Whistler Day 1

Elona typing

Arriving a place at night is wonderful for morning surprises. Yes the lovely Olympic Torch lights are effective at night but the mountains in the morning are beautiful and quite a surprise when you didn't see them the night before. Now we don't want to sound negative but the both of us could only hold back for so long before we discussed what we thought of the place: It's pretty is the consensus. We were absolutely spoilt in Alaska - this is hard to explain - the scenery in Alaska is breathtakingly stunning, it's difficult to tear your eyes away so to come here which is really pretty...we kinda think maybe we should have done it the other way round. But no matter onward we go. We head into town via bus; conveniently located down the street, after having a lovely breakfast at the hostel cafe. The trip in was interesting, about 20 minutes and the houses are luxurious - we are talking 2 to 8 million dollar places here. This I confirmed by reading the paper...the prices are very steep; I found a room you could buy in a house for $489 thousand: WOW!

Whistler Village is a shopping mecca - any label you want is here!! Very easy to spend money on shopping and food. The most amazing thing happened though on our wanders through the village (it's quite large really) we ran into Tash from Perisher (NSW) Ski Rider who we know through the school trip we take every year. Tash and her boyfriend Johnno told us that they would be out here for 6 months but neither of us thought we'd run into them the first day if at all. What was even funnier is we ran into Johnno the following day in the street - just hilarious really. It did not take us long to realise that Whistler is aptly named: "North Sydney"!! There are about 80% Australian population here ranging from 18 to 30 years and then families. We seem to be the odd age without the family - hey we consider ourselves family but I guess that's not quite the same thing.


Megs Typing:

As the afternoon was coming to a close we decided we should take the opportunity to buy a few breakfast essentials, tea, coffee and yes we remembered the sugar, cereal and milk, plus one of the quick and easy cardboard meals which tastes like a quick and easy cardboard meal....  The grocery store was packed - New Years Eve everyone was buying their last minute party preparations before the store closed.  We purchased our tickets earlier to the "First Night Festival" 0% alcohol 100% fun.  We headed back to the hostel to pack away our food stuffs and dress for a cold night of festivities.

We headed back to the Village around 6 - 6.30pm to investigate the two locations full of promised activities....Before we left we noticed a lot of young people carbing up on their pasta dinners discussing how expensive beer is over here and planning a large night of non-stop partying - happy to be going out at this point.

We arrived in the Village centre got checked in via security for our ticket, saw the stage with the 19 year old musician playing and 3 people watching????  Music was not that great and it was early - that might explain the slow start to the evening.  Not wanting to insult our ears any longer that necessary, we decided to walk around and window shop, stopped in for 2 crepes with lemon and sugar for Elona and Cream of Spinach soup for me - was lovely.  Off we wandered again looking at all the stores (souvenir shops mostly), we checked on the program for the second location holding activities for the evening.

We made maple syrup taffy sticks - they pour boiling hot taffy syrup on a bed of ice, then using a very large paddle pop stick you roll up the taffy as it cools to make like a lolly pop.  Very nice but Very sweet and extremely STICKY....  We ran into 2 Canadian Mounties (not sure about their authenticity) but they looked good - see photo with Elona.  We looked around and they had put on an amazing event for little kids.  Jugglers and similar performers, make your own party hat, create something to put in the time capsule, painting and art and crafts for all, there was also a junior dance party for under 19s in the same venue.

Time for another wander and maybe some coffee - have decided that gingerbread mocha creations are very tasty.  The main stage area now had almost 100 people gathered to listen to a group called "Five Alarm Funk".  They were good, we bought all 3 albums.  We decided that we did not have the stamina to wait out the next hour in the cold before they returned for their final set in the lead up to the big count down.  Back on the bus heading for home....just waiting for the bus was all kinds of entertainment (kind of sad entertainment, but entertainment none the less) - icy conditions do not lend well to fashion shoes and short skirts.  New Years eve invites the lure of fashion shoes with very high heals and very little grip.  Add alcohol and less than chivalrous escorts; also with alcohol and there is a lot of people lucky not to have broken ankles for the first day of 2011.  There was one group of bus stop dwellers who were betting on the likely hood of slips and spills from the people walking across the road.

Home before midnight - all is quiet here???HMMMMM?  Chatted with Linda (Roommate for the night), her and her husband stayed here for the party - which turned out to be everyone watching "True Lies" yes that is right the Arnold Swarzenegger (oh whatever) movie.  Linda said it was truly hilarious as most of the audience had never seen the film being only 3 when it first came out.

One tragedy early in the evening - one girl drank herself into a dangerously unconscious state and passed out in the bathroom.  Luckily she did not have the where with all to lock the toilet and was found in time for the ambulance to be called and have her taken to the hospital to get her stomach pumped.

Elona typing

Meg's has not mentioned the exciting bus ride home where a delightfully pissed chappy decided to empty the contents of his stomach whilst still on the bus - the very crowded bus - not once but twice...ooohhhh dear. Breathing through our mouths we made it back to the hostel vomit free - surprisingly...you know how sometimes that whole domino effect happens. anyway I made a facetime call to my baby: Mandel and we were talking as the New Year rolled around - the tv was on downstairs in the reception area where I was and I watching the Seattle Needle all lit up and their festivities to open the new year. Looked lovely and it was nice to be chatting with Mandel to welcome the New Year in.
I headed up to the room and wished all a Happy New Year and basically climbed into bed and went to sleep - not really the party goers - having said that it was VERY quiet here at the hostel.