There has been 49cm of snow over night… It’s going to be a big powder day today!!

So our room is on the bottom floor and as us three blondies are tucked up in bed we here a funny noise from outside – a noise which sounds like movement or someone walking. None of us were asleep and all of us heard the noise. Jumping to the conclusion that it was someone trying to break in we turned on the light and all screamed and freaked out as we slowly walked to the big window and pulled back the curtain to catch our invaders red handed… RACCOONS!
Two raccoons had invaded our rubbish bags outside the house and were scuffling around and stealing left overs!
P.s sorry the photos aren’t that good I was very excited / scared

Day 2 of our training began with off piste powder and back country tree runs. We skiied through the racing bike and bob sleigh tracks and fought our way over rocks in order to get to the deepest snow.
After lunch everything became more technical as the instructor stripped our skiing down to basic, making us do wide turns across the slopes while jumping in between each one. While we laughed at how stupid we looked traversing along the slopes, we were actually working on our stance and balance and this was then put into practise as we moved to a mogul slope and skied across in a similar way to our jumping.
Then we all watched as a beginner slowing ploughed past us, skiing across the mountain without moving her body at all. We imitated her for a while, which was funny as people genuinely thought we were beginners, and then we did the same but this time letting our legs lead and our feet face the direction we wanted to ski. Here we were practising pivoting. Then we got lower to the ground keeping our upper body facing down the slope and put our pivoting into practise when carving!
Was bizarre how all the beginner exercises fitted and slotted into different advanced ways of skiing!
After once again relaxing in the hottub our legs are all ready for the day ahead, it’s already snowed 20cm this evening and there’s more forecast for over night, big powder day tomorrow!

Being the only three girls in our two houses and all being blonde will obviously draw attention, the fact that we’re already called ‘the three blondes’ demonstrates this..
Unfortunately being blonde also comes with blonde moments and our tally is growing…
1. First day here we had the opportunity to ski in the afternoon if we wanted to and had all our ski equipment sorted. We sorted ours out, sent our skis in to be serviced saying we’d pick them up the next morning and then set off ski-less to ski for an hour in the afternoon…
2. First day of all tracks, have to meet at 9. 8.45 I’m on the bus on the way to the mountain – without my ski pass. Can’t get up the mountain but don’t have enough time to go back and get it…
3. With no bread and no milk for cereal we had nothing for breakfast so planned to get up at 7am to go and buy some from the supermarket. So once we’d woken up we walked down in our pajamas only to realise that the alarm had been set for 6 and none of lthe supermarkets were yet open…

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First day of skiing today as part of my ski season, full of snow and full of adventure.
After waking the whole house up, us girls ate our breakfasts while we waiting for the others to get ready for the day ahead. At first we went to blackcomb mountain and I picked up my skis after they’d been serviced over night and headed up the mountain as a house.
We skied the morning on good conditions, thick powder and and fun off piste runs however the visibility wasn’t great and half way down the mountain a big cloud had settled making it harder to see.
At lunch we met up with the house next door and skied the afternoon as a group of 11, crazy that we managed to stay together all afternoon – especially with a group filled with crazy Aussie skiers, Italian cliff jumpers, an army skier and Three blonde racers (us hehe).

After a group dinner and a chilled evening, we’re off to bed early now ready for our first day of our real, intense training tomorrow – excited or nervous I can’t decide…

Not sure what makes blondes click with blondes (they definitely have more fun) but as soon as I saw the two other girls in the airport I knew we’d be friends – meet the Valhalla crew.
Valhalla is our housing section and it’s really quaint and well designed with a log fireplace in the centre of a big lounge foe everyone to chill. Our house has 6 people, 4 girls and 2 guys, the house next door is 7 guys and the house down the road is 4 girls.
There are also two other housing sections with Alltracks skiers and snowboarders so in total there’s about 70 people.
Yesterday we had an introductory talk outlining the rules and the different components of our training and basically how they’re going to rip our skiing apart and make it perfect!
Then we had a tour of the village to find out where to meet for training and dinner and then we had the afternoon to sort out all our equipment for skiing.
So after lunch with the two other blondes, they got their ski passes while I got my skis serviced.
In the evening we had welcome drinks round a fire at the fire rock bar. A lovely start to the course, meeting people and making some new friends and now I’m looking forward to my first day up the mountain with everyone!

Final day in Vancouver.
Today after packing and checking out we planned on visiting the world famous Vancouver Museum of Anthropology, unfortunately (note to all those planning on visiting Vancouver) this museum is actually closed on Mondays during the winter.
Instead we once again hired bikes and cycled the long scenic route along the sea edge and over a huge steel bridge to a different museum – the space centre. In typical Vancouver style once we arrived in the neighbourhood where the space centre was, it was as if we were in a different city altogether. A whole different world to the scenic sea cycle path we had taken to get there.

On the way we stopped at Cardera’s – a gorgeous floating sea good restaurant situated in the harbour by Stanley Park.
The Space Centre itself was quite small and although we watched a film in the planetarium and explored the exhibition, we were done within the hour.
After travelling back across the same steel bridge and seaside cycle path we arrived back at the hotel, ready to depart for the airport.

Not sure what to think of Vancouver, everywhere we went by choice I loved – great food and great views of the mountains behind the harbour. However the bits in between, the random broken down streets and the empty blocks made the whole place seem eery and spooky. I think it would be a much nicer place to visit in Summer when the city is full of life – definitely a place I would want to experience in a different light as I haven’t made up my mind yet.

SKI SEASON BEGINS.
After an emotional goodbye in the airport I headed down to arrivals to meet Guy, an AllTracks team member by the two wooden totem poles. I had actually seen him from the balcony above and so had seen the other AllTracks skiers like me waiting to get on the bus. After meeting lots of new people, finding out who I’d be living with for the next 5 weeks and making friends we got on the bus ready to leave for Whistler.
Unfortunately the BA flight was delayed and so our 7.30 bus departure time ended up being 8.30 and now after a lot of chitchat the bus is silent, full of jetlagged, sleeping people and I am FINALLY heading back up to the mountains.

Last night, after an emotional goodbye to my family, we checked in at our waterfront hotel in Vancouver. The first thing we saw when we left the hotel to explore that evening was Canada Place, which is the home of the Vancouver convention centre, Vancouver’s world trade centre and FlyOver Canada – a virtual flight ride and currently the worlds longest flight simulator.

OBVIOUSLY, we decided to go on this ride and after walking through a Christmas wonderland trying popcorn and honey coated nuts we joined the queue for our flight. First we watched a four screen video called “uplift” an uplifting video on the wonders of Canada, following four people’s completely different lives and then we took our seats on our virtual plane.
The seats took off into the air and placed us floating inside a globe screen, here we moved with the motion of the film as we flew over the different wonderful and amazing sites in Canada including Niagra Falls, Whistler Mountains and the northern lights. Throughout the flight we experienced not only sight and sound but different smells to go with the destination and also feelings. It truly was a 4d experience and a flight to remember.

After a gorgeous Japanese meal in Miku, a restaurant overlooking the water, we went back to the hotel ready for our big day today.

day 2 – Vancouver
Today we started with a Starbucks breakfast before cycling along the waters edge towards Stanley park…

Once in Stanley park we visited the Vancouver Aquarium, one of the best aquariums I have ever been to! Full of hundreds of different animals and features including dolphins, sea otters, beluga whales, penguins, frogs, fish, snakes and an amazon experience with birds and insects from the amazon.

After the Aquarium we visited China Town, which was felt surprisingly less safe than the China Town in London. As it is one of the oldest ‘China Towns’ in the world it had ancient Chinese looking buildings and is home to the narrowest building in the world yet there was an eery feel to it. When we arrived we passed a group of rough looking men and one of them started walking a few metres behind us as we passed. Although Im not 100% sure we were being followed it definitely felt like it and so soon we entered a coffee shop – just incase – and the man also stopped outside the shop for a few moments. We waited until he had passed, had a drink and then went to find our lunch destination. We ate in a small local restaurant called Garden Villa restaurant. I found it in a Vancouver guide book and so had the address, otherwise this “dimsum haven” would have never been found. The restaurant was on the second floor of a tall building and so at first we walked straight passed the staircase leading to it, but soon retraced our steps and found it. This was real Chinese food, and we were the only non-Asian people there, with an undecorated room and plastic table clothes it became clear that the restaurants aim was not based on attracting tourists like us, especially when we asked the waitress for lemonade, she snapped a firm no. After filling up on probably too much shrimp dim sum and vegetable spring rolls, we left china.

When planning our visit we spent a long while trying to find a route to China Town which avoided west Hastings, idiots we are, we were meant to be avoiding East Hastings – West Hastings is actually a very nice, upmarket street but a bit further east down the same road is the drug central of North America. Obviously on our way home from China Town we happened to come across East Hastings, the street that is always warned against and advised to be avoided! Luckily we didn’t have to walk down it, only past it on a cross road but it was as if we had entered a whole different City. The houses were broken down and the people were dressed as if they lived on the street and to make matters worse we were wearing ostentatious clothes in the roughest area in North America. After spinning my hand bag around to hide the mulberry logo and walking fast with our heads down we were soon safe on water street – a beautiful road with idyllic buildings and unscary people!

We then headed to the Harbour Tower to view the 360 degree view of Vancouver from the observation deck, reached by a glass elevator which travels up along the outside of the building. Watching the sunset behind skyscrapers makes them seem surprisingly beautiful and we had the best view in the house.

Funny how you can feel so safe in a street filled with expensive designer shops and people dressed smartly for their evening ahead – welcome to Alberni street, our destination for dinner. First we headed to Coast, a gorgeous fresh seafood restaurant with a Brussel Sprout side dish to die for! I had salmon on a bed of faro, butternut squash purée and kale.

Next, under recommendation we skipped desert and headed across the street to Thiezzy, a chocolate specialised patisserie, for our pudding.
Here they have two specialities: Gateaux de Roix, a sweet pastry where if you find the toy in your slice you get a crown! And secondly: Liquid chocolate, a drink made purely out of chocolate.

And that concludes my first days in Vancouver. 🙂

Weather: sunny
Conditions: soft

After a half day of sunny skiing on beautifully groomed soft snow, we headed down to Vancouver and parted separate ways at the Fairmont Waterfront hotel.
I now have a couple of days to explore Vancouver before heading back up to Whistler on Monday evening.
With a huge city, voted best place to live in the world, on my hands and only two(ish) days to explore it… Whatever shall I do?!