Friday 29 November 2013

The Perks and the Bummers

We have been working in Lake Louise for about a month now!

What all of us have noticed is that each department has different perks. For all those out there who are looking at coming to work here and have ALL those options the Working Holiday Club give you, we would like to make it a little easier for your decision making. Keep in mind that these can definitely change next winter season.
Photo by Chris Moseley

Food & Beverage
Perks
  • Free food and drink - if the expiry or best before date is passed, and your manager gives you the ok, you can take them home for yourself. This includes unsold food like pizza, popcorn, steamed milk (coffee/hot chocolate), cookies baked the day prior, muesli bars made the day prior, pastries, etc. 
  • The 7am start or a 10am start - The 7 am start means you will finish at 3:30pm, it gives you maybe time for 2-3 runs in the afternoon. If you start at 10, you will finish at 6:30pm but you get a sleep in and you also have a whole hour to play with before you start work. 
  • Its SO much fun! We have some awesome managers who realise that our work can be a bit overwhelming and busy, so as long as we are working, we are allowed to chat to each other and have a bit of fun. Gill and I often dance behind our counters - its not only fun for us but the customer sees it as happy employees.
Bummers
  • Its busy - yes your day will go fast but you will have times where you are flat out standing behind the counter for hours. Thats not so bad but it does exhaust you really fast.
  • No ride breaks - we don't get any ride breaks. Even if you work at Temple (the cafeteria on top of the mountain) you need to catch a lift up, walk there and catch a lift down. While you're on the clock, you cannot ride -- I will mention that they have reasons for this due to previous staff.
  • Long hours and only a half hour break. Every shift you work goes for 8.5 hours. Its not that bad but I do miss split shifts and half day shifts.

Guest Services
Perks
  • Indoors and outdoors - You get a bit of everything! You might be mountain greeting, in the switchboard room answering calls or on ticket sales. This changes up a lot so you're not always stuck doing the same ole thing all the time.
  • Split shifts - You might get lucky and have a split shift, starting the day as a mountain greeter, getting something like a 2-4 hour break and then having a shift in the switchboard room. So you get a bit more time to ride.
  • $10 - for every person you catch "doing the dirty" on the mountain - using someone else's lift ticket, having a youth pass and being over 18, etc, you get $10 for catching them out!
Bummers
  • Not always the greatest of fun - I have heard from friends that it can be very boring sometimes, that they are under strict rules (no drinks allowed for example) and that it wasn't what they expected.
  • The cold - it is about to get freezing here and for those of you who aren't so keen on the cold, you will be out in it mountain greeting some days--- then again, this could be a huge positive for others who love the cold! Just keep in mind that for 2 months it will get to the -30's.
  • The customers - We all get them of course but unfortunately for Guest Services, they get the good customers and the ones that are complaining and aren't so friendly.
Lifties
Perks
  • Ride Breaks - Yes, as a liftie you will get ride breaks! You can only ride the green runs but hey, thats better than nothing! You also get longer and more breaks than other departments!
  • Fresh air - the air might be brisk but your outside all the time, that can be a huge perk! It is cold though so its not really for the faint hearted, those who smoke heavily or anyone who considers themselves a summer person.
  • Good hours - you have early starts or late starts and also on occasion an early finish. The hours are good though, sometimes you can be working 10 hour days ---- lots of money!
Bummers
  • Shovelling snow - its forever snowing and someone needs to shovel it. This will tire your entire body and doing it in the cold feels worse. 
  • It gets lonely - You are working by yourself a lot of the time and find yourself bored and wanting someone to talk to. 
  • No toilets! If you have a weak bladder, you don't want this job. You will be working for hours before having a toilet break! Let's jus say that peeing in bottles is something they allow and take seriously.

Snowmakers
Perks
  • Shift work! Four days working, three days off. You will have board time for sure!! Also, working days or nights. If you're on night shift, more time to board in the day.
  • Plenty of time to ski or board!
  • Guaranteed work at the start of the season!
Bummers
  • Night shift in the cold has gotta suck! Frost bite has and will continue to happen.
  • Coming home when your friends are off to work - visa versa - going to work when your friends are going out.
  • Its a lot of hard work and unfortunately your job ends sooner than others during the season.
  • If you're in a relationship, not the best position for you!
Servers
Perks
  • Tips - and you get to keep them to! So you make a lot more money on the side!
  • Late starts - Because the restaurants don't open till late, you get a bit of a sleep in or first tracks.
  • Always kept busy - You will have a lot of fun but also you will be kept busy so your shifts go by quickly.
Bummers
  • Late to finish - you will have late nights! That is expected though in a server position.
  • It is a serious fast passed industry, it includes serving at weddings and other events, its fun but very rushed.
  • Limited transportation - because you finish late you need to call security to drive you home.
Rentals
Perks
  • You have free rentals! If you want to learn how to ski or snowboard you have free rentals for YOURSELF (not partners or friends) -- thats pretty awesome!
  • Repairs gives you a discount - because you guys are working in close quarters, you make friends quickly and you get a discount on repairs.
  • Ride breaks - yes, rentals gets ride breaks to! Again, strictly green runs!
  • Its a lot of fun.
Bummers
  • Can have some boring moments when its not so busy.
  • Messy work scrubbing down boots, skis and boards.
Retail 
Perks
  • Indoors and relaxed - it always looks relaxed in the retail shop and you don't need to go outside.
Bummers
  • Its another position that can be boring at times.
  • Random, but its next to the woman's bathroom and if anything is wrong in there, customers complain to retail.
  • Again, no ride breaks.

These are really just a few of the HEAPS of positions available at Lake Louise and are some we have heard about and seen first hand. All the positions here have many positives, I would really like working anywhere here!! But just in case you're looking to work here and if you have no idea of what position to apply for, I really hope this helped. Feel free to comment if you have any questions about the positions and maybe we can find out for you first hand from people who are in the position now. 

If I had to choose though, it would be otherwise Food and Beverage or Rentals. Colin's top choices are Trail Crew or Liftie. 

Friday 22 November 2013

Hot Tub Time Machine

Hello there bloggers,

I have a lot I want to write about and have been writing a list of topics... sooooo today's blog is a little bit of a mixture from the past few days. My final say at work, before my 2 days off, I was in the worst of emotional states --- home sickness! It was like a triple wammy, my little gorgeous amazing talented sister got into the Australian Institute of Music!!! I am so proud and so so happy for her!! She also just graduated and had her formal in which she looked so incredibly stunning! My mum was telling me all about it and I just really wanted to be there. I wanted to hug my Kathy and tell her how proud I was! I then saw the celebration photos, I wanted to join in with my family having a family dinner and being close with them. Finally, my parents have decided that they can't visit me in Canada, and thats ok, I completely understand but I guess it all kinda hits home rather quickly. I miss my family a lot and even though I am really enjoying myself here, I wish I could just pop home for a few hours.

This thought festered and caused a bad, sad, annoying day of work. I was glad when it was over but it didn't stop me from having a little cry in my room. I am so very lucky to have my Colin Monster with me though! He keeps me sane and I would't know what I'd do without him. That night we watched cartoons and All Ollie Adventures next door and I was really reminded of my amazing family that I do have here with me!

On our first day off, I had a bit of a nasty stack on first tracks, packed groomed snow! It wasn't the nicest! I may have a strained muscle in my outer thigh and bruising to my lower back. Oops! So snowboarding has been out since then. Instead, Colin and I went for an amazing walk along the river and had a bit of play time in the snow!

I can't stress enough how absolutely beautiful Lake Louise is! It is almost mind blowing! The bright blue sky in contrast with the soft white snow. My favourite part of our walk was watching the teal coloured water run fluidly over rocks and suddenly become still as it washes underneath the bright crystallised ice. Although I am excited to see the rivers and lakes when they are completely frozen over, seeing it in a state of transformation blew me away.

Colin also has a fascination with kicking trees! I have to say, the moment that came in as a close second was when Colin kicked a tree, pulled me in close and we watched and felt the soft, light snowflakes pour down around us. A little corny and romantic --- I know, but its a memory that will last forever.

When we reached our apartment we baked a birthday cake for the beautiful Gill! And went for our first hot tub time machine experience. We had James, Gill, Daniel, Darcy, Sarah, Ollie, Chelsea, John, Colin and I in a giant hot tub soaking in the amazing warm water! If you are ever in the snow for a long extended period of time, this feeling is just exquisite! The heat from the hot tub is juxtaposed to the coolness of your skin. In Australian summer we would say "no the pool is too cold still", and ease into the pool slowly. It was the same but in reverse, our bodies were just not use to being that warm that fast! Note: take a bottle of water!!

 After our hot tub trip through time, we had a giant family spaggetti bolognese dinner to celebrate our gorgeous girl Gill turning 24! Happy Birthday Gill! I consider you one of my close girl friends and am so happy I will be your next door neighbour and dancing F&B colleague for the next 5 months!! Colin and I love you!!




JUICY MEATBALLS!

Will be writing again very soon.
x

Saturday 16 November 2013

Melbourne Cup

Sorry for the delay, took a while to get the video...

It is a well known Australian tradition! "The Race that Stops the Nation!"

It stopped us in Canada! Lucky Australia is a day ahead, 5 hours behind because it was 9pm when the race started! We had time to get home from work, shower, eat and prep ourselves!

The night wasn't exactly a big one for Colin or I because Colin had training today but it didn't stop us from having some fun! We tried so hard to find a live FREE streaming of the race online but no luck. We did get the commentary online though, so we made drinking bets on which horse would place and had some fun with it. Of course, none of the Aussies won and the only Canadian in the room is owed something like 10 beers! WHAT HAPPENED MASKED MARVAL?!

We then played some horse racing card games, betting drinks -- it was a little bit more exciting than the Melbourne Cup haha! I hope it gives you a laugh.


Natural Beauty

Since arriving in Lake Louise it has been safe to say Jess has worked more than I have. I started off with an entire week off and since the snow has not been falling in abundance we have only been running one of the lifts, and as of yesterday the Gondola also opened. It was a lesson learnt working at Ski Rider back home, don't coup yourself up inside otherwise you will go crazy, so I had to entertain myself some how.



Simple solution, I am in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, The Canadian Rockies! You could walk around for hours and still be amazed by the simplest of things. When we first arrived there wasn't any snow, not good for somebody who is here to ski or snowboard right? Wrong! The beauty of the Rockies isn't the snow covering it, more what the snow covers.








If you remember reading about Jess's birthday which we blogged about, we built a snowman. The snow fell the night before so what would we have done had there been no snow to make a snow man? We would have enjoyed the sunshine, sat by the river and embraced Spring in the Rockies! Oh and we definitely would have made one of these guys, an Inuksuk.





An Inuksuk is a stone monument, traditionally constructed by the Inuits. Most commonly depicting human form in Western interpretation they were rock forms used for marking out the terrain either for navigation or food caches. The one pictured to the left I found on the bank of the Bow River while walking around, something I would have completely missed had it been covered by snow.







Since the first snowfall we awoke to on November 2nd, we have had smaller amounts of snowfall almost daily but still not enough to open the entire mountain for us keen skiers and boarders! So rather than fight the crowds trying to pack it onto the few runs we have open, I have continued to wander around and take in mother nature and her beauty.








In the summer the village is surrounded by walking trails, not very fun though come winter when you have to walk through knee deep snow... This is where I get excited because I am keen to strap on a pair of cross-country skis and enjoy these now 'cross-country ski trails'.





The second reason I am keen to learn how to cross-country ski is because part of the Lake Louise Ski Area's property includes the Skoki Lodge. Skoki lodge is the premium back country lodge of the Rockies, so well known that when Prince William and Kate were honey-mooning they spent a couple of nights there. So if its fit for a Prince and the Future King of England I think it will do for Jess and I.



So as I conclude my post for today, I noticed it was just a load of ramble from me but I hope it was insightful and opened your eyes that we aren't just here to snowboard. We are here to experience Canada, its culture and to embrace our surroundings.
Colin out.

Thursday 14 November 2013

First Tracks

First tracks starts with opening weekend, Friday 8th of November. Jess was rostered on to work however I had the whole weekend off because we only had 1 lift in operation. The same night we had the season opening party at the Lodge of Ten Peaks which was a staff only event.

Unfortunately Jess was exhausted from a full week of work and decided to stay in for the party, not to mention we didn't leave Chucktown until 11pm and she started at 7am the following morning. So for all intensive purposes I volunteered to party on and see what the night would hold, unfortunately we were all vastly disappointed thinking we would have been better off drinking in the common room. Over priced drinks, bad music, and a few raffles which nobody knew anything about. Seemed like we would have been better off drinking in the common room to be honest.

I didn't make it up the mountain until Monday, Jess and I both had Sunday off however opted to venture to Banff and do some groceries and most importantly eat Chili's! It did not disappoint, it was a lovely restaurant compared to what we were expecting from Australian experiences.

With one lift open I rode up the mountain with Scott while Jess worked hard down in the cafeteria. We hadn't had fresh snow and I wasn't expecting it to be that good in all honesty, I was surprised to say the least! When Perisher opened one run, it was a 2minute ride down the lift line, here though was a different story. It was a longer run, although it was marked as a green (Beginner) run it seemed like a blue (Intermediate) run in parts and was an enjoyable ride with an incredibly beautiful view of Lake Louise. That was my first tracks, so now I will let Jess share hers.

Today was AMAZEBALLS!

First day off in a bit, first day to actually do something awesome! I must say, I really amped myself up for today, every customer I saw yesterday during my shift was asking if I had been up the mountain yet and I had to say no, I was keen to change that! Colin told me though that he was working! It was so disappointing! I am terrified of getting off chair lifts and I was in the mind set that I couldn't do it without my amazing safety net Colin to catch me and look after me when I fall. So I figured I would go up and practice on the bunny hill.

I was very lucky to have my day off line up with Bonnie's!! So even though I slept in and caught the last bus up, Bonnie was there! We went to the bunny hill first and it was so icey! The man made snow is just so bad!! After 5 seconds of riding down and hating it, I said "Screw this shit, lets go up the top!" and to be 100% honest with you, I wasn't too nervous! I was filled with confidence! Bonnie knew my previous bad experiences with chair lifts and was the perfect person with me, she kept my mind off it and I came off fine, I did catch an edge and fall at the end but I made it to the top relatively fine! I was so excited!

We took the first run slowly, stopping every now and then when I stacked it and when we wanted to take some photos! A perfect blue bird day at first! I was riding in a dry ride, didn't need a big puffy jacket at all even though it was apparently -5 degrees. I was so excited to do a full run, the first one took us probably an hour. Because only the one run has been open we just repeated it which was perfect because I really needed to practice and build my confidence up again. I did 5 runs total and by the end of the day, on my last run I was linking my turns, riding switch and riding on the flat of my board! It was perfect, I can now ride chair lifts confidently as well, I didn't fall after the first time! I am really incredibly happy with how my first day boarding went! I did stack a few times but I put that down to pushing myself hard to do well!

I couldn't of done it without Bonnie! She was with me all day supporting me and being über patient with me! I honestly have never been able to snowboard with anyone without Colin, so I was really happy to have an awesome girl friend around!

Perfect first day of snowboarding!!


Monday 4 November 2013

Canadian Birthday!!

Jess here!

Another whole year older! The day after Halloween (forever shall be known as hangover day) was my Australian birthday! I had been receiving so many messages from family and friends back at home wishing me a happy birthday (mainly on my Facebook wall). It was great but at the same time it made me very very home sick! All I wanted was to be home, about to go to dinner at my favourite restaurant Luigi's with those I love most in this world. But I knew where I would be this year and I had to suck it up!!


When I woke on my Canadian Birthday the day started amazing, I was relaxed, made myself an awesome breakfast and oh yeah, it SNOWED! We hadn't seen it snow yet but it happened! It was snowing in Lake Louise and it was just so beautiful! It honestly didn't take me long to put on my snow pants and to go for a walk outside with my monster man Colin. I wanted to get some photos printed to put on our wall. He bought me a coffee and we began wandering down to the river. Colin distracted me by pointing at something in the distance then turned me around quickly to find a surprise party starting in the picnic area!


I was actually very surprised! Colin isn't great with surprising me, he always gives something away but I was genuinely shocked! It was awesome to see my new awesome friends (also known as my Lake Louise Family)!! They had balloons that shone bright colours in the snow. There was singing, candy and then of course we started building a snow man!

It was so lucky we had Alan our Canadian buddy to help us roll up snow properly, or the snowman would of been a massive fail! Then there was a massive snow fight! Lets just say I got back to our room soaking wet! It was so much fun and I am so so so very lucky to have such awesome friends already here with me!

There was time to chillax, bake cookies, eat nachos and then move to the common room to consume ALCOHOL! I may have treated myself to a very delicious Italian Moscato! We played pool, beer pong and there was more singing with an amazing cake made by Gill and Darcy!

Considering it was a day I was dreading due to home sickness, it turned out to be an amazing one! So a big shout out to those who really have made me feel like apart of the family and who I can't wait to spend the next 6 months with! Thank you, Colin, Scott, Alan, Chelsea, Gill, James, Darcy, Daniel, Ollie, Bonnie, Sarah and Dave! Love you guys!



Halloween

Colin here! Since last time you heard from me not much has really happened for me. It has been a hectic couple of days for Jess, but for me I have been bored out of my mind. It took 30 days of not working to send me insane..


Jess started work on Monday, I am yet to start so have been doing my best to not spend money, kill time and stay sane. Luckily on Wednesday a group of us had the day off so we decided to rent a minivan and go on a road trip to Calgary. We were all on a mission, our target destination IKEA!


I volunteered to drive as I had the most experience driving on the right hand side of the road and we were off. The company was great, by my side I had Jess (Mum) and in the back was Ollie, Dan and Bonnie (The Kids). There wasn't any real quiet moments during the drive, ohh except for the awkward silences when we made somebody feel awkward..


Once we hit IKEA we were in and out with what we needed, and many other things that we found along the way. After IKEA we had some lunch and we were on the hunt for a Thrift shop (Op Shop) so we could piece together our Halloween costumes. Everything started to go downhill from here..

Somehow we all got this idea into our head to go in drag, as old ladies and gentleman. Jess was the not so gentlemanly gentleman, and played it a bit too well for some people to feel comfortable about it. The party started in room 107 aka The Beast, all rooms in Chucktown are nicknamed after a ski run. Next move was to the Common room for the party, which would ultimately become to pre-party party.  Following the common room we were all drunk enough to walk down the road to continue this party. It gets a little hazy from there but all in all it was an amazing night to celebrate our first Halloween!

Today was nothing too crazy, Jess received an abundance of Happy Birthday messages even though its not her Canadian birthday. That comes tomorrow!