Crossfit in winter = SUPER CRAZY!

Yesterday afternoon Aaron and I had this crazy idea to workout in this insane weather.. To warm up we jogged down from our floor (4), then sprinted up then jogged back down... After this the feeling in my fingers and toes started to come back but I was far from warm.. We then went outside to set up the rings for muscle ups (i attempted kipping pull ups but my muscles seemed to fail so I did strict pull ups) Aaron was of coure fine besides the fact he couldnt feel his fingers. We then did 60 double unders however our ropes had frozen so we had to stretch them out and warm them up.. This was VERY hard outside as the cold air was not only forming icycles in my nose but also in my lungs which wore me out very quickly and made me want to curl up in the foetal position by the fire.. We then did 12 box jumps onto a picnic table which warmed me up the slightest bit. Then we jogged up the hill to the gym which took the longest 10 minutes of my life! It was SO cold! My toes had frozen up as I was only wearing my runners, I was wearing my gloves, two shirts, a jumper, long johns, trackie pants, two pairs of socks and ear warmers. We were puffing out icy smoke like chimneys and got tired easily, having to stop several times. We finally got to the heated gym.... mmmm heated... We attempted the Airforce WOD but it was hard as they olympic bar bell was being used and they only had barbells with weights that didnt spin. I ended up finishing in 18:26 and Aaron 19:23. Now that we were nice and sweaty we walked home in the dark (only 5:15pm) so it was even colder.. yippee! Next time we have decided to not bother about going to the gym and just fill up Aaron's aqua bag and doing workouts here. The aqua bag fills up to about 35kg. I am just going to stick with body weights exercises like double unders, push ups, sit ups, handstand push ups, burpees, etc. inside!!! We spent the evening coughing as our lungs defrosted...  There is a ski tournament on here at the moment and there are people going for jogs everywhere! Clearly it is just something that will take some getting used to!

Continuing on cold topics, Aaron's first day at work went well. He got so cold that he had to come home and grab warmer socks! A lady at his work told him it takes approximately 3 weeks to acclimatise to the weather.. HA! I will let you know how that goes. So Aaron spends his days scraping snow off foot paths, shovelling it to the side, scraping snow off roofs and pouring salt on the ground to remove the snow.

I met my boss today, Scott. He said I have the hardest job as hostess... yay! I have to manage the floor pretty much. Seat people as they come in and make sure they are spread out so that the waitresses dont get too many tables at once. A little nervous. I start Monday so I will let you know how my first shift goes.

I also bumped into Nicole who interviewed Aaron and I in Brisbane. I am heading to the resort now to go chat with her about ice hockey. She mentioned in our interview that they play on Sundays and I SO want to give it a go!

Until next time!

(The 1st photo is our warm up area, 2nd and 3rd are of the path from staff accommodation to the resort)

Panorama Mountain Village

It is so beautiful here! We are surrounded by mountains which are covered in snowy pine trees. Our taxi driver Barrie was telling us all about the different type of trees that survive the winter, the fir tree (which are the ones all around us), the sprooce tree (looks similar to the fir tree but lives in swampy areas), the needle tree (which loses its needles during winter but is still very alive) and the pine tree which are dying out due to the pine beetle! Taxi ride here cost $62 but tips are big here and Barrie told us all about the mountain so we gave him $70. He was very grateful.

Barrie took us to check in (glad he knows his way around) and Aaron and I got our keys and paperwork and then Barrie took us to our staff housing. They were smaller than I thought considering how many people must be working on the mountain. There were only two building, Paradise and Monument. Aaron and I are in Monument, top floor (level 4). There aren't any lifts so getting up was a mission with our 7 bags! Thankfully Rich from Ledes, England helped us with our stuff. We have another four people in our loft so far - Tobias and Jonathon (the Swedish guys) and Patrick and Emmett (the Irish guys). The Irish guys are moving out as they are waiting for their bathroom to be renovated. I don't know when that will be so we don't know who the other four people are that we will be spending the season with.

We then went to Employee Experience to meet Corinna Wenger and fill out paperwork for our jobs i.e. tax forms, direct deposit forms, SIN details, etc. We also got our ski passes! And turns out we get free lessons which I will definitely be taking advantage of!

We went for a walk around to find out where we will be working and Wildfire restaurant is in the upper part of the mountain along with the T-Bar, Picnic Deli, the gym, the chair lifts, Great Hall and a few other things. We were struggling to find the Maintenance office but a guy from the Snow making team called the team who drove over and picked Aaron up. They wanted him to start right away but we had groceries and more shopping to do in Invermere. So Aaron started today (Sunday) instead of Monday. Started at 7am! with Robert who I think is the team lead? Aaron's responsibilities are shovelling snow off the pathways and stairs, emptying bins and.... i will have to get back to you if he has more duties.. I am glad I will be working in a heated venue that's for sure!

The Christmas festival was on last night down in Invermere which we missed but saw a lot of cars done up for the event. We managed to hitchhike down there! Exciting.. Andrea who helped us set up our bank accounts at Bank of Montreal said its very common that people hitch hike down and the locals are more than happy to pick us up as they know we have had a lot of background checks done to get the jobs on the mountain. We did our groceries, bought some more winter gear and found an AMAZING bakery! We also found a second hand shop, Thrift, where I bought a scarf for $1.50! Bargain! We also got really close to some deer!!

I am going to head up to the resort (we are about a 10-15min walk away) tomorrow to meet the Wildfire coordinator and found out what my shifts are and what I need to be doing. Hopefully she doesn't ask me to start right away like Aaron's crew did!

Making our way to Invermere

To get to Invermere we need to go via Greyhound buses. Invermere is approximately 4hrs from Calgary. On the Greyhound website the bus ride was going to take 14hrs! Turns out there is a 10hr over night stop over in Radium Hot Springs. We called Greyhound to confirm this and ask if there were any other buses that were express to Invermere. They advised no and the only bus left at 630pm.

We caught a taxi to the Greyhound station which cost $20. We bought our tickets which was around $70 with the additional bag (snowboard bag) paid for. The bus was delayed an hour so we ended up leaving at 730. We had some Aussies sitting in front of us and they were going to work at Panorama as well. They told us that there was no overnight stop over at Radium and that we were getting into Invermere at 1030 tonight! Now 1130 because we were late! Why would the call centre tell us different?! Not happy Jan...! So we rang a taxi to pick us up from the Invermere drop off point and take us into town where we could hopefully find a hostel. And I rang Radium Hot Springs hostel to say we werent coming anymore.  I plan on ringing Greyhound and complaining...

So we got dropped off at the Invermere highway traffic lights and waited for 5mins for our taxi.. it was the first time my teeth were chattering since we arrived.. It was so cold! Did i mention it got to -27 degrees today??

We found a hostel that could take us, thank goodness someone was outside having a smoke! He rang the owner who was asleep at his home, who drove in and booked us in for the night $52.

Its now 9am Friday morning and Aaron and I are heading into town to open up a bank account, buy some bed sheets for our accommodation on the mountain and do some laundry. We then have to catch a cab to the mountain before 430 so Aaron can fill in his Employee manual documents ready to start work on Monday!

The Adventure begins!

It is now day 2 of Aaron and my adventure starting in Canada. First we flew to Sydney with QANTAS for a 6hr stop over then flew to Vancouver with Air Canada which took around 14hrs. We had a two hour stop over in Vancouver where we took 30mins to get through Customs, 20mins to get our luggage (thank goodness it all turned up!) then 40mins waiting in immigration for our work wisas... which led to us missing our flight to Calgary.. Aaron was freaking out but I knew there was a flight that was leaving an hour after ours that we could go on as Steve, who I sat next to on the plane, was catching that flight. He warned me that we were pushing for time with the flight we were originally scheduled for. He was very nice, used to live in Australia but had been living in Canada for 25 years so his accent was funny. He invited us to his place in Saskatoon over the winter and he could take us on his snow mobiles! He has two daughters my age so we might just have to pop over there for a visit!

So eventually we got to Calgary and had to wait outside in line for a taxi and OMG IT WAS -14 DEGREES!!!!!! I knew then that we were in desperate need of more warm clothes! The taxi ride was $40 to our hostel HI Calgary 520 7th Ave (its funny they dont have street names they just number them!)

We went shopping at The Bay where I bought some Ugg boots for $300 but it was so worth it! My toes dont go numb anymore like they did when I was wearing my runners. We went to MEC (Mountain Equipment Corporation) where you have to be a member to buy there. So we signed up for $5 and I bought some more heavy duty gloves, a neck warmer, two beanies, some thick socks for snowboarding and some goggles also for snowboarding.

We then went and applied for our Social Insurance Number which was easier than we thought it was going to be. It was harder finding the place! They will be sending our SIN card in the mail to Panorama in about 2wks time.

It was really hard to find a place to eat but we managed to find a subway for lunch (missed breakfast). I lost count of how many iced coffees Aaron tried... and there was nowhere for tea so we just had a hot chocolate next to the public library then went to bed..

First Snowfall for Panorama Mountain

Looking forward to taking photos for myself but this is a snippet of what is to come!

Aaron and I received an email from Panorama Mountain Village this morning confirming our accommodation. We will be living 'on-hill' in a 4 bedroom loft with 6 other people. Aaron and I will have our own room and our own bathroom (thank goodness!!!) There will be a laundry and shared kitchen facilities. I am so excited! Need to get some CAD but am waiting patiently for the AUD to surpass USD... see how that goes. .9998 at the moment. 8 more days at work! 14 days until we leave! YIPPEE!

I see the light at the end of the tunnel!

17 more days until we fly out! And better yet 10 more days of work!! You beauty!

Aaron and I are house sitting at Brad and Hayleigh's place while they are in Europe for two months. They get back 9 days.. Cant wait. We are looking after their dog Betty. She peed in the bedroom two nights ago.. haha Aaron cant wait to be back home.

Mum and Dad are going to Florida next week to take advantage of the Aussie dollar being almost equal to the USD. Dad is going to buy a boat, Big Kahuna.. So Az and I are looking after little Brad :)

So we are pretty much sorted now. We have paid for our travel insurance and flights. We have packed our snowboard bag and have our winter gear sitting out in our bedroom ready to be stuffed into the backpacks. i dont have ANY warm clothes. I plan on buying them all when we arrive in Canada as then the clothes will be made for their winter.. theres nothing here in Darwin that would be suitable. So I need to get a jacket, boots, goggles, gloves and maybe more just because I can :) We also need to buy sheets and groceries for our accommodation on Panorama Mountain. We are waiting on an email from them advising what we will be staying in, i.e. a one bedroom apartment or a 4 bedroom or something like that. We asked for the four bedroom in our application as we are heading over there to meet people so sharing a place is a great start!

Other than that we are about to apply for our International Driving Permit just to be on the safe side. We plan on driving through America so if we ever get pulled over hopefully we have all the right documentation.

We just had some money changed over a couple weeks ago and it was awesome! We bought 2000 CAD and it cost us 2092 AUD! I am hoping the AUD will surpass the USD before we head off because we want to buy some more money. As we need to prove we both have 4000 AUD each when we arrive in Canada so we get our visa from the port of entry officer.

Cant wait! Next update will most likely be when we are packing or when we arrive in Canada!

PS i checked the weather and it was -5 degrees on our mountain! And there is still one month before winter actually starts!!!!! BBBRRRR!!!!!!!

10 weeks to go!!

Flights are booked!!! We leave Darwin November 17th and fly to Sydney, then straight to Vancouver for a one hour stop over then off to Calgary! And we arrive on the morning of the 17th! So weird going back in time..

We received our contracts from Panorama Mountain and they changed Aaron's start date to November 9th! DILEMMA! Aaron sent an email advising them we didnt fly in until a week later and they were happy to change his start date to November 22nd thank goodness! So we wont get to travel around for two weeks as planned... well Aaron wont but I will =)

The exchange program includes one nights accomodation in Calgary so we will spend our first night there and then make our way to Panorama on the 18th. I think it takes around 4 hours? There are bus shuttles that run to Banff and then to Invermere so see how we go.

As soon as we arrive we need to set up bank accounts to be paid into so we will be doing that in Calgary. We've been told to apply for a Social Insurance Number as well but I think we need to wait until we arrive so we can apply.. so many things to do! Might ask IEP about that one..

I need to buy some snow boots when we get there as well because I am going to freeze! I checked out the weather and in November they have maximum temperatures of -3C!!!!!

Oh and my leave without pay wasn't approved at work so I will be taking all of my rec leave (unfortunately my 9wks sick leave goes down the gurgler) and then resigning. I am taking my leave at half pay so I will get about 3months paid leave so at least we will have some money as back up as we arent getting paid much ($8.73 per hr for me and Aaron is on like $10 or something) CANT WAIT!