A Chucktown Christmas!

Christmas has been going for weeks! There has been a marvellous Christmas tree in the Lodge of Ten Peaks, carols on repeat and constant packages arriving from home! We have seen Christmas lights all bright and shiny along Banff's streets and we have done some Christmassy shenanigans like drinking eggnog, doing Secret Santa and wrapping fake gifts to random apartments haha.

I am already missing the cheer of Christmas! We had Santa and his Elves with us for 3 days!! Colin and I both had to work on Christmas eve and day! That wasn't so fun as such but it had to be done.. Surprisingly enough, Christmas day wasn't busy at all. We got home nice and early and started drinking! Colin has already started covering some mini hams in a delicious honey maple glaze as well. We went to apartment 204 for the best dinner ever!! We had 3 chefs and one Canadian rocking out the food! We had a massive ham, duck, turkey, sauces, candy bacon, salads, breads, some amazing eggplant thing… oh my God!! This dinner was more epic and stupendous than I could of ever dreamed!

I am use to a massive family dinner down the coast with my amazing Grandmother and my dad's side of the family! It's always filled with people, love, chocolate, huge amounts of amazing food, acoustic music, wine and sun! I really really miss that! My fondest memories of Christmas is always because of the company I am with. My amazing friends, my gorgeous girls, my beautiful sisters and my ginormous family.. sorry ---- a little home sick.

So we ate! We ate amazing food by amazing people!!! I was SOOOOOO full! I filled up on really sweet and cheap cider… that was also probably the main cause of my drunkeness.. We went to the common room to play beer pong and socialise with our Lake Louise family! It was so perfect! We really had a lot of fun and had a very chilled night for our first Christmas as fiancés! I am so glad we could spend it with all the perfect friends we have made!!

Boxing day, was our day off!! And it was the perfect day for a sleep in and to see the magical ice castle together …. and then the Hobbit (AMAZING MOVIE!!).

I hope everyone out there had a very very Merry Christmas!
xx

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

For our staff Lake Louise Christmas Party, we had a themed party - the good, the bad and the ugly! In Aus, we don't have a white Christmas. Its all beaches, singlets and thongs for us but here its COLD! So ugly Christmas sweaters around this time is the norm. I have never really seen one except for on TV.

When I saw the party invitation, I got super excited to buy a corny Christmas sweater and was curious as to where I'd find one… it wasn't hard. One store in Banff had a stock load full of Ugly Christmas Sweaters and advertised them accordingly!! It was pretty funny. A lot of my friends couldn't justify spending $30 on an ugly sweater though (including Colin) understandably as well. So a lot of people didn't get dressed up for it. My theory was to wear a nice dress and pretty myself up so it balances out.

The night was awesome!! We caught a 5:30pm bus into the Lodge of Ten Peaks. There we received two free drink tickets and a dinner ticket. We found our circle of people and started drinking. The Starbucks was turned into a bar and the cafeteria into a buffet. We filled our plates with so much amazing food!! The chefs of Lake Louise out did themselves!! We had turkey, stuffing, 5 different types of salad (including pasta salad), rice and cranberry, cranberry sauce, gravy and then THREE DIFFERENT DESSERTS!! It was a feast fit for kings! And it was perfectly delicious! We all came out with turkey comas!

After that there was some prize giveaways and a lovely speech from the man himself - Charlie Locke. He is such a kind loving sweet person!! From then on it was drinking and socialising. We continued the party in the common room until closing, beer pong, pool, foosball and dancing was partaken in!

It was good to celebrate Christmas with our new Lake Louise family!! It was very much like most nights in the common room but I guess it was the amazing giant dinner that brought us all closer together!

Thank you to Chef, Charlie Locke, all our managers and everyone who went, for the amazing dinner and amazing memories we will hold forever!

Now to prepare for the upcoming incredibly busy weeks!!!

You win some. You lose some

This blog post is just about the past few weeks that have had some highlights and then some differences. Firstly, I want to talk about house mates. Its no secret that some house mates are better than others and it sucks that we can’t pick and choose who we want to live with – but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Our house is actually pretty good, we get along, clean after ourselves and we live with Scott who came with us from Aus!! There is just one house mate who isn’t really a team player or a nice person. It wasn’t so bad until his girlfriend decided to move in as well (not really allowed) and now we have two negative people in the house who are loud and not do any basic chores. But hey, we just need to keep our fingers crossed that they decide to get a couple room and will move the hell out!!!!

I think we really lucked out with everyone else though!! We have Dave who is just so chilled, likes being social, always fun and positive and really is great for a good or stupid conversation! He also conducts funny little experiments that always turn out awesome. One, for example, was wrapping a warm can of beer or soft drink/pop in a paper towel, running it under water and putting it in the freezer, 5 minutes later, it’s at that perfect cold temperature to drink. Ironically, putting the can outside in this -30 degree cold would probably do the same thing. But yes Dave is heaps awesome, not to mention he also put up with and did not correct Colin when he was calling him Matt for a couple of days.

We also had Alan, our Canadian. He is definitely one of a kind! He was always fun to have around  the house to talk to and go out with. I think you have probably noticed the past tense. Well Alan was with us for just over a month I think, and then the smart cookie was promoted into an accounting position! GO ALAN!!! So he’s been moved to a single room to the apartment below us. Its lucky for us that we still get to hang with him in our group of friends.

And so, we now have a new house mate!! You see, we are at max capacity at Charleston and the late starting staff are at the Great Divide Lodge or the Stables which is hard on them! Less buses, further away and cramped. I was a bit nervous to see who it was, I am the only girl in a house full of men, so I really didn’t want some ass hole to move in. I was over the moon when I found out it was Archie! I met Archie in the common room a week or so ago, we had a random drunken conversation about art. The best thing is, he’s a kiwi!!! The gorgeous New Zealand accent will always make me smile but Archie is also such a fun loving, care free, relaxed kind of person!!! Makes me so happy to have such a lovely person living with us!

Finally, we have Scott. I don’t think we have talked about him much in the past on our blog. So Colin went to high school with Scott and has been friends with him for a long time. I have known Scott for about 4 years now. Colin and I had already started planning our trip to Canada when we invited Scott. To take the adventure with us. Its so good having a piece of home with us.

So that’s what’s been going on in apartment 304, but there was another thing I wanted to share. The other week I had the awesome opportunity to decorate Lake Louise Ski Resort for Christmas! We have a giant Christmas tree in the Lodge of Ten Peaks, fairy lights in Whiskey Jack and then bits and pieces of sparkly Christmas spirit everywhere in between. One of the downfalls of my magical day however was my work jacket being stolen along with my phone and my bank card. I would like to clarify that when say stolen, I mean, I took my jacket off, put it near the decorations and my drink on a table, went up a ladder to staple gun decorations up high on an architrave to find my jacket gone when I came down.

My first instinct was to check if one of my colleges had borrowed it, but unfortunately no one did.  I was very thankful to have my manager Ben around, he helped me look everywhere for it, file a ‘missing’ report and asked all the managers of different departments to keep their eyes open for it. After a little cry, all I could do was work. A few days had passed and nothing. I had to cancel my phone and bank card and file a police report. I am really shocked and sad someone decided to nick a jacket with my $800 phone. So yes people, even in the nice town of Lake Louise in the sweet country of Canada, things still get stolen.

So there you have it, you win some and you lose some. Its life though, you always need the bad to make you appreciate the good. I am so lucky to have my amazing man Colin to help me through some of the more stressful times and then also to bitch with haha. I just keep remembering that I am doing something amazing and am living in one of the most beautiful winter wonderlands in the world!

J

Seattle to Vancouver

Seattle is very much a snuggle area! From being in nice hot weather, finally we were in overcast foggy and chilly conditions - which just makes us instantly want to snuggle up and do nothing..

That's practically all we did on our first afternoon! We checked into the AMAZING Hotel Hotel then sat in the common room on our laptops for ages. When it came to dinner time, Colin had to really talk me into going outside for a walk around the streets. We walked around the streets for about an hour and a half before deciding on having pies at Pie - a little cafe pie shop next to our hostel! Amaze-balls pie though! If you get a chance, pop in and grab an English Meat Pie! It actually tastes like a good Aussie one! The staff were über friendly as well, we even cut up and shared our Voodoo Doughnuts with them (partly avoiding eating so many). Afterwards though, we just snuggled up in our very comfortable bed and watched a movie on my lappy. Very chilled night indeed!

Tuesday we had some accomplishments to make. We had a massive sleep in, then went on an adventure to find the Freemont Troll! We made the silly mistake of assuming that the troll was under the Freemont Bridge, we must of been walking up and down and across that bridge for about an hour before we started heading back to our hotel to find a sign pointing to the bridge next to it! We did head over that way and finally found the amazing troll art piece! I have been in love with this troll since I saw it in 10 Things I Hate About You! Unfortunately, someone had spray painted "tags" all over it. ---

That really makes me sick, someone just has to go down to an awesome art piece and defile it because they felt like it. Wow random stupid stranger! You are soooooooooooooo cool for tagging something thats culturally beautiful! Congratulations for being the worlds biggest spoilt stupid moron! I hope someone goes spray paints a giant dick all over your car!!

--- RANT OVER

I am still happy I saw the troll ^-^

Colin and I then headed over to the Gasworks Park, wow this was beautiful! It was almost post apocalyptic. The juxtaposition of nature and machines was just perfect, it gave me goose bumps. Just picture a giant rusted machine of bright oranges and reds mixed against lush nature of bright greens.

Once we had our bit of fun, we had to sink into reality. Re-packing. Not the funnest of things to do, thats for sure. We needed to get the summery stuff out of our "carry on" and put some warmer stuff in there. A bit of a shuffle, especially with all the new stuff we have bought over our little holiday. It was managed though, with a bit of a break even for a nap.

Around 4pm we headed downtown to the markets. WOW! I love markets back at home but here its just amazing! Its huge and with everything you could possibly think of! We did buy a lot of delicious snacks - I couldn't eat dinner I was snacking so much. If you like food, this is the place for you! Wandering the market was probably my favourite part - seeing all the art, food, designs, everything. We bought our first ever christmas decoration as well! It's made by the Glass Eye Studios Seattle Company and is their 10th annual limited edition holiday ornament.

We watched the sunset over the water eating delicious french macaroons. It was a stunning sight. We then had something a little more substantial to eat and headed to the Can-Can for the Tuesday Tease! I love seeing cabarets, I went to one in France, it was so beautiful and elegant - plus - naked woman!! Who doesn't like seeing that? This was a little more down to earth with a rockabilly twist. It was interesting - I do prefer classic though. It was of course fun! The live band and singer were superb, our hostess was very funny and entertaining and the girls were great performers! We started drinking before the performance (wine for me) but I decided to try one of their famous absinthe cocktails mixed with tequila, vodka and other stuffs.. I have never had absinthe before and the last time I had tequila comes with a hilarious story of me. So I have no memory of the night after finishing the drink. I will let Colin tell you what happened..

Jess out..

Seattle is known for its fog, and with that reputation comes jokes that the zombie apocalypse will begin there. It just so happened that when I carried Jess from Can-Can to the car a heavy fog had set in. Once seated in the car Jess started to become heavily animated, she was convinced that zombies were hiding in the fog to get us. This soon became a paranoia and she was afraid of anything that moved outside, it took me nearly 10 minutes to get her out of the car once we got home.

The fun didn't stop once out of the car... Outside Hotel Hotel's front door, the guys from Pie had just knocked off and Jess wanted to hang with her new friends, who were nice people, but we had an early morning and needed sleep. Up stairs we go, and drunk Jess wants ice cream and attempts to climb out the window to get it. After a short wrestling match, a compromise to eat the caramel we had bought in the market we were in bed.

Jess comes to... With a sore head and no memory of the night before, and on that note we say goodbye to the United States of America!