump and tap tavern and played some games of bingo (lol) Metal/rock playing, drinks flowing and lots of random bingo playing in the middle of it with some random prizes and people getting paddled if they called bingo and didnt have the numbers haha.

Was good fun.
After that i left and went to the dancing sasquach for bass night! Lots of dub step and bass style music.
Had a time machine (see pic below) which was 2 shots of vodka, a shot of something else and a can of monster! haha, was actually pretty nice. Drank a bunch and had a good night.

Ended up going back to some peoples house that i met there and had more drinks, partied till 7:30 in the morning. Fell into bed for a couple hours of sleep and then got up and cooked some breakfast and got ready for my first day of work :P

5 hour shift, pretty quiet day, but its money coming in so that helps!

Having a ball. Ended up getting invited to a keg party in calgary on Sat, so going to drive up there and have a party in Calgary! Yay for the random times!!!

Now its time for me to catch up on some sleep, so im going to put my face in a pillow and be dead to the world for a few hours :)

Lake Louise!!! And some work...

So i decided to take a 45min drive this morning and see what the lake louise mountain was like.

HOLY COW, very long runs! pretty cool. On the front side of the mountain you can just get in the gondola and go right up then do runs all the way to the bottom and then back on the gondola.
Then there is the other side of the mountain, and then at the bottom of that one you can go up the next mountain over too!!!

Really long runs there, unfortunately a lot of it was getting fairly icy, so it will be awesome with a fresh dump of powder! cannot wait to see how it is!

I have been riding switch a lot for practice and working on my technique a bit. Will start building my courage up to some rails soon. Been hitting the occasional box for fun, but just need to get comfortable again!

Got a call on the way to lake louise and was offered some part time work, so thats pretty cool, going to be working 15hrs over the next 3 days and then be put on the roster starting monday. So will be good to get some $$ coming in.

Met some nice people at lake louise and going out to the club tonight with them. Its dance/dubstep at the dancing sasquach, so should be some fun!

the front mountain

"top of the mountain" little windy but awesome!

On the gondola :)

Found out that Wednesday nights the banff community hub does $1 pasta night! :)

Cheap feed, so checked it out. pretty good, only missing meat :P
Get all this for just $1 :o pasta, sauce garlic bread and a muffin :)