Hayley & Shaun in Canada: February 2011

We are home!

2nd January - Beginning of April

Not only have we been living in our apartment in Canmore, Alberta for a month now but this means I'm finally up-to-date with my blogs! Sorry that they have been a bit behind, but hopefully you have all been enjoying them and haven't missed any along the way.

We are now living in a unit on the top floor (level 4, not that high but at least it's the top) of The Lodges at Canmore. The complex is home to short and long stay rentals and I think our unit is in the long-stay section which is good as it's fairly quiet. It's a lovely complex, especially covered in snow and we do have a partial view of some of the rocky mountains. We are lucky to have a heated underground carpark and the block is very secure which is good. We also have a really nice outdoor hot tub surrounded by snowy trees and its all hidden away which is cool, as well as a fitness centre. Our actual unit is really cosy and modern, with two flat screen TV's, a full kitchen, king size bed in a seperate room, gas fireplace and our own deck with a bbq. Its furnished very nicely and its a lovely little home for our stay here. It was very exciting arriving at the apartment as it was something we had both been looking forward to for a very long time as we had been looking at pictures of the apartment on the internet for so long!

Our first week (nearly two) was spent getting to know Canmore and searching for jobs. We were told that jobs might be hard to find as we were actually here during the quiet time which I thought was odd as its winter and isn't everyone here to go skiing???? Anyways canmore is a lovely town, not too small but not too big. It's got the main town part and then the residential areas kind of spread out off that main area. There's quite a few shops and cafes and restaurants and grocery stores and its really beautiful covered in snow and you can pretty much walk everywhere. We were glad we ended up in a nice township and not an industrial area like some of the small towns we had driven through before.

So, back to the job searching... Shaun was lucky to know a few people from Perisher, working at Nakiska, a ski hill about 30-40 mins from Canmore. Its not an overly big hill but it was where the alpine events took place in the Winter olympics in 1988 and it's known to be Calgary's closest mountain. So Shaun managed to get a Ski instructor job after speaking to the ski boss and after some of his friends put in a good word. Originally Shaun started off just working weekends, but he is now getting a couple more days of work during the week too which is great. He is really enjoying it and getting in lots of ski time as well as meeting some new people. I managed to get in contact with the HR lady at Nakiska through Shaun and his boss and about a week and half after shaun got his job, she had an opening in the Tickets department and we had a phone interview and she offered me the position which was really fantastic as I wasn't sure what I was going to do and its a job that I enjoy doing. I work Friday, saturday and sunday and will be having a few more days during their busy periods.

One of the biggest perks of the job is we both now have a season pass to some of the best ski hills in the area including Sunshine, Lake Louise, Fernie, Kimberley and of course, Nakiska. We have skiied at Sunshine so far, and shaun has skiied at Lake Louise and they're great places. We are planning to head to Fernie (about 4 hours away) sometime in march. It's great we got this pass as it would have cost us about $800 to get a pass ourselves. We have also been skiing at Norquay (a hill about 30 mins from here). It is not included in our pass but we went on their 85 cent lift ticket day so that was good.

Since being in Canmore and working we have made some friends and had some over for Aussie day, having a bbq and hot tub evening which was fun, we have done lots of skiing (shaun more than me), We have been into Calgary a few times to see movies and such, we have also been into Banff which is only about 20 mins from here and explored the Fairmont Banff Springs (very famous hotel here, like a castle!) and we went to the Banff hot springs, like a really big hot tub outdoors which was nice, we've been out for drinks with work people and we went to a Lacrosse game in Calgary at the saddledome. Shaun's friend James got us cheap tickets and we went with a couple of people from work, it was a really cool experience, just like what you see on TV with the big screens in the middle and everyone drinking beer. The Lacrosse was cool as it was like nothing we have at home but we both got into it and really enjoyed it, and Calgary won so that was good too! We also started working at Nakiska just in time to go to their mid-season staff party which was at the Stoney Nakoda Casino which is kind of in the middle of nowhere, but we got dinner and some drinks and just hung out with everyone which was good and shaun won some free nachos at the lodge and I won a pari of gloves haha! I also got to go to an Admin staff dinner at one of the hotels near the ski hill, there was about 10 of us there and they paid for a full on 3-course dinner and drinks and we all got a 'valentine's day' gift bag so that was really lovely and a good way to get to know people better. Unfortunately at the moment I've got a bad cold so we're spending a couple of days at home resting so we can get back out there and do some more stuff!

In the next two months we are planning to do lots more skiing so we get our 'money' worth as well as going on the banff gondola which should give us some great views of the rocky mountains. We want to go to a hockey game in calgary and we want to go out a lot more now that we are making some money. We also plan on going dog-sledding at some stage too which should be great and hopefully we can see some wildlife as we haven't really seen any yet.

It really is beautiful here especially being in the snow and the skiing and the ski hills is great, and really different. There are some pics of our Canmore adventures below and we will probably do another blog from canmore in the next two months and then pick up again once we go to America. If anyone has facebook we have lots more pics up on there too.

We are really enjoying our time here, especially working at a Canadian ski resort, and being able to work together. Stay tuned for more news in a couple of weeks. Hope you're all happy and healthy.

Hayley & Shaun xx