Back to reality!

As you may have already guessed we are back in blighty! We arrived back a few weeks back now and we have been pretty busy sorting out new lives for ourselves!

Well where we left you was back in Vancouver. Very soon after we did the last post we realised that we had no where near enough moolah to carry on our vancouver dream.

We didnt even have enough to get the bus back over to Rossland to collect our winter things! We just had to cut our ties and change our flights from Calgary to Vancouver, which proved to be very cheap indeed.

We decided then to sight see instead and had a really fun time in Vancouver.

We are now working back in England for an employment agency, and the memories from Canada seem far too distant now for both me and Jess.

We were just looking through the old photos and felt excited by seeing soo much snow.

I'm very sure we will return to Rossland and Red mountain one day.

We have already started to get things organised here like our little suzuki and get jobs so that we can get our new canada fund full again.

To everyone who read our blog we would like to thank you very much. It gave us soo much enjoyment to share our experiences with you.

Until next time.

Cheerio!

Dan & Jess

Vancity!

hello there from sunny, amazing, slightly windy and very expensive Vancouver! We have been here for a few days now and what an excellent city this is!

We made the long journey over from Rossland on the 25th of March and have been at the best western hotel in English bay since!

What an incredible city this is! Mountains, blue sky, sea and huge lovely buildings.

It is such a contrast here to being in the quiet little town of Rossland, where you can walk down Columbia avenue for 2 minutes and have seen almost the whole town.

On the first night we arrived, we were soo tired and got up to the hotel about 10.30p.m, i popped down the road to a shop and got us some water, food and toothpaste. We had showers and then spent our first night in a bed in three months! It was such a good night sleep even with the massive pillows.

In the morning we had a walk to the end of a street and got 2 tea's from starbucks and then with our earl grey in hand we took a walk around English bay.

After seeing ducks, birds and a racoon! We decided that no trip to Vancouver could be complete without a trip to the equarium. Like to little excited kids we went in and had our wrists stamped. It was incredible really. There were all sorts of animals, not just sea life.. And they had a tiny little monkey!

My favourte make was the Dolphin and Jess chose the sea horse. It is a useless looking thing, with propellers on its head!

We spent in total about 3 hours there and then had a walk around the downtown area.

We then had a search around for potential jobs and places to stop. The cheapest being renting a room in a poor looking hotel and for a month they wanted 1600 dollars!! Thats more than double what we were paying in Rossland.

And with our 500 dollars it wasnt looking good.

In the evening we went out to a Korean restaurant called Ap Gu Jung, it was absaloutely packed. Most of the people there were Korean students, so the food must have been rather good.

It was such a nice meal, though i chose a dish called 'pork on fire' (the spiciest meal possible)

My bravery/stupidity was only encouraged when the waitress said it was quite spicey and i might be better choosing another. No backing out

now!

When the food came the waitress also brought us a few sample dishes we might like which was really nice of her.

With my mouth burning and my nose and eyes streaming, i finished my meal!

Though Jess's sensible choice was a bit nicer.

On the way home i could actually feel my stomach burning!

The next day we had some breakfast, looked at some very expensive century 21 apartments then decided with the lovely weather to hire two 'Cruiser' bikes from across the road at English bay bike rentals. What a good idea this was. Jess had a green one with a basket and i had a snazzy blue one.

We rode them around the 11.5 km circuit of Stanley park stopping off a few times for rests and photos.

Vancouver is a lovely city, everyone rides bikes or roller blades! And you have propper roads for bikes and then a seperate one for skates. It was soo beautiful riding right next to the sea with the huge snow capped mountains in the background and all the flowers and trees around us. It really did feel like summer.

It was a brilliant day and it was about 5 p.m by the time we took the bikes back. We had a little rest in the hotel room and then went out for a walk. We walked for about half an hour to where the sea planes take off to go to Vancouver Island and also saw the Olympic beacon. Its a lovely quiet dock area with hundreds of massive yachts and a brilliant view across the water to Grouse mountain resort. We ended up walking deeper and deeper into the city until we became a little lost. We thought about asking directions from some of the very nice chaps who walk around together holding hands. (I think it must be some kind of 'buddy' initiative to stop them getting as lost as us)

Eventually after an hour or so finding our way onto the right street.

We were getting a bit hungry by this time and ended up outside the Korean restaurant from the night before and with them having hockey live on tv we decided what the hell lets do it again. The waitress seemed very pleased to see us. This time we were upstairs, it was even more packed than last time!

Now, today! We got up, looked on the internet to try and sort out some things for living here, with little success then went out for another adventure. We had some lunch at our new favourite super market which only does all organic local food. Very nice to! Its a little cooler today and we had a few showers. But we didnt let this dampen our spirits.

We have had a lovely day wandering around, going to cafes and looking in shops for advertisements. It dosnt seem that out meager allowance of money will be enough here. But we shall see.

Each day our money situation worsens.

Bye Bye from Danny and Jess very much in love with our new city

The nicest donut in months!

Greetings from mother crunkin canada!

And happy st. patricks day! (everyone seems to celebrate it here?)

Day 71 of the Dan & Jess Canada extraveganza!

The past few days we have eaten and drank better than the whole time we have been here in Rossland! Well apart from the excellent trip to Steam Plant Grill in SPokane of courses!

This is mainly down to the excellent supply package we recieved the other week (via matthew and James) from Agnes, my relative in Calgary. Also we have our cuboards full of treats galore (left overs from James and Matthews stay)

The best of which are 9 beers! (of which 3 now remain : ) We decided, wrongly, to take 2 beers up the hill to have with our lunch (as most of the people there seem to do.) This made us both feel very dehydrated, and we decided then and there that we are deffiantly not cut out for that sort of rebelious behaviour.

Oh and best till last, we can now drink tea! This was a collective effort from my mum, Jess' mum and Agnes! Cheers!

And for those who didnt send anything... well you know who you are. There's a special place in hell reserved for you! Only jokels of course!

I wrote the above at home yesterday. Now (thursday) we are in the library, taking a day off to sort out a few bits and pieces for our journey over to Vancouver in april.

It's a lovely summer like day outside and Jess is sat next to me reading her new Joyce Carol Oates book.

Right ill start with yesterday, as thats about as far back as i can remember now. We got up very early and went out in search of first lifts. We got picked up pretty quick and were on the slopes for half 9. With it being soo hot the day before, making the snow all slushy, it had frozen very hard over night making conditions pretty awful. On the way up to the top we entertained ideas of bringing ice skates rather than boards up. After a run we decided to sit it out for a bit and wait for the conditions to improve. The non stop snow sports group had the same idea and sat next to us, after a bit we got talking to the two chaps who run it, he was on his 7th season out in Canada and told us abit about the course. They take a group of people who are comfortable beginers and then teach them over three months to be expert. They have all just completed there level 1 snowboard instructors course and now they are going for there level two!

We sat in the lodge for about an hour watching there morning footage on the tv then went out for a few more runs.

At one point it even began to snow a little, though it was short lived given the very warm temperatures.

Before the end of the day i had two runs down beer belly, though i found it hard work with the icey, waist high moguls!

We hitch hiked back with a chap wearing a green bollar 'st patricks' day hat. He was driving his friends big van. It had two seats in the front and a bed in the back. I sat in the back on a deck chair. It was a fun journey sliding around in the back.

Once home i went over to the shop for some supplys (milsch,beans, donut and dog meat), then came back and had some dinner. I later rang Christa (the women matt and james stopped with last week) and asked her if we could leave our winter things in her basement for a few months whilst we were in Vancouver. She very kindly said yes and that she was missing having James and Matthew there, and that her house now seems very quiet without them.

After that we had another night of watching harry potter, what else! Im sure me and Jess are the only people in the world who can sit and watch a film over and over and still have the same amount of enthusiasm for it each time!

Today we will try and search out a way for us to watch the other 5 films!

Right youre all up to date. Thank you for reading!

Dan & Jess

p.s - i had to stop here as i am almsot at my wits end with a chap sitting in front of us on his laptop. He very annoyingly, continues (every 35 seconds) to snort flem in the back of his throat! Annoying!!

the start of beer belly

Helicopter at the top right

I'm sure we used to live at number 6? Well that was before James and Matthew arrived!

Mittens make everything warmer!

the view from our kitchen

Jess is all ready to get going!

They say the camera adds 10lbs to your face..

Taking a rest on extremely 'moguled' beer belly

Looking down towards rino's run from beer belly

Jess before SoCo!

The view looking out onto 'old glory' the prettiest mountain here.

Looking good on Southern Comfort

Paradise lodge

Lunch time

We wrote on the board at paradise lodge!

past two weeks re-cap!

Hello d'ere!

It's been a long time since we wrote (over two weeks!)

We've had a really good time with James and Matthew being here, and now miss them.

I'll try my best to try and re tell the last two weeks the best i can as we did alot in that time!

I'll start from the begining. It was the sunday evening, and we were waiting for them to arrive from fernie. We hadn't heard from them for a while and were expecting them between 9 and 10p.m. We prepared a bit of food, then sat down and started to watch harry potter (for the third time!)

we got about half way through (8p.m ish) when we heard a banging at the back door (down the hall from us)

We looked at each other and said it couldnt be them that early.. After hearing it again i got up and looked out our backdoor from the balcony which looks into the back yard. i flicked the light switch on to see more but couldnt see anything,

I looked out again and saw this american looking chap with a 'trucker' hat. So i popped my head back from the corner quickly so he wouldnt see. ''What do you see?'' said Jess.

''I just saw a chap i didnt know, but the more i think about it now the more it looked like James in a truckers hat!"

I looked out again (this time more excited) and saw to the right, next to the tree which comes up onto the balcony. Two smiling faces that i hadnt seen in a long time!

"they're here!"

I wetn out to meet them and they told us about how they had found the place, knowing that we had a subway down the street from us and that our building was red with a big balcony!

THey were very tired but still managed to talk to us for a few hours, have some food and then off down to Christa's house (who they were stopping with)

After that they came back to ours and chatted more until it was time for bed!

That night i had more trouble sleeping, waiting to go snowboarding the next day. We had a really nice day and it was amazing to be snowboarding all together. It was very exciting showing off our mountain.

The next few days were very warm and blue skies, which was nice to see but making the snow terrible!

At one point we had to pop to the chemist because James had had an awful allergic reaction to his wristguards and had brought his wrists out in a rash.

Later he decided to go to the doctors aswell.

A few days into it (after some poor snow days) we decided to have a break by taking a road trip out to America! We got some American currency from nearby Warfield and then headed to the boarder. We had our finger prints taken by a very technical looking machine. Aparently my hands were too sweaty, and were showing up as dark, i said it was because of there guns i was scared! After a warning from one of the boarder police (which Jess thought looked like Alf Ventris, from heartbeat) about drugs we were on our way. "now you guys havent any drugs have you" matthew said no, and he said well he isnt shaking his head, pointing to me in the back! I think my mowhawk and beard must give off the wrong impression!

After about three and a half hours we arrived in Spokane (much to the relief of me and Jess, after having to listen to endless 90's techno pop)

We walked around for a while, bought three matching shirts! Then had some lunch at a place that Christa had recommended (steam house grill). It was a lovely place built inside an old smelting factory and i had an amazing buffalo burger, with the best yam fries ive ever had!

We all loved our meals and beer.

After this we headed back towards home not before stopping at the cinema to watch shutter island, which was really good.

It was such a culture shock being in such a busy city after the slow life in Rossland.

We had a few more days of snowboarding, and had some really good nights in watching films with matthew and james. Such as yes man, 28 days later, 28 weeks later and best of all pinapple express.

by this time it was getting to the end of the two weeks and we decided on another trip to the states. This time we had lunch at a steak house grill thing near where we parked, and james had a huuuuge glass of beer (which you can see from the pictures) We then drove around trying to find bowling..

What we found was even better... Lazer quest!! We headed in and gave our nick names:

James - Hudsen (from Aliens)

Matthew - MBizzle

Jess - Jazz (the girl behind the counter heard wrong)

Dan - Dan (too nervous to pick anything good decided to use my mortal name)

After some amazing magic tricks from a nice guy who worked there we were lead into battle against some real tough, obviously veteran, lazer questers (mostly boys aged between 12-18)

We had an awesome time with me Jazz and MBizzle taking the upper level and holding it off for the majority of the game before we were breeched by a bewilldered kid.

I would like to think he was supprised at how proffesional we were, but maybe it was because there was a 6ft 6 21 year old ducking behind a wall to hide from little lazers!

Jazz took to it like a duck to water and ended up coming second out of us! With MBizzle taking 1st and 4th overall!

After this we found our way to 'northern bowl' with some much needed directions from our new magician friend.

We went in and quickly made friends with two very drunk very american guys called rick and julian.

Who (some would say) too quickly invited us to a party they were having.

Matthew won the first game and i the second.

It was a brilliant day and headed back towards canada with our spirits high.

Little did we know what lay in store for us at the boarder!

When we arrived we were greeted by a mardy looking canadian chap (not unlike the face of a bulldog licking widdle off of a nettle)

He asked us to pull the car round for an inspection and made us all exit the vehical. Banging loudly on the glass for me to get out.

It was freezing and we were all shaking. Matthew asked if he minded if he went to to loo and the two chaps looked disgusted and said yeah i certainly do mind!

After and huge search of our very messy car they took our passports and went inside. They came out and said that if we handed our selves in as drig traffic-ers they would go easy on us!

We were gobsmacked and said that we werent at all. The bearded chap said to grump "do you belive them?"

"not in the slightest" (or something along the lines)

After much F'ing and 'scar-mungering' tactics, they went back inside.

They came out 5 minutes later and beardo said that there tombolar type machine had found that one (though they didnt know which yet) passport had came up positive for hash and marijuana!

They went back in to decided on the lucky person

"James"

He went in.. leaving me worried, Jess giggling and cold, and matthew almost ready to pop to the loo in his trousers.

After 10-15 mins james came out looking also annoyed and said we could go.

Finally we were on our way home!

Once at home shaken little Jamie downed 6 more beers before bed. and we spoke for an hour or two before heading off to sleep!

The next few days were spent snowboarding on the new lovely fresh snow! And there was lots of it!

We were having an excellent time.

At the end of one of the days we went up paradise lift and once at the top, just as we were getting off, i caught the edge of my board on the landing strip, pulling me off and under the chair. With a thud i smashed my knee into the floor. Very annoyed i threw off my pack and sat to the side. The pain in my knee was terrible (being the knee i had hurt previously falling off a tiny motorbike)

I lifted my trouser leg up to reveal an inch long cut along my knee and blood! Arghh.. feeling instantly sick i sat down in the snow. After a passing medic telling me that i could probably do with stitches i felt even more dizzy, this time having to lie down in the snow!

Feeling very sorry for myself i was 'downloaded'.. i got a ride over to the opposite lift by skadoo, then down that lift holding my board. With almost every person going up asking about my leg as i passed them!

Once at the bottom i got a lift over to base by another skadoo. The trip was excellent fun!

That night i met James and Matt at the steamshovel for food and some drinks. We headed back home and watched a film.

Then it was there last day! Which they spent snowboarding in the new excellent conditions.

That evening they left us feeling sad and headed back up towards calgary, stopping the night at Cranbrook.

That will have to be it for now as i think my time in cafe books is probably spent!

Ill try and add more tomorrow!

Bye for now!

Dan & a hungry Jess!

xxx