Jasper to Hinton.

Today we rented a car and drove to the nearby town of Hinton, Alberta to do some much needed clothes shopping. The town of Jasper does have clothing stores, however the range and style of clothing here is limited and also quite over-priced. So we organised to rent a car and travel to Hinton with a girl named Ashlee, who came over from Australia with us on the plane.

Geike St, just outside the hotel I work for. Note the snow on the parked cars.

We got up "early" (**in contrast to our 5:45am wake up for work, this was a sleep in of sorts) and walked to the rental place through the heaviest snowfall we have seen so far. This was by no means heavy by Jasper standards, but it was constant enough to be covered in snow by the time we arrived. Also, the ground was lightly covered in white powder, which we hadn't seen before! On our way down Connaught Drive we came across some geese crossing the road. They were so funny! They all waddled in unison and at the sight of an oncoming car, the "boss" goose let out a short honk to warn his friends about the traffic. It was very amusing to Stu and I, and was the first time we'd seen geese in town.

Stu, walking on the crunchy snow.

By the time we finally arrived at Avis my black jacket was covered in white flecks. It did sort of look like a bad case of dandruff, except it was all over me! We have figured out that we must be adjusting to the cold temperatures here, as this morning when we saw the current temperature was -1, Stu thought "oh, that's not cold," and decided not to take his warm jacket, instead opting for his aussie adidas jacket. A decision which he later regretted, but the mentality is definitely adjusting to the cold. Most mornings when we walk to work the puddles on the street have turned completely to ice, but we walk to work in little more than a hoodie.

Our friends, crossing the road.

When we got our rental car, we noticed it was covered in ice and snow that had frozen all over the windscreen and back window, as well as the roof. Being 25 meant I was the driver, and my immediate habit was to get into the car on the right hand side, with the keys in hand, ready to go... until I realised there was no steering wheel on that side and sheepishly got out. Stu laughed, but I think he would have done exactly the same thing! :oP

For the first part of the trip, we had to drive through Jasper to pick Ashlee up from the staff accomodation she lives in, which is just out the back of the Lobstick lodge, my hotel. It was so weird turning onto the opposite side of the road, and getting used to the turning lanes being different. Stu was fairly nervous about me driving (**as if! Whatever boy, I'm a way better driver!**) and gave me fairly continuous prompts until I promptly told him to shut up. hehe. We picked up Ash and were on our way.
The trip to Hinton is a good one, taking approximately 45 minutes in total, so it was a nice drive, even though it was fairly snowy in Jasper. The roads were clear and fairly straight so even though we were on the other side of the road to driving in Australia, it wasn't half as stressful as we thought. The overtaking lane here is on the left too, so that took some adjusting to.

And of course, in typical Canadian tradition, the views were spectacular. The drive is straight through Jasper National Park, which is the biggest National park in Canada. We followed the Athabasca River along, winding in and out with new mountain ranges every 2 minutes or so.
Some of these views just take your breath away. It feels almost like you're watching a movie, but then you remember you're looking at it in person and it just overwhelms you. I know it sounds corny but it really leaves you speechless of God's creation. I just keep thinking how amazing it is that he did this in 7 days... And it turned out so darn beautiful! I can't really get my head around it.. or Him. ha!






When we arrived in Hinton, we weren't greeted by much. The Mall Walmart was situated in wasn't much bigger than ringwood square or warriewood, although the Walmart experience was quite interesting. It's a lot like big W, but with a few very noteable differences, and wasn't as big as we were expecting it to be, although it's likely to be a small outlet, being in a small town. As mentioned in the previous blog, Halloween is next week and we are quite enjoying the new experience, even though Halloween doesn't mean anything to us. I've changed my shifts so I will be working Halloween night, as some of my co-workers really wanted to get all dressed up and go out trick or treating. Walmart had a decent range of costumes, although most of the female ones were limited to witches, ghosts or princesses. All of which are incredibly stereotypical. But Ash managed to get a very cool Cleopatra costume, which will look great on her. They must really go all out here in Canada for holidays.. Thanksgiving was a big affair and now with Halloween.. Not to mention the incredible amounts of what can only be described as "Christmas Crap" that they sell, all year round here in Jasper. Although I am most definitely looking forward to a white Christmas, and seeing the snow lined streets lit up with decorations and lights!

Jack-o-lanterns. The electrical kind. On sale. Buy now!

The biggest noticable difference between Walmart and big W? That would be the guns. Yes. I'm not kidding. They sell guns and ammunition at walmart. Granted, it's mainly hunting rifles (and paintball guns!) but never-the-less, Guns. We are definitely not in Australia anymore. It's funny, you adjust to so many cultural differences, but I don't think I'll ever stop feeling weird about the ready access to guns. I'm glad that's not something we do in Aus.

guns, anyone?

Stu, Ash and myself got some amazing bargains at Walmart, including some much needed thermals and snow boots for the coming winter. We will definitely be keen to head back there again, but it will have to wait for some other payday! We spent a lot of money, but we got 3 massive bags full of clothes and shoes in exchange, so in my opinion, it was definitely worth the trip!

McDonalds gets into the Halloween spirit.

We headed over to a familiar sight, the golden arches (**we are so world class**) for lunch, and it would probably be the nicest most un-mcdonalds-looking-McDonalds I've ever seen. Ash and I tried the baked apple pie, which is soo much nicer than the Aussie deep fried version! McDonalds is a rare treat as there is not one in Jasper. Not that there's not a steady barrage of deep fried, artery clogging options to choose from, but either way it was nice to eat something a little more familiar.

Our new friend Ashlee!

We had a quick look throughout the mall and then realised we had to make tracks back to Jasper to return the rental. So off we went. We made it back juuust in time (**ok, maybe 10 minutes late!**) and caught a cab home. SO, today, I:

1. Drove a left-side drive car on the right-hand side of the road safely.
2. Shopped at Walmart.
3. Watched an ice hockey game.
4. Spent way too much money!

And tonight, we are heading out to watch the local ice hockey team the Jasper Wolves play at the activity center. (yes, I spelt it that way deliberately because that's what it is here.) What a good day!
Also, write to us!! PO box 2253, Jasper, AB, Canada T0E-1E0.

Lv b.

P.s.... one cool thing about Walmart I forgot to mention? They sell the following:

Yep. Scrubs.

Can-eh-dian Traditions and other etc.

Today I found out that you don't need to have any money whatsoever in order to truly experience Canadian culture.

This morning Stu and I spent nearly 2 hours hollowing out the insides of 15 rather large pumpkins at work. By hand. Halloween is next Friday, and the owners/ directors of our hotel chain are in town checking in on their investment and some clever fellow decided it would "look nice" to use jack-o-lanterns as table centre-pieces for their rather exclusive dinner. We hollowed out 15 pumpkins with little more than a paring knife and two soup spoons. And no, I'm not even kidding.

It's been nearly 7 hours now and every now and then I can still smell it or I'll find a piece of pumpkin in my hair.

Stu is only too happy to never see another pumpkin again. I on the other hand, am now craving pumpkin soup, promptly followed by a big warm slice of pumpkin pie. :oP We had pou-getti for dinner though. It's a variation of a Canadian dish called Poutine. Poutine is french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds. Don't knock it till you try it. Pou-getti is fries covered in meat sauce and cheese. A single serving of Poutine at KFC here is 970 calories. Yep.

Tomorrow we will engage in another cultural activity... driving on the right hand side of the road. We will be driving to a nearby small town named Hinton, where we will witness and indulge in the great North American tradition of shopping at Walmart. (**I will try to act like I'm not excited because that would make me such a tourist, but secretly I'm stoked and can't wait**) We are hoping to see some bears on the drive... hopefully not ON the road and definitely not ON our car.

We are definitely feeling more comfortable in the culture here now, unfortunately it's becoming an inevitable fact that our accents are going to change eventually, even if only slightly, but to be understood by a lot of Canadians here you really have to emphasize your R's... which obviously goes against all Australian accent-isms. C'est la Vie....
Anyway, This was only meant to be a short blog.... so I'll go now.
So in the words of our friendly Can-eh-dians, See ya later eh?

Hockey and the Rockies

Since it’s been a while since my last post, I have lots to tell you guys! Before last weekend I had only had two days off since being here, so I’ve been pretty busy!

The other week the Edmonton Oilers hockey team came to town to finalise their pre-season preparation. I went along to one of their practices and it was pretty awesome. I’ve never been to a hockey game before and even though they were just training, it was pretty intense. I didn’t recognize any of the players names from plying NHL on PS2 so I wasn’t sure if they had a good team or not… however because there is hockey on TV pretty much every night I was able to watch their first few games including a couple against Calgary and I saw that their team is very young, speedy and skilled. I wasn’t sure which team to go for… for a while I was thinking Calgary because they have Jerome Iginla (I recognized him from video games) but their team doesn’t seem to be very deep. Edmonton was able to beat them in both games with their depth and speed. Also because they have a line that is full of guys my age or younger, I’ll be rooting for the Oilers.

Over the weekend Beth and I went for a hike up to a place called Old Fort Point. We ended up going the long way around but in the end it was worth it. The views were amazing. I’ll let the pictures do the talking… (You will be able to spot Mountain Sheep, and a rock feature called Old Man's Chin - which looks like a face of someone lying on their back.. and lots of shots of Pyramid Mountain cos it's just so good looking)

S.

Elk and Moose and Bears, Oh My!

So this is funny for us because our hotel restaurants are chronically understaffed and as a result, the service can be few and far between on days.
Thought I'd share it with you!
b. x

A blog without pictures.

Hey everyone, it's beth here. Technically it's Stuart's turn to blog now but since we haven't done anything terrible newsworthy since the last blog I figured it wouldn't matter too much if I took the liberty. Stu and I are settling in fairly well here in the little town of Jasper. Today we had orientation for work and we learned some interesting things about the place.
Jasper National Park is the biggest National Park in the Canadian Rockies. To keep the small town feel here they've set building restrictions, so the town doesn't ever grow. It just stays that way; approximately 5000 people, which increases to 20,000 in the summer, which is peak season.

Unfortunately, we're also learning pretty fast about some of Jasper's not so nice traits. Because there isn't very much to do here in the winter except for ski and drink, and the ski passes are over $900 each, most people who come here to work choose the latter. Apparently Jasper also has the highest rate of STI's in all of North America, which is quite an accomplishment considering the town is barely 5000 people in size. The one thing that I'm finding the hardest to deal with is the pressure to "come to the Atha B after work!". It's not that the people we came over with aren't decent people, it's just that a lot of them are still set to stupid-teenage-binge-drinking-let's-hook-up-with-every-random-we-meet-sleep-around-get-so-drunk-you-don't-remember mode. Which is fine, if you're into that sort of thing. However Stu and I are not.

Like I said, I have nothing against people who choose to live that way, although in my opinion it's a silly way to experience a new culture, especially considering you don't often remember the people you meet the next day. But it is so frustrating to be surrounded by people who don't understand why you're continually saying "no", even when you explain it to them. Telling someone you don't really get into the party scene is like telling someone you collect asian popstar music. It's just not normal. And I'm so over it.

Stu and I are going to try go to the local Baptist church, because we have no idea where the pentecostal one is in town and the Baptist church is 4 minutes down the road from where we live and work. Trouble is, we're not too sure about telling people we're Christians because from where I'm standing it would seem there is more judgment from NON-christians for being a believer than there is from Christians for NOT being one. I'm finding it hard.

I always protest about Christians living in bubbles. Too often we get into "church bubble" mode where we're surrounded 24/7 by people with the same beliefs as us, who go to the same church, who watch the same tv programs, and do the same kinds of things on weekends. I hear people talk all the time of "the mission field", and most of the time they're talking about the 2 or 3 non-Christians they work with a few days a week. It's no secret that I'm not a huge fan of the out and out evagelistic approach of helping people find Jesus, but I guess I'd always felt proud of my faith, and the fact that I never had a problem sharing it with people. That is, until you're 2 against 4,500. Then the stakes are entirely different.

While I struggle with these people, their behaviour, lifestyle choice and general attitude towards work and life, I feel like it's important to be around them. And yet, at the exact same time, I flatly refuse to participate in their world. I feel I've done my dash in the pub/club scene through my music and to be honest I'd rather "be boring" and stay in and watch a movie with Stu.

So if you're praying for us, pray for strength and PATIENCE because it's only been 2 weeks and I'm already tired of the pressure. Also, if you could send up a prayer for financial blessing, we'd much appreciate it. Life here is so much more expensive than you could imagine.

Thanks...
b. x

10 Days later.

So yesterday was officially one week since we arrived in Jasper, and 10 days since we got to Canada. After having a bit of time to soak in the culture and get used to the lingo, I'm still pretty darn happy to be here. The obvious shine has worn off certain things, for example we definitely weren't expecting things to be as expensive as they are here. Stu and I have made some friends through work and we're quickly getting the hang of things here.

I am on my first day off today, I have been working every day since Tuesday. It's nice to have the day off, especially since the weather is sunny. Unfortunately they are still working out the kinks in the work schedules, so Stu and I only have Tuesday off together. Our hours are still a bit sporadic and irregular while we train, so until we're competent and past training stages we can't be guaranteed the time off together.

The work itself is reasonably enjoyable although I must confess it is definitely not what we expected it to be in many areas. We've decided to advise any friends or acquaintances to avoid going through the agency we were recruited through. Reason being we, along with most employees we've spoken to, feel the agency was quite misleading in their information. There are so many opportunities to find work in Canada, do not get sucked into paying an agency to place you. You will be able to find work without their help.

Ok. So. Pros and Cons thus far:

Pros:

• Jasper is beautiful. The locals really are so friendly, happy and helpful. I've yet to come across one who hasn't been keen to chat and help.
• It snows. I'm yet to get sick of that yet.
• The job is reasonably enjoyable, and we are picking it up fast.
• The Philadelphia cream cheese here is the BOMB.
• Bagels are a staple food and accessible.
• The Canadian food is awesome.
• Our accommodations are much better than we were expecting. We know we are lucky to not live in the other staff accommodations.
  
• There are so many amazing places so close by. You can visit some of the most amazing places on earth and they are right in your backyard.
• We are both enjoying the different culture
• They love Aussies here.
• Everything in town is within walking distance so there's no need for a car or the horrible price of fuel.
• Once you get chatting with a local, they tend to remember you and do right by you the next time they see you.
  
• The weather is pretty cool - you get the sun but also the snow.
• We are allowed access to all Mountain Park Lodges facilities on our off days. In my hotel alone we have 3 outdoor hot tubs, one indoor, a sauna and a pool.
• We get 50% off meals while working. The quality of the food is outstanding, so you can get a gourmet meal with shrimp or steak or salmon etc for about $9. Plus we get 25% off when not working within the moutain park lodges restaurant chains.
• We have cable in our accoms. This makes Stu particularly happy as the hockey season has just begun here. There is pretty much sport on 24/7 on some stations.
  
• The air is incredibly clear here, and the water comes direct from glacier sources.
  
• We love the D'ed Dog restaurant's Sunday night $8 steak, fries and salad deal.
• We get to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving and Halloween for the real experience.
  

Cons:

• We really are in the middle of nowhere.
• Grocery shopping is incredibly expensive. It is cheaper to buy in bulk, which is somewhat irritating, and there are really only 2 or 3 grocery stores here.
• Our employer is a bit retarded in some ways... quite unfair treatment. We don't get breaks unless it's quiet and they are very strict on stupid things like wearing my glasses on my head while I'm reading.
  
• Our first pay check will be minimal as they are docking all security deposits, uniform fees, rent, etc..
• It gets into the minus freezing temps pretty much everyday so working to and from work is an exercise in survival.
• The elk are mating so if they're somewhere you need to go, you can't go there without getting chased.
• The sun doesn't come up til about 8:30am so it makes getting up early feel terrible.
• The milk and bread here have a sort of acidic after-taste to them and I think the milk is upsetting my tummy. The bread also feels very stale even though it isn't.
  
• If you need basic home essentials you pretty much have to order it through the sear's catalogue at home hardware. This town is missing a lot of basic things.
• I miss my pillow.
• The constant cold air and altitude can make you very sick and my skin is constantly itchy, dry and flakey which means moisturizing a million times a day, even at work.
• Some lazy co-workers = beth being frustrated.
  
• Stu and I don't get to spend as much time together as we would like to.
• Most of the attractions are closing / have closed for the winter, including several stores and restaurants in town!
• It's not Australia.
• None of you are here to share it with us.

We miss you all. We miss Whitehorse. We miss our family.
We look forward to the beginning of the snow season, and to earning some money once we are all clear of the immediate debt, but we are definitely enjoying it here. Some days more than others. :o)

Me and Jasper, the town Mascot.

The snow is just beginning to fall now..

Video Adventures.

Jasper Tramway

Jasper, taken from Whistlers Mountain

So today was the coldest day so far. I think it’s 4 degrees outside right now, but it was colder at 10am when we walked down to the bus station. We wanted to go on the Tramway before it closes next week. It is just a short ride to the base of the tramway, and we got on straight away. It was pretty cloudy but it did clear up a little bit once we reached the summit of Whistlers Mountain (not Whistler which is in BC). The guide sounded like a character out of Napoleon Dynamite so I don’t remember much of what she said. At the top there is a restaurant and you can walk all the way around and even go along a trial that would take you right to the summit. We just walked around and took some photos. There was plenty of snow up there too, and I couldn’t believe how light and soft it was… it was lighter than flour. I think they call that kind of snow ‘powder’ up here. And even little chunks of it felt like Styrofoam. I had lots of fun sliding around in it cos it was so soft. It started to snow up there too, which was exciting except before too long we got snowed in, and we had to wait around half an hour before we could go back down.


When we did finally start our descent, the tram suddenly stopped about a quarter of the way down and bounced for a bit. It’s scary as it is normally, then to have the thing stop abruptly on you… the guide didn’t help things either by saying “That’s no supposed to happen”. The other people were making jokes about it saying “You’ve gotta go somehow” and “Do we get a discount? Maybe it’s more expensive for this one, it’s the special adventure fare” and “We’ll have to offload someone.” Meanwhile, Beth and I were huddled in the corner, crapping our pants… It started back up again, and then… It happened again! Only with even more bounce and more abruptly! We finally made it to the bottom and found out that it does sometimes stop when it’s snowing or raining heavily. But that doesn’t change how we feel about the Jasper Tramway… We will never go on it again.

Jasper, Alberta, Canada

We’ve been here for 5 days now and have settled in to the small town life. We’re slowly meeting new people and making new friends. It’s hard to think of things to say that Beth hasn’t already covered so I won’t say too much about the town; I’ll just skip to the ELK.

Bull Elk

They pretty much hang around a nearby hotel, every night. There is one big male that we’ve seen and a younger male with lots of females that hang around. They are quite peaceful animals, and pretty much just stand there, grazing. Except for the bull. He patrols the area while his women eat. It’s really scary because they look so placid but you have no idea what might set him off and he could charge at you. The other night he attacked a car. There are plenty of warnings that tell you to stay 30 meters away, unfortunately many tourists ignore those warnings, and I’m very surprised there aren’t more attacks.

We haven’t seen a moose or a bear yet, most of the tours close for the winter and we just missed most of them. We also missed the Maligne Lake boat cruise, which takes you out onto this lake to a place called Spirit Island. We really wanted to do that one, because it’s one of the most famous images of the Rockies. The Icefields close soon too, hopefully we can get up to see the glaciers ASAP. It’s proving a little difficult to get the same days off work at the moment whilst we are still training.

I started work on Monday night at Chateau Jasper, and Beth started on Tuesday night at the Lobstick Lodge. Both hotels are next to each other and only about 100 meters from our accommodation. So far we’re both enjoying work, although it is a bit quiet at the moment, which makes the shifts drag a bit, but we also have a lot of information to take in. Blind Melon stayed at my hotel last night and I had to smooth things over with them regarding a complaint, and Beth had lots of Media stay at her hotel because the Edmonton Oilers Ice Hockey team came to town to finish of their pre-season preparation. I was keen to see them train but we went up to the Jasper Tramway instead because it closes soon and it’s also one of those things that you HAVE to do in Jasper.

It’s getting really cold here, just last week it was around 25 degrees in town, today it is down to 4 and tomorrow is forecast to get to 5 with a low of -7. Hopefully it will snow in town early next week. But it looks like after the weekend, we won’t see any day above 5 degrees for a long, long time (the 14 day trend looks a lot like the stock market charts). On the upside, I can’t wait to learn to snowboard, which should only be a few weeks away now.

S.

Getting colder...

En route to Jasper, Alberta.

Friday morning came too fast. We really enjoyed our day in Vancouver but it went by so quickly it left us wishing for more time there. We woke early to be at the bus station by 5:30am in order to pick up our tickets. Once there we realized we'd possibly been overcharged by the flight centre in Aus for our tickets... so we're looking into that. There was a little coffee stand there where I bought a cup of tea (**Gracey and Loz... I thought of you!**) and some banana bread as well as a banana which was breakfast. Later I bought a sausage Mcmuffin... but regretted it for quite some time. The food at McDonalds is highly processed and not nearly as fresh as maccas Australia.. but, moving on..

The Athabasca River

We boarded the bus where Stu met a nice Canadian guy named Doug, who he immediately struck up conversation with about all things Canada. There was very few people on the bus so I decided to take the back 3 seats next to the loo and stretch out. Unfortunately it was a rainy and overcast day, not unlike the day we had spent in Vancouver, so that was disappointing from a scenery point of view.

Once again, I couldn't keep my eyes open and was very grateful for the seats to stretch out on. Stu sat a few rows in front of me taking photos which he later lamented weren't very good but I've just had a look and there's a few absolutely gorgeous ones which I'll lace through this post.

We stopped a bit here and there for lunch but I slept most of the way and after spending so much cash on our snow gear in Vancouver, we stuck to cheaper options like sandwiches and fruit. As Stu mentioned in the previous post, Canada is really big on bagels, this excites me so very much! It's also strange seeing their different coke bottles and the volumes they come in.. it all seems very odd. For instance instead of 600ml they have 591? weird.

Anyway, I woke up just in time to see us pulling into Jasper, although I'm a little disappointed that I missed the "welcome to jasper" sign :o(

We got off at the train/bus station and were met with the most beautiful mount view ever. Just as Stu was about to call the taxi, a cab pulled up big enough for all our bags, so we jumped in and headed to Chateau Jasper (**which the aussie concierge pronounced "shadow jasper"**) only to find out we actually had another 200m or so to walk til our accommodations. Normally this wouldn't be a problem were it not for the massive and rather heavy bags we were lugging at the time. Oh well, off we went. When we got inside there was no one to meet us so Stu took the keys given to us by the Chateau and began lugging our bags up to the second floor, via the stairs (**no lift**) and when he came back down we took the last few up and walked in to find our accommodations exceeded our expectations. For one, I was told there was no tv, wifi or baths and the accommodations have all of the above as well as being fully self-contained, so we are very thankful to God for blessing us. I spoke to a fellow Aussie (**with a kiwi accent mind you**) named Rhea (**spelling? said like ree-uh**) and she said where the others are staying, which is just across the street isn't very nice and that they would all like to move to the apartment blocks that we are in. So hooray!

After yet another long-anticipated shower I hit the hay and slept like a log, well into Saturday afternoon. Once we got ready we went out to explore the townsite. The thing about Jasper is that you can walk 20 metres down the road and see a whole new set of mountains and peaks that you couldn't see 20 metres back. It's almost never ending panorama, and even though it hasn't begun to snow heavily yet, the mountains are beautiful all the same. You can see on some peaks the beginnings of white patches, and with each passing day the white patches grow, so we are very excited for the snow to begin to fall. I think once it starts falling in the street I'll be rather delirious!

Jasper is a small town, it takes about 35 minutes to walk from one end to the other, and since we are positioned right up one end of town it is proving to be good exercise everyday for me. We checked out the local shops, restaurants etc in search of better pillows than the ones given to us by our employer, only to find there is actually no pillows for sale in Jasper. You can order them through Sears department store's catalogue, which is ordered through Home Hardware's store on the industrial park side of the train tracks. So we will probably be doing that since the pillows we have are lumpy and very thin. Which makes me regret my decision to leave my arch pillow back in Adelaide :o( Oh well.

Stu and I on Geike street, which is the same street we live on. In the pic above of me you can see our apartment block directly behind me.

Would you believe there are more liquor stores in Jasper than there are supermarkets? I've counted 12 liquor stores, not to mention the numerous bars and restaurants that serve a full selection of everything from Canadian beer to spirits, and yet trying to buy groceries is a challenge! There are 2 "supermarkets" which are more accurately "mini-marts" and everything is very expensive up here. I'm still adjusting to a few things, like the milk here, the bread being sweeter and not as soft and the toilet flush, would you believe!? It's a lever on the side that you push down, instead of the button system I'm used to in Aus. The things you notice when you're away from home eh?

Speaking of eh, everybody in Canada says it. They also say "oh" at the beginning of most sentences. So for example, if you ask where the nearest bathroom might be, they'll answer by saying "Ooh, what you wanna doo is goo doown too the drug stoore and there should be one there eh?".. I know it seems like a terrible cliche but I swear it's true.

The locals here are so incredibly friendly. In our search for pillows I stumbled across a cheesy souvenir shop named "Everything But!", which apparently sell everything BUT pillows! But the owner of the store is a lovely elderly woman who took a great deal of time to give me all the local tips, including the church run thrift shop where "you can buy just aboot everything", the $8 steak, fries and salad night at the D'ed dog restaurant, the 65cent wing night at the Marmot Lodge on Wednesday nights and the winter market every November where you can pick up 2nd hand snow gear, boards, skis etc for the incoming snow season. I took Stu back with me today because I wanted to pick her brains some more. She is very nice and I really enjoy talking to her. She was also the first local to say "welcome to Jasper" to me, which felt really nice!

Anyway, I know Stu has more to add to this first few days here in our new home, so I'm sure he will post somethings later. Feel free to comment on here too; we've changed the settings now so you can comment even without a blogger account. Make sure you sign your name too at the end so we know who the comment is from!

I love it here so far. Can't wait for the snow!
lv beth. x

Vancouver.

So, you might’ve gathered from Beth’s post that I slept a grand total of ZERO hours between Adelaide and Vancouver. So I was pretty shattered when we finally reached our hotel more than 37 hours after we left home in Adelaide. Unfortunately I was also freekin hungry because there was no way I was touching an omelet that looked, and smelt like dog’s vomit. Canadian McDonalds (can’t believe I’m posting about fast food like it’s interesting…) is pretty much the same as here except they have ‘angus’ beef burgers (I ate half, then realized it tasted like a cow looks and smells like… and our large drink is their medium size, also they put a maple leaf in the golden arches… I think they tend to put it on anything they can… So after finally eating something familiar, even if it was junk, we headed back to the hotel where I fell asleep in record time.

Canadian Golden Arches

We went to a coffee shop downstairs for some breakfast and some well needed coffee at 10am. I was still pretty tired, but we had to get the most out of our day in Vancouver. We headed off down Granville St, towards Pacific Centre which is similar to our Bourke St mall and Myer complex in Melbourne, only much smaller.

Our mission was to get as much snow gear as possible from last season, as this would work out cheaper than buying current seasons stock.

On the way we visited a sports store with heaps of hockey jerseys including ones for babies, I mentioned to the guy who worked there who was clearly a hockey nut and probably in his 60s, that I had seen a few fights between Vancouver and Calgary last night on TV at the Airport and he quipped “Yeah, we don’t like Calgary very much”, and then smiled like he had a dead guy from Calgary in the basement… We also saw a shop that, from the outside looked like a standard skate shop, similar to Dangerfield or GP, then when we went inside we found a huge firearms section in the back, pistols, semis, as well as huge knives… right next to the footwear section.

We made it to Sears, which is pretty much the same as Myer only with more Cosmetics and old people clothes and less young people stuff. Beth tried on a few snow jackets and found one she liked for cheap. Since it was our first stop we made a note to get it on the way back, after we had checked out a few more stores.

We picked up a directory only to find it useless because we had no idea what kind of store it was from the name, but we did find Coast Mountain Sports, which is similar to Rebel Sport here. Dustin helped fit us for Snowboard boots and taught us what to look for in boots and boards (he was really helpful and nice considering we spent a lot of time here and didn’t actually walk out with anything). This store also had heaps of Ice hockey gear, including a truly massive bag for cheap. We put everything on hold and before we headed down to West 4th we grabbed some lunch, at the ‘Great Canadian Bagel’…(I thought that was a New York thing?? this coupled with the Golden arches and I was starting to think Canada had issues...)


A short bus ride put as on West 4th, the Snowboard capital of Vancouver. We tried some more boots at The Boardroom Clearance Centre, and found some that Beth was happy with, and I found a Jacket and a Pair of Pants that I was happy with, both with pretty huge discounts (more than $100 off per item). Next door at the Boardroom proper I decided on some boots that were real comfy only to have the attendant suggest better more expensive boots, I wish he hadn’t because I am the king of indecision - I spent way too much time deciding between the two, because I knew I had to get the most comfortable ones I could find, but I also had no idea what to look for. The expensive ones felt tighter which is good apparently but they also hurt my feet in a couple of places, the other pair were more comfortable but flexed more which isn’t good. But in the end chose the cheaper pair because they were more comfortable and got them heat molded to my feet. I grabbed an under shirt and we headed back to Pacific Centre to get our phones sorted out.

Me looking like a dork in my snow gear for Jono ;)

We got a phone for Beth and a sim card for my iPhone. In hindsight I should’ve got a phone too because the sim was way too expensive, not sure if it was a Rogers thing or a Canada thing but the sim on it’s own was $75 with NO credit. But we had heard that Rogers was the only network that worked in Jasper and it had the best coverage, plus we were running out of time so we had to move on – Also, we had no idea if we would have easy access to Wi-Fi in Jasper.

Our numbers are:
00111 780 883 9034 - Stu
00111 780 883 9036 – Beth

The 00111 will get your call out of Australia and into Canada, the 780 is the area code for Alberta – that’s why it’s so long…

We have a pre-paid system that gives us unlimited minutes on weeknights and weekends between 6pm to 8am on weekdays and 6pm Fridays to 8am Mondays. You pay the same for INCOMING calls as you do for outgoing in Canada, so if you want to call either of us, we won’t answer unless it’s between those times (we still have to pay big for outgoing international but incoming international calls are free for us during those times – as it would be for you if we called you anytime). To convert Melbourne time to Calgary time you just add 7 hours and subtract a day. So the hours to call would be 11am to 1am weekdays, but please don’t call after 5pm because that is midnight here. And 11am Saturday to 5pm Monday (again 5pm to 1am we’ll probably be asleep – Sunday and Monday before 11am is fine). I think International text from Australia is usually 75 cents and it’s only 25 for us, so we are cool to text, otherwise email and facebook is all good.

We then went back to Coast Mountain Sports to pick everything else up, and stuff it all in the hockey bag. My credit card didn’t work here and I couldn’t work out why because I didn’t think I had a daily limit, and I was pretty sure even with the currency conversion I hadn’t gone over my total limit. Turns out they had suspended my card as a safety precaution because of all the Vancouver transactions. Unfortunately that meant we had to use more of our cash than we wanted to. We then hit Sears to get some bits and pieces but we forgot to get Beth’s jacket!

When I got home I wanted to go over the receipts because there were a couple of things that didn’t seem to add up… turns out they have GST AND PST (provincial sales tax) in British Columbia and they don’t have to include it in the item price… it’s added to the total price on the receipt. That is illegal in Australia, but it’s just the way they do things in Canada. If I had known about the PST we might’ve been more likely to get snow gear in Edmonton, which is in Alberta, after we had settled in Jasper. But we still got some pretty good deals as it was anyway. All we have left to get are Snowboards and Bindings and a jacket for Beth, we might go to Edmonton or Banff for those, as everything we’ve seen so far in Jasper expensive. Anyway, back to Vancouver…

Just from walking around at night we noticed that there were a lot of homeless people around and Granville Street smelt like weed at night. I later found out from a local that the BC government had shut down a lot of mental health and general facilities for those people, and that they had already started to ship them out to other towns in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I also discovered that it is just a $75 fine for possession of a certain amount of weed, as long as it’s not in multiple bags ready for sale, and that it’s never enforced. If a cop sees you smoking a joint he might wag his finger and say “ehh, put that out, you…” or tip his cap as he walks by. And no I did not find this out through personal experience, a local told me so… On Granville Street there also seemed to be an unusually high number of obvious Adult Shops and Entertainment, in some cases right next to each other or right next to a Pizza place…

That night I didn’t sleep at all, I’m not sure if it was the jetlag or just because I had a lot on my mind. Also, from the time I landed in Vancouver I felt like I was sitting on a train facing backwards and I could not get my bearings at all, I knew where stuff was, but had no idea where north, south, east, and west were. We left the hotel at 5am to get to the Bus depot in time to collect our tickets and jump on a Greyhound for Japser by 6.30am.