I have now entered into only 2 days per week of work! (WOOHOO)
So last week i only worked Wednesday and got to snowboard Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday Night and Saturday!
On Saturday i got to board with the Instructor from my instructor course and basically got a free lesson from him :) Ron is a champ, Got me working on my steering and technique. Was very helpful!
THere has been 77cm of snow in the last 7 days and its still coming! Loving it! Its all starting to come now! :D
I was invited by my good friend Raquel to goto the Hospital fund raiser Gala with her.
They had a band called "The Timebenders" playing later in the night and they were really cool. They started off playing some hits from the 50's and progressed through to the 2000's with about 6-7 costume changes throughout the show.
They put on a great show and played the songs awesomely!
So there was a dress up theme for Timebenders and we went as the 50's. - Greaser style!
The TimeBenders
Slick the hair back pose :P
Raquel works for BMO (Bank of Montreal) and they covered the tickets (which were like $180 each)
BMO also sponsors the Martini bar for the start of the night. So after getting there we loaded up on Martini's I had about 5 in the space of 1.5hrs, and worked it out to be roughly 11-12 shots hahaha.
Was pretty tipsy for dinner, then paced myself out over dinner with a glass of wine.
It was a 3 course meal with this cool prawn and asparagus salad for starters, Then a steak and salmon main and dessert was a chocolate Banana mousse that was very yummy!!!
There was a live auction with some great things like a 1 hour jet fighter flight (which went for 10k) and a 4 day heli ski package with CMH.
I met a bunch of people and partied and danced with the people from BMO, all very lovely and Marino (who is part of the investments team) Bought me a few drinks later in the night :) So awesome night with minimal spendings hahaha.
Great times!
Working Sunday and Monday then onto my next 5 day stint of snowboarding!!
Probably wont be putting any video's up from the last few days snowboarding cause the weather has been pretty average, but see how we go!
Saturday night i had my friend Raquel's bday.
She had hired a 3 bedroom condo at the inns of banff, which is a pretty nice hotel.
We had a roast dinner and drank right into the night from about 7pm. Ended up going to the dancing sasquatch for a while and then back to the condo to party until about 7am!
Later in the night when we are all drunk i was allowed to bite the head off this polar bear, Damn that was delicious white chocolate!
Raquel opening the present Heidi and I got her. (picture frame with a picture album backing)
Carving up half the roast :D
Mung down on some dinner
Out at the sas!
Got 3 hours sleep and then woke up and fried some of the left over roast for breakfast and went into the hot tub :D - Hot tub with the best view ever!!!
This was the hot tub in "The Fox" which is a sister property of inns of banff. Modelled off some hot springs that were discovered. Pretty cool
Had a pretty lazy saturday and came up with the idea to make a lasagne using zucchini instead of pasta sheets... Worked out pretty well :)
Made it with stuff i already had at home hehe.
So over the last week we have had a real cold front.
The days have ranged from -28 to -40 on 1 day! Pretty extreme!!!
I had been plugging my car into the power point (hehe its pretty funny) For the block heater so she starts alright in the morning. Works pretty effectively too!
On Sunday there was a free pancake breakfast put on for the womens shelter. So donations accepted.
Went down before work and loaded up on some pancakes for breakfast :) Was pretty nice, but froze my ass off! -34 that morning... Got to work with frozen toes (i cleverly wore my sneakers instead of my winter boots) And it took about 40mins till i could fully feal my toes again haha.
My Friends Raquel and Andrew were volunteering for the breakfast.
My FIRST Vegetarian Restaurant Experience
There is a cute little restaurant in Banff called "Nourish" http://www.nourishbistro.com/ This is a vegetarian restaurant, and everyone i know who has been there said it was really good. They are all about fresh and good quality ingredients.
I figured may as well give it a try while i am here. Invited my vegetarian friend Heidi out for dinner and checked it out. I was very skeptical about having a dinner that didnt include some form of meat and fish, but what the heck lets try!
They have jars as your water glasses.
Heidi trying to make a decision on what to eat.
After contemplating the menu and thinking that many of these dishes sound delicious and could be improved with some meat added :P But ended up getting a half serving of Nacho's and the Burritos
Nacho's As described on the Menu - "So you've heard of these, huh? Legend has it that there are no better nachs made in this galax. 27 ingredients, and on some days, even more. Everything from strawberries, 10 beans, to garlic dills underneath melted aged cheddar and other goodies. meow!"
The half serving of nacho's was huge! and i would have been relatively satisfied after eating half of the half nachos. It has quite a strange and exotic range of ingredients in the nacho's but WOW this was good. For a nachos with no meat i was impressed and the varied flavours greatly satisfied my tastebuds.
"Beautiful burrito - Ever had a dream and thought you tasted heaven? 6 beans, roasted carrots, celery, onion, garlic, spanish seasoned blueberries and pineapple, w/coconut curried rice stuffed in a tortilla, topped w/nuts, onion crisp, stawberries, guacamole and out signature stawberry pineapple salsa"
These burrito's were very unique and tasty.
Really enjoyed the mix of flavours and the quality of food.
Bumpers Beef House
A bit later in the week i had to balance out the vegetarian trip :P So i went over to bumpers beef house with some friends. - Bumpers slogan is "if you havent been to bumpers you havent been to banff" So naturally i guess i just *had* to go.
They have an all you can eat salad bar which comes with all the meals. They had like 25 different things in the salad bar and i had a nice pig out on it :) I got the special that day which was garlic shrimp and steak.
The steak was cooked as requested, and everything was pretty tastey :)
Over the last week and a half i have been lazy and just letting my beard grow out hehe.
This was a couple days ago, but think i will be having a shave tomorrow for a friends bday party!
SNOW
I spoke to work the other week and let them know my intentions of only working a max of 2 days a week from Feb onwards.
After a couple days they came back and asked if i could cover the 2 Canmore store days (which is Sunday and Monday that needs to be done) So i said sure :) This way i will still be getting some money in and will get to board 5 days a week if i want!
So this has mostly started from this week.
I went to sunshine village on Thursday. They had 35cm over the last 5 days. The temperatature today...
-26 degrees.
I got there nice and early to get a full day in. Little bit of a gamble because if its too cold they wont open the lifts.
But luckily by about 11 they had all lifts up and running! :D
I had an awesome day! I found a few patches of powder that was untouched and about 5-10cm deep! (Some video footage below)
There was a good covering of snow over most places and it was nice to board around.
Going up on a lift near the morning i breathed out and it fogged my goggles, Unlucky for me this instantly froze as ice on the inside of my goggles! I had to ride down the mountain on that run with about half of my vision blocked hehe. Then took them into the toilet to use the hand dryer. That was interesting how quickly it just froze over.
Did some drops down a cliff face which is really really steep into a powder base. This was lots of fun. you can see this in the video below!
Fantastic day!
I have felt pretty active this week.
After work on Wednesday i went to the gym for a cardio and core workout, then had some dinner and went back for rock climbing for an hour and a half.
Then thursday i went boarding all day.
Thursday night i went to the dancing sasquatch which had a "Masque Rave" party on.
There was free facepaints and they had the black lights cranking! :D
Got pimped up and danced my ass off till 2am!
Then Friday snowboarded a half day at Norquay and did another cardio and core session at the gym! Go me! No going out tonight cause its a friends bday party saturday and thats going to be a big night!
Pimpin some fluro!
Someone did some awesome artwork
Heidi and I
Lena and I
It was a nice warm -10 today. Much warmer than the last few days and the next week is meant to be between 0 and -5. So should be very pleasant! Just about tshirt weather hehehe
I had the last couple of days off so i got to hit the slopes again!
Unfortunately there had not been a whole lot of snow recently so there was not a whole lot of extra snow. But still had a great time.
First day i decided to head out to Lake Louise and see how that went. I went with a friend i had met - Steve. He is from Ireland and a snowboarder also.
So i had a good day boarding at Louise with him. Unfortunately it was a bit icy in a lot of places but was still nice.
The day was a bit overcast and it was a warm -17 degrees (about -24 with wind chill...)
I have not uploaded some video yet. but that will come in the next post.
The next day i went to Mt Norquay with a couple of Friends.
Mitch and Chelsey (both from Aus). I ended up spending about an hour teaching Chelsey and 2 people she know how to snowboard and start linking their turns, which gave them a big boost in their snowboarding ability. And good experience for me i guess.
But spent most of the day boarding with Mitch and someone he knows Sam who is from NZ.
Went through some random Tree runs and through the park and just some normal good runs.
There was not a whole lot of snow and very icy in some patches but a hell of a lot of fun!
Here is a clip i put together from some of the footage i took at Mt Norquay.
I hope you enjoy, Specifically the part where i clip my edge attempting a natural rail on a fallen tree :P
The next day i headed into calgary for a couple things, and to look for some new shoes. I found some i liked after trying like 5 stores, but they didnt have my size so i will have to try again later... probably feb.
On the way home that night it was starting to snow and when i got up in the morning there was a few cm of fresh snow on the streets in banff. So beautiful :)
Last Sunday night i went out for a night on the town.
Sunday as this is "Sunday Funday" Aka its pretty much the locals going out night. Friday/Sat you usually get a lot of people from Calgary.
I decided not to drink cause im back focusing some more on my health.
Earlier that day i come up with the idea to wear my heart rate monitor out to the club. Something to entertain me otherwise and be a bit different...
So out to the club, leave my house with minimal movement rate for in the 60's
At the club standing around talking varies from 60-90 depending what im doing. First club "The Devils Gap" Which is more of a bar style location with a dj on. Up and dancing to some Dance style beats.
On and off dancing but fairly consistent jumping and moving around keeps between 75-110.
A bit further into the night and dancing song after song but not shuffling or anything, just having some fun dancing around. varies between 80-120.
Move on to Aurora's which is a night club. More dancey beats and more energetic dancing.
During the night i peaked to 160, and that was during "Party Rock Anthem" So a hell of a lot of shuffling :P hehehe.
Some extra Snow
I Woke up Monday morning to find some fresh snow outside :) This was after about 4 days in a row of really warm weather.
So warm that i walked from work to the post office (about 500m) In just a tshirt and jeans and was relatively comfortable. Very strange...
But over this times the mountains had gotten 30cm+ So thats fine with me :)
I have Thursday/Friday off so i cannot wait to get out on the slopes! And going to get some video footage with my new Go Pro !!! Stay tuned!
Last night i had Dinner with my Friend Heidi from the Netherlands.
I cooked up some chicken breast with lemon and stuffed with feta and avocado - Delish.
After dinner i had Heidi in tears as i was trying to pronounce some dutch words, Which my lack of being able to make the "ee" sounds (Snort/spit sound? ;lol)
But that was fun and started to get some of the words. At least gave her a good laugh in doing so :)
Work again today, but last day before my "weekend" and boarding!!! WOO I think ill goto lake louise for at least 1 of them.
So after having 4 days off for some snowboarding action (which was awesome!) I am now doing an 8 day stint at work! :(
And its annoying cause there has been like 40cm of snow at sunshine village over the last few days.
So i decided to get back into a healthy rhythm again and get my workout on. Because i live and work in Banff i get a free 1 week pass to the big gym here. Which has a running track, basketball courts, weights area, pool, sauna, spa, indoor climbing... Its a pretty awesome gym actually.
Have hit a chest session and a couple nights in the hot tub. And tonight i went and did some indoor climbing with a friend.
So spent about 1.5hrs rock climbing and finishing off with some bouldering. Which is without a harness and up to a certain line (about 4m up) which has a range of different holds and we had to work our way around the wall.
Awesome workout for my hands and all body. Felt great! :D
My Go pro hero hd2 camera arrived earlier this week, So i think i might test it out doing rock climbing or something and then get some footage on the 12th and 13th (my next days off) so look forward to some fresh boarding footage! Hopefully some more fresh snow waiting for me on my days off.
When i was snowboarding at sunshine i was half way down the mountain and mother nature started calling for me... As i was no where near an appropriate building i unstrapped and walked off towards a tree...
Few more steps and *crunch* my foot goes thigh deep into the snow!
That was pretty cool :)
Some of my close friends who i spent christmas eve with ended up having a chocolate fondue which i got an invite to :)
Best plan ever!
One of them works for a prestigious chocolate shop here and they make a chocolate champagne bottle... So "lets melt it!" The bottle part was hollow (as they usually fill it with other chocolates) but the top of it was solid. And a very tasty sweetened dark chocolate.
The chocolate melting
My awesome fruit cutting skills!!!
The decadante chocolate champagne bottle
almost ready to go!
Unwrapped, in the fondue and starting to melt :)
Hmm, lets try drinking champagne from the chocolate champagne bottle :P
eeeyyyy
OM NOM NOM
Great night! Great Friends! Great Chocolate Fondue!
