So the weekend exertions over and done with, come Monday morning I was to front up for the first day of my new contract job. I'm now with a company called CDS - Canadian Depository for Securities, a kind of holding company or middle man for stockbrokers trading shares, and thus far it has been pretty dull, loads of excel spreadsheets and data entry, and a rather steep learning curve. As I write i'm in my 3rd week and still pretty much have no idea what I or the company do.
Going out for dinner during the week for a friends' friend's birthday,
I met some lads who were heading to Whistler the following weekend, and I cheekily asked if there was room for an tag-along. "sure, the more the merrier!" I still hadn't been up to the legendary mountain in 2 months of living here, and this was a great opportunity to do so. Altho, I still didn't see any ski or boarding action. I soon learned that this was going to be purely a clubbing-pubbing-drinking weekend! British DJ Josh Winks (????) was headlining a club night up there and was the main focal point of the trip for these lads, and therefore me.
heading off straight after work on friday, there was fellow aussies Mick and Ricky, and Brits John and Andy. Mick had struck it lucky and bought a Toyota Corolla for $500 and so the only transport cost was fuel. nice!
2 and a 1/2 hours later, and we were in Whistler village. We quickly checked in to the Shoestring Lodge and hit the hostel bar, The Boot Pub. Unbeknown to us (honestly), Friday nights are stripper nights, with a temporary walkway-stage and fireman's pole installed. Never one to turn down such an opportunity, we parked ourselves at a table and began the long night ahead of us in style. Venturing into the village proper, it was teeming with people, bars and pubs chock full of revellers, and spilling out into the street - a real carnivale party atmospehere. Apparently its like this every night of the week in the peak of the season - if you live here, whether as a local or a random Aussie backpacking ski-bunny, its pure madness. Needless to say we lads took to it like a duck to water, cruising a few bars and ending up at some Cuban cantina styled basement bar.
when we left at closing it was snowing!....it was funny, but it was so nice to be standing about outside the bar chatting away to strangers with huge snowflakes falling about our feet and on our clothes and hair. back at the hostel i got some great pics from the open window of our dorm, and then the next morning a thin blanket of white covered everything outside. as i knew i wouldn't be getting up the slopes, it was nice to see at least a little bit of snow.
the Saturday morning saw my first real glimpse of Whistler village, and its pretty much as i was told it would be - a kind of plastic, synthetic, homogenised ski resort - everything about the architecture reminded me of a giant play-lego set, or a hyper-real Hollywood-ised version of what a European ski resort is supposed to look like. Needless to say, its totally set up for maximum fun levels, with everything a ski-bunny could possibly want at his/her disposal. After checking all this out, having a huge fry-up brekky and going for a little drive around the area, we decided to see out the afternoon from the patio of one of the copious numbers of bars in the village, and slowly drink away our hangovers.
Finally,mid-evening, the event of the weekend was upon us, Whistler's huge convention centre converted into a club of epic proportions for the guest DJ Josh Winks from England (who, to be honest i am not at all familiar with). We were already suitably alcohol fuelled from the afternoon, and all that was left was to find some further chemical stimulus, which to no suprise at all, materialised within about 20minutes of being inside. Disco biscuits all round! The beverage of choice for the rest of the night then? - water.
DJ Josh Winks has some talent. He played a good long set of funky hard house, a little bit of euphoric electro thrown in for god measure. well, again to be honest, i don't really know - i just remember dancing hard aalllllll night, and again got some good pics of us getting particularly well-melted! (more 'up' of the email's title).......and then it was over! as usually happens in this scenario, the night flew by before our very dilated pupils.
Come Sunday, we weren't well at all, and the general consensus was to skip the Sunday and just head back to Van. 11am check out, and we were on the road by 11.15, and i was home and in my bed by 2pm, to sleep the rest of the day away. I guess i'm not as young as i used to be!
well, i guess this pretty much concludes this epic....another mad emotional roller-coaster period in my travelling life.
take care,
tony
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