An Orientation to Lake Louise

Let's just say that Lake Louise is damn far from Vancouver when catching a bus. After about 14 hours on a bus, I finally got here.. yah! Had problems finding my place and realised how shocking the HR here was.. when finally I did, the Housing people at my employee accomodation greeted my with
"Andrea... we have a room for you. You're not going to like it though."
"Why not"
"Ahh.. we have complaints about it. It's the messiest room in the building, in the worse apartment.. and everyone smokes pot"
"Hmm... excellent... can I change."
"Sure, but we have a huge waiting list, so good luck."

So here I am distressed.. and everyone is staring at me already coz I have at least 60kgs worth of luggage with me.. I had to break out the expansion panel on my suitace which means I was nearly in tears dragging the damn thing up the stairs to my room." It's not like I have anything against people smoking all sorts of substances, I've grown up with a lot of friends that have... but to open the front door to my new living room for the next 5 months and greet 8 extremely stoned people in a totally smoked out zone (I could barely look through it to examine the kitchen) and then have to drag all this lugguge (which nearly had me in tears 5 mins ago) through floorspace that didn't exist due to the bodies and the beer cans lying around... it didn't really make my day.

My room was a mess, I don't think it has been vacuumed in the last 10 years with cigarette butts everywhere... my window will always slightly ajar as it doesn't sit in the frame properly. But at least I have my own room, a bed and clean linen. I will do my best to clean the floor and make room for my guests that promised to come!!

The next morning was a beauty. They are so disorganised here I didn't have my schedule, and I was extremely lucky to have found brownish-green pants in my bloody lugguge which was a required item but no-one bothered to tell me in advance. Anyways, I wanted to rock up to work at 8am, having to catch a shuttle up to the slopes and woke up in order to catch the 7:50am shuttle. Thats all an well until you realise that Lake Louise is one hour ahead of Vancouver, and I had about 4 mins to sprint down the village (which I have no idea what it looks like in broad daylight) on order to catch a bus to work that will get me there an hour late as opposed to 2 hours .. and seriously, I was ready to cry right then and there since I was having such a shit time!

But it's all cool now, I found my bus, got to work on time as we ended up starting at 9am, and the people are really cool in rentals.. a lot more alert than my flatmates. I think we have the coolest job and the coolest team on the slopes which is good. We're all there to have fun and we bludge quite a bit. We also have 2 hour ski breaks and can take out as much gear as we want for free which is pretty cool. Last night, everyone went out to the local bar and got totally smashed. Welcome to the world of ski resort work. I was pretty tired and quite sick, so went to check out the scene and met some people before heading home to crash.

As for my flatmates, they're ok now.. I've met all of them now I think, even though I still don't know names... there's 3 girls and 4 guys... but I get confused as we always have visitors. but anyways, they are pretty nice when they're not totally out of it and I chat to them here and there. Still can't see myself being best buddies with them which is a shame since all my other colleagues have really cool people that they get along with and hang out with. One of the girls couldn't stand the mess and cleaned up, I'm still a bit hesitant about parking my ass on the lounge, but at least I can see the floor now. The kicthen is a shocker, but I have a feeling I will be losing a lot of weight here. Grocery costs an arm and a leg and all they have is packaged junk. I miss Trang and our gourmet meals back in Vancouver! =(

Anyways, I no longer entertain the thought of quitting (since I do not want to move my luggage anymore)... I have some cool workmates, I tested the snow yesterday and was very happy with it, and I have a friend visiting over X'mas! Yeah!!! I also have another Aussie friend working in Banhff which is only an hour away, so that will be cool!!

Anyways, internet also costs a lot, so sorry if I don't reply emails promptly (I still exoect them though!!). I'll update you guys on Lake Louise and the surrounding when I've done a few more hours at work and can afford internet again! =P