Winter Wonderland

BRIO IN THE SNOW

I woke up yesterday morning, looked out the window and actually gasped. Walking home from the pub at 1.30am, it had been lightly snowing. At 9.30am there was a good 20cm outside. Unfortunately it hasn't lasted too well and we're back to just general wetness. That didn't stop us having our first epic snowball fight on the way out last night. I fared well for once.

SLOWLY BECOMING INTRAWESTED

After six days of training I now have a gap before my last two days. Training has been very varied. Learning about all the different tickets, season passes and discounts was definitely very interesting and I promptly phoned Andrew and Jen to advise them on the early bird offers still available. As the answer to a lot of the questions in training was "ask your senior host" or "look to your senior host for support" I tried to pay as much attention as possible. Senior host training is two days this week, so I'll be interested to see what tools they supply us with in order that we can answer with some sort of authority...

The first day of tickets/validation training was an epic day packed with team games (including sketches to demonstrate going 'above and beyond': luckily one group lightened the mood with a bear providing excellent customer service on the slopes by returning a half-eaten child, and the Whistler Blackcomb "child replacement scheme"). You couldn't make up some of the stuff we had to do - chanting the customer service mantra in our most enthusiastic voices for one. I am certainly in Canada.

I found out definitively that I will be working in both tickets and validation, which means I'll be at the bottom of the slope scanning tickets and organising queues as well as in the ticket windows. With a $75 incentive for every fraudulent or inappropriate pass found, and nice Whistler Blackcomb pants and jacket as uniform, I'm quite pleased about that.

KEEPING OUT OF TROUBLE...?

Lyndsey, Emma, me and Tara: What's the Name of the game!!??

Otherwise I've been skating, partying and sleeping. We've got a good group building here at Brio. The dynamic is still changing, as people who didn't succeed in getting work for the mountain move out and those from the waiting list move in. We're still waiting for our fourth flatmate, apparently also called Laura and paying rent but not in town yet.

I have a meeting set up with the editor at one of the local papers here with a view to doing some sort of writing or work experience which I'm enormously excited about.

I haven't missed a Canucks game yet, particularly as we now have our very own TV (purchased for a mere $30 from the 'Re-Use It Centre'. Sadly they took a complete whooping from the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday.

MISSING YOU

Now that I'm settling a bit, I'm starting to miss you all back home. I printed a load of photos and stuck them up on my wall to remind me of all the good times.