Slush Slush Slush

On Monday 23rd May, 4500 very drunk, very colourful, very rowdy snow enthusiasts arrived at Sunshine Village to celebrate the end of eight months of record breaking snowfall. And they did that by skiing and snowboarding down a hill and trying to make it across a dug-out of chilly, winter water.

This is what they call Slush Cup.

From the beginning of the season, Slush Cup had been pegged as the loosest, craziest, busiest day we would experience on hill and its reputation certainly delivered. After a few days of bipolar weather patterns, the sun got its act together at the last minute and rewarded us with a beautiful, blue bird spring day for our last day at SSV.

My boss at Trappers very kindly gave me the day off (as well as the Saturday and Sunday before it) to play my final gigs at Sunshine with Lisa Baskin. We spent one and half very memorable hours playing our final show together on the main stage that morning. It was the perfect way to end my season - playing my music in front of the snowy hills that hold so many happy and unfogettable memories.

It was my pleasure to then boot up, line Bluejuice up on my iPod and ride those snowy hills one last time before fighting my way through the crowds to buy a jug of Richards Red and a good posie for the big show.

Slush Cup is a well-known Sunshine Village tradition and 2011 marked the 83rd year that skiing and snowboarding extremists have streamlined down Angel run in hope of making it across the watery dug out. While many of the snowboarders crashed to their aquatic end, a few skiers had the skill to make it without getting their feet wet and were rewarded by an appreciative drunk crowd.

After polishing off a jug of beer to myself, it was back to the slopes with all the confidence and bravado of a professional. Needless to say, I ended up back at the bar with a spiced ceaser on one arm and a bloody, ice graze up the other.

But beneath the beer haze, I hardly felt the pain. All I could feel was happy. A happiness that continued well into the evening until the ceasers, snowboarding and sun-burn sent me home around 2am.

Yes, my snow season was over. But that was not the point. The point was that it happened.

Ciao for now. xo

I've Got The Music In Me

I haven't blogged about it much, but every Thursday night since arriving in Banff, I've been performing at Bruno's. I haven't blogged about it because it became such a regular part of my routine. I'd rock up, have a few beers, play a few songs with my muso-friend Lisa, do a few shots and stumble home to wake up with a hangover.

I mentioned it to a friend at work who has contacts all over town and next thing you know, I'd lined up another gig playing the piano at the Banff Park Lodge every Friday night. So I'd go along, drink a few waters, play a few songs, help myself to their seafood buffet and go home with a bit of cashola in my pocket.

So there I was, running a fairly self-sustainable side business as a musician in Banff without really trying. When my contract at the BPL ran out a few weeks ago due to their seafood buffet finishing, I was left with my un-paid, alcohol supplemented gig at Bruno's and thought that would be it until the end of the season.

But word got out, as it always does in Banff, and next thing you know my boss is lining me up another (paid) gig to play three hours each Saturday and Sunday at Creekside - the bar at the base of Sunshine Village. Knowing that I don't have enough songs, or enough voice, to hold out three hours, I invited my Bruno's buddy Lisa to join in with me.

So there we are on the mini-stage at our first performance at Creekside, doing the set we do each Thursday night at Bruno's, when the director of events from Sunshine walks in. In the middle of our gig, he pulls us to the side and asks us if we would like to open each Saturday for the head-lining acts on the mainstage at Sunshine's Spring Music Series. To which we answered,

"Um... HELL YEAH!"

So last Saturday, admist the sunshine at Sunshine, Lisa&Kristen played their very first mainstage show. Okay, so we were simply the opening act, but when you're plugged into a professional system, playing your own songs and hearing your own music amplified out among the masses, not to mention standing on a big fancy stage surrounded by big fancy equipment, you can't help but feel like a bit of a big, fancy rockstar.

We played for an hour, took about a bazillion photos, and then headed down to Creekside for our afternoon gig. I got home at six o'clock feeling absolutely wasted.

Like a true rockstar, minus the addictions.

Ciao for now. xo

The Sister Dearest Series: Part Two

I’ll admit - it was a little strange having Sister Dearest in Banff.

Strange in the way that absolutely nothing has changed in the 12 months since I’ve been out of the country. We still cracked the same personal jokes, still bantered like we were the Gilmore Girls, still obsessed over poached eggs and espresso coffee and still couldn’t understand when people said we looked exactly alike.

I just don’t see it, people.

I did my best to give Sister Dearest the royal Banff treatment, right down to pizza at Aardarks after stumbling home from a 2am dance session at HooDoo’s. It’s something she would probably prefer to forget, but midnight pizza is crucial to anyone’s overall Banff experience.

Thanks to it being Spring Break, I had to work most of the days she was here but we found time to ride most afternoons, leaving my days-off free for more interesting things.

Like dog-sledding.

Dog-sledding is a long-practiced Canadian tradition, originally used to transport produce and medicine back in the day when there were no highways or semi-trailers. Now, dog-sledding does more for the tourism trade than it does anything else, putting willing (and sometimes unwilling) tourists in the driving seat of seven over-excited huskies.

The dogs were gorgeous, but not quite as gorgeous as our tour guide, Phil. Phil was especially gorgeous when he was holding a puppy. I regret to admit, I may have shamelessly lusted in his direction in hope that we might live happily ever after in his mountain lodge.

After Phil and the huskies, Sister Dearest and I took a break from Sunshine and went riding at Lake Louise. I hadn’t been to The Lake since the start of the season when the runs were covered in ice and the snow-guns were working overtime. I was pleasantly surprised at the conditions and the steeper terrain, a welcome change from Sunshine. We spent the better part of an hour building a pathetic-looking kicker off a green run on Larch and the better part of an hour throwing ourselves off it as we took photos.

The expiry date on Sister Dearest and I’s time together came all too quickly and before I knew it, I was standing on the footpath waving goodbye to her as she headed back to Calgary airport. Being back together after so long apart was like reuniting Lorelei and Rory and then cancelling the Gilmore Girls all over again.

Who knows when we will see each other again, but until then, we will always have our memories of Banff.

And Phil.

Ciao for now. xo

I Come From The Land Down Under

Ever since leaving home, there has been one celebration I have looked forward to with great expectation.

I considered my birthday, Halloween, Christmas and New Years Eve combined to be nothing in comparison to celebrating the one day a year when Australians are allowed to do what we do best - eat vegemite and meat pies, sizzle sausages, wear wife-beaters, reap the sunny rewards of our hole in the ozone layer and drink beer. Lots and lots of beer.

Usually, I would do all this in a bikini on the shoreline of my favourite Australian beach.

This year, I did it on the snowy plateau of Sunshine Village.

In Banff, Australia Day is regarded by Canadian locals and non-Australian internationals as the only acceptable day to stay as far away from the ski hill as humanly possible. For Australians, it's regarded as the one day when we can drink, eat, wear and behave like the rowdy bogans we all know we are, while standing in -15 weather.

Dressed in as much Australian paraphernalia as I could don - Australian flag shirt, Australian flag tattoos, Australian flag banadana and... an Australian flag, I made my way to the top of hill by 11am. Unlike many of the other Aussies celebrating in Banff, I did not stay up until the crack of dawn to see in Triple J's Hottest 100 song. Bright-eyed, bushy tailed and  flag-bearing, I snowboarded my favourite runs and then headed to Trappers

where an organised staff party was being held complete with VB and Toohey's Extra Dry bottles, 'Aussie' burgers with a beef pattie, fried egg, beetroot, pineapple, tomato and lettuce, home-made meat pies and a hundred of my closest, drunkest, rowdiest Australian 'mates'.

After I'd drank a few too many Toohey's - affectionately referred to as Teddy's and of which I wouldn't ever otherwise drink if it weren't for the sake of national pride - and initiated a few too many Jager shots, it was fair to say I was in a pretty good mood. I went snowboarding, which at the time seemed like the smartest idea, but in retrospect was probably the wintery equivalent of drinking and driving and where I would have certainly lost my license had snow patrol been bearing breathelizers. Being alcoholically-fueled however, proved a great source of confidence on the slopes and I probably fell over less than if I was stone-cold sober as well as just plain stone-cold.

I may have been tipsy from the alcohol, but what made me all the more drunk was the pure happiness of simply being from Australia and celebrating my home-country like I had never celebrated if before. Sure, there was the occassional pang for home as I thought about how I would have spent the day lying at Tamara Beach with Sister Dearest, but surrounded by Aussies shouting 'Oi Oi Oi' and my neighbours attempting to toboggan down Strawberry run on a blowup Australian thong, I certainly felt more Australian than all the Australia Days I'd spent at home.

And while I may be losing my Australian accent more and more and consider watching ice hockey more thrilling than cricket, I still try to walk down the left hand side of the pathway.

I haven't converted just yet.

Ciao for now. xo

Bless Me Father, For I Am Travelling

I spent the better part of yesterday morning reading back over my blogs from camp and the earlier posts of my travels around America. I do this every now and again, as narcisistic as that might seem. Sometimes it's to torture myself at how much I still miss Appel Farm and the friends I made there. Sometimes it's to comfort myself. Sometimes it's to gain a little perspective.

I've been in Canada for two months now and consider myself fairly settled.  I have friends who are more like family, a job that drags my butt out of bed each day and a local pub where the bouncer no longer bothers to check my ID. I don't have to plan how or where I'm going to get my dinner each night or fight for a position in front of the stove in a hostel kitchen. I have my own kitchen cupboard and a shelf in the fridge and cooking a healthy dinner for myself remains a blessing I can count. In all respects, I feel like I've established a life in Banff.

Which is why I return to my blog posts every now and again - to remind myself that as settled as I might be, I am still a traveller. My feet might be grounded for six months, my backpack empty and stored in the cupboard beneath the stairs, its contents easily accesible in my bedroom closet. But just like when I was jumping buses every other day, bound for a new city with temporary friends and uncomfortable hostel beds, I should still be waking up each morning with that zeal for travelling, that appreciation for everything around me and everything I am experiencing, no matter how settled I might feel.

I remembered this yesterday when I was boarding at Sunshine. I was walking to the gondola with a snowboard under one arm and the snow beneath my feet and I remembered how removed I am from the life I was living in Sydney. Once upon a time I was sitting at my kitchen table struggling to believe I would ever be able to tell travel stories like my family and now travel stories are my reality. Tomorrow, I will go to work on a snow-capped mountain in a country on the other side of the world to my own.

Tomorrow is another day of travelling.

Ciao for now. xo

Halloweening (Off-a the Candy)

It's been an eventful week in Banff, Alberta as me and my new housemates settled into our new home and tried to establish some sort of normalcy in our lives.  But it's hard to feel normal when every day seems to offer up some new Canadian experience.

This week, it was Halloween.

The costumes were outrageous, the candy consumed phenomenal and I'm not even talking about the kids. Trick-or-Treat is a child's game. Trick-or-Try-and-get-as-drunk-as-possible-while-dressed-up-in-a-skantily-clad-costume is the adult interpretation.

Halloween at the Muskrat St house didn't get off to a stereotypical start. We left it until the day of Halloween to buy our pumpkin to carve, only to find out that Banff, and probably the entirity of Alberta, was completely sold out of pumpkins. We didn't bother to buy any candy to hand out and none of our costumes were inspired by porn stars or showed a jaw-dropping amount of flesh (it's just too damn cold for that sort of thing).

But dress up we did - a pirate, an 80s skier, an All Black and a rastifarian - and when we woke the next morning, the demolished pumpkin heads lining the streets weren't the only heads that felt like they'd been kicked in.

This week also marked my first day of work and my first visit to the top of Sunshine Mountain (I was, quite literally, walking on Sunshine). I met the team I'll be working with over the next eight months, started the mass preparation that is setting up Trappers and got a feel for what life is going to be like working up on the mountain. As Sunshine isn't officially open yet (and won't open for at least another week), a lot of the runs remain untouched. That's right, smooth, white untouched powder - like icing on a cake - just begging to be carved across.

And carve across it I will on my beautiful new Arbor snowboard, which waits patiently for me at the ski and snow store in Banff. With my official start day at Trappers still a week away and pay day another fortnight after that, I haven't been able to formally purchase my snowboarding gear and have consequently, set up lay-by debts in multiple stores around Banff. It's either eat, or buy my board. Tricky... very tricky.

But the real blast out of the blue this week came in the form of an open mic night at Bruno's Bar and Grill. Still living a little off the high of performing at Appel Farm, I put myself back on stage and busted out a few original songs at the open mic night for a crowd of appreciative music fans. What resulted was the supervisor asking me to play a regular set at the bar every Thursday night, unpaid but compensated in drinks. It's going to be advertised in the local newspaper, my new friend Jay-the-bongo-player is going to back me up on percussion, they're going to provide me with a guitar to play on and I get to play whatever I want.

Missy Higgins, here I come.

Ciao for now. xo

You Are My Sunshine

Well, readers. It's official.

I am employed!

After a little over a week of nauseating impatience, Sunshine Mountain finally contacted me this morning to let me know the blessed news. I have been hired as a server by Mad Trappers, one of the top bar and restaurants on the mountain.

Hello, gratuities.

And if that's not enough good news, I have moved out of the Samesun Hostel and into my very own house. In a twist of absolute fate, myself and two New Zealand sisters I met at the Samesun managed to sweet-talk our way into a beautiful, two bedroom cabin/apartment a block away from Banff Ave, the main street of Banff. We are cramming five people into our little chalet - the two sisters and myself in one room and two male friends of the sisters in the other. Our landlord is providing us with five single beds, a couch and a coffee table and with the kitchen already decked out with a fridge, microwave, (self-cleaning) oven and dishwasher, not to mention a washer and dryer, all we are left to do is make a trip to the Calgary Walmart to collect kitchen equipment and bedding! I managed to pick up some sheets, blankets and a TV in Banff so we're half way there already.

We officially moved in this morning and had a joint welcome/21st Birthday celebration for Ciahn, which involved pancakes, berries, icecream and champagne. I spilt the champagne on the floor so the apartment is offically christened.

So after a few worrying weeks spent not knowing if everything was going to work out, if I was going to get a job, if I was going to find somewhere to live, if I was going to have to leave Banff, if I was going to have to go home to Australia with my tail between my legs, everything has worked out (like everyone I complained to promised me it would.)

But everyone who knew me before I started this journey also knew how much this all meant to me. How long I had waited to be here and how much frustration and disappointment after disappointment I had gone through before I finally boarded that plane bound for the USA. I spent a long time building this experience up in my head, hearing other people's stories and developing my own preconceptions for what living and working at the snow was going to be like. Sometimes this has been to my detriment, as when things haven't turned out the way I expected, I've discounted them. But I'm fast learning (and being reminded) that this is my time and it's not necessarily going to be like everybody else's experiences. That doesn't make it better or worse, just mine. I expected to be living in staff accommodation on the hill. Now, I'm living in a wicked house with two sisters whom I love and a kitchen which allows me to cook whatever and whenever I want.

And not only did I move in and get offered a job today, but it has started snowing.

And they say, it isn't going to stop.

Ciao for now. xo

If You Love Canada, Put Your Hands Up!

USA. Shmoo-SA.

Canada is where it's at.

I hate to play favourites, especially given all the amazing and diverse places I've been in the last four months, but I'm sorry US of A, if you and Canada where in a beauty pagent, Canada would win the crown.

I am not even going to attempt to describe how beautiful this country is. I feel like no cliches or original lines of immaculate verse could do justice to the picturesque views that reveal themselves around every bend in the road. Since I arrived in Cranbrook, British Columbia on Saturday, I've been literally dragging my jaw behind me like a stubborn puppy. Every window I look out of, every hill I reach the top of, every valley which appears before me leaves me speechless. There is nothing in Australia and nothing I have seen in the last four months which compares to the towering mountains and kilometre after kilometre of green and gold pine trees which cover the country side. It's so beautiful, it feels like I've fallen into a postcard.

The mind-numbing, 14-hour trip to get across the American border to Canada was all worth it when I touched down in Cranbrook and was met by the happy face of Stephanie Murray, long-time friend who I met in high school while she was on exchange. As always, it felt nice to be back in the company of someone I'd known for more than a few days and even nicer when she took me back to her house and welcomed me into my own room, with a private bathroom. Is this resort living, or what?

In a wicked twist of fate, I managed to time my arrival in Canada on the weekend of Thanksgiving so Saturday and Sunday nights were spent in the company of Steph's family who introduced me to the festive holiday that celebrates the harvest. In a few words, Thanksgiving is like Christmas, but without the presents. All you do is eat. Turkey, lamb, ham, potatoes, yams, cranberries, vegetable casserole, gravy and of course, pumpkin pie. All this goes down with a few glasses of red wine and a much needed nap after the feasting is done.

While I'm calling Cranbrook home-base for now, I left today to pursue the reason I came to Canada in the first place. Work. After a four hour bus drive to Alberta which wound through even more mind-bogglingly beautiful countryside - I'm talking streams so icy blue they could be made of glass and mountains covered in the skeletons of wind-burnt pine trees - I arrived in Banff. Tomorrow, I head to my interview at the Banff Job Fair, where fingers, toes and fallopian tubes crossed, I secure myself a job and accommodation at Sunshine Mountain, where the next snowy part of my journey begins.

Everytime I arrive in a new place, I think my travels can not get any better, that my current experience can not be trumped. After arriving in Banff, anything more and I think I might die of aesthetic happiness.

PS. Except that it is FREAKING COLD!

Ciao for now. xo