Sun, Slush and Dayglo Abortions

I apologise for the slightly strange title of this entry. It's continuing to be very sunny and warm, causing the snow to be pretty slushy. Also Slush was the name of one of the bands supporting Dayglo Abortions last night at a punk show I went to! More of which later.

I'm not going to lie to you, over the last week or two, the fact that I live just off the end of Easy Street really has seemed pretty appropriate. Thanks to some swapping of shifts, I had a 4 day weekend last week, which was ace. It involved plenty of lazing around in the sun, swimming from Rainbow Park and just chilling with friends.

I've been biking with friends again and had a great time once more. Built up a lot more courage this time and threw myself down some new trails, and was generally a lot faster, and more airborne than with previous attempts. Again only managed to fall over the once, so I figure I'm doing pretty well so far!

Also had the pleasure of working on the glacier on mid-summer's day, which is a first. It's a new and fun experience being able to go snowboarding this far into the year, especially as it's all been in the northern hemisphere! As Rich pointed out to me in the last email he sent, I've now been snowboarding 7 months out here! That's pretty good going. As Sheany is now working in the ticket selling and validation department for the mountain, I'm hoping she'll be able to carry out some research on how many day's I've had on snow. It's a little bit difficult to tell at the mo what with all the different passes I've had. I'm pretty sure I had 25-30 when I returned from the road trip back in February, so now I think I could definitely be somewhere between 75 and 100 days on snow.

The last day I had on snow was pretty fun, with me, Grace and Jamie going to shred the glacier. It wasn't quite as successful as anticipated. We were kind of late getting up the mountain, including me waiting outside Merlins for an hour, so we didn't get away from the valley 'til 1pm. It takes nearly an hour to get to the glacier from the valley, which meant it was approaching 2pm once there, which, together with the 15 minute line up for the lift meant we had time for three runs. Of course, because it's only the glacier that's open each of these runs is very short, and for maximum fun, they are generally taken through the public park. This consists of a half pipe, then three kickers, or alternatively 4 boxes / rails. Firstly the pipe. This was difficult to ride, but quite fun - It hadn't been shaped for a few days which made it interesting, added to which cause of the heat and sun direction, one wall was slushy whilst the other was pretty hard! All in all hard to judge, and it was short, so 3 to 4 hits were possible! The kickers were fun as well, although again you could be fooled by them as well. The first two had a big gap, which, in the slushy conditions, it was very difficult to get enough speed to clear! That meant you went to the 3rd jump with it in mind that you had to get the speed to clear the knuckle. Of course, this jump went straight into the landing after the kicker! THis meant that on numerous occasions I'd be sailing high above the ground wishing I hadn't been going quite so fast! Still all jolly good fun! Unfortunately the other members of the team didn't enjoy it quite so much, Jamie cos it was the first time he'd ridden in about a month and was a bit rusty, and Grace cos she doesn't ride parks! Nevermind, the run down from 7th Heaven to the top of Solar Coaster was fun, so I think that reescued the day!

I also learnt in the last couple of week's that the Canadian's like Canada Day, and more than anything else use it as an excuse to get really drunk! After watching England getting knocked out of the World Cup by Portugal on penalties (Again!?), the day was spent first watching a BMX event, which had some of the world's top riders going crazy over a dirt jump course. Those guys really are crazy! After that the exodus was made to Rainbow Park to chill by the lake, go swimming and, for the Canadian's mostly, drink! They had laid out a plastic sheet and a sprinkler system in one corner of the park, so you could run, dive and slide all over it! I learnt how to shotgun a can of beer, and much fun was had! I think I managed to escape lightly as I crawled home relatively sober at 12am, whilst most other friends were staggering off to house parties to imbibe all sorts of substances, legal or otherwise.

That is perhaps the most surprising thing about being over here in Whistler. Considering that generally it is considered a healthy sort of outdoor living area, there really is a huge amount of drugs available to the average punter. I feel a positive outcast in that I'm about the only person who doesn't smoke weed here. Mushrooms are almost served as a side portion to meals and coke is as freely available as the tooth rotting vegetable extract based liquid namesake! It is strange though that, compared to in the UK, people who take all these substances aren't assholes. I disagree with their choice of recreational activity, unlike some people I know in the UK they don't brag about how great it is / they are, and they don't let it affect them too much when they're not taking anything. Don't know what that means, but I find it quite interesting.

Anyway, I think I'm going to take the next few days pretty easy. Only a two day weekend so I'm back to work tomorrow unfortunately. I'll be heading home early following Wed nights experiments with Albertan whisky, and last nights trip to Merlins for a punk rock show. It's been so long since I've been to a proper hard and fast punk show, and it was ace. The headline band was the delightfully titled Dayglo Abortions, although they were matched in my opinion by the local opening band, Slush. Good times, and I spent a few minutes in the mosh pit, and it was pretty hectic. People getting thrown everyhwere. Someone dived off to the stage onto my head, I think I got hit by a flying elbow, but no harm done. Although there were quite a few people walking around with bloody noses! If anyone has seen the punk episode of Quincy, it was exactly what he was talking out against!

Anyway, I have to select some photo's to enter a BUNAC photo competition, so wish me luck.