This is a real Winter!

A new year so reason enough to update this website again, because I have been neglecting my fans a bit :-)
Since it’s been a while, a lot has happened, so I’ll try to make it as brief as possible, so that you don’t read yourself asleep.
My last news was when I flew back home end of September and so that’s what I that. I made a stop for 2 weeks in Germany, Munich and Hamburg, where I managed to catch up with a lot of sleep and some European cultural events. Then my next stop was home sweet home, Antwerp, where I spend another 5 weeks, working as I might add. Since I left Lake Louise as how I arrived there, broke, I was kind of forced to work. But that didn’t ruin my spirit, at least not the first 3 weeks. I found some jobs serving and as a cleaner in a milk powder factory where I was offered already a full time contract. Unfortunately I had to turn this dream job down, since I already made some other plans to travel a bit more, damn bad luck!
Anyway the work gave me something to do and made it able to catch up with my friends, and I had a lot of catching up to do. Sad but true I found out that it takes a lot longer to earn the money then to spend it :-).
I also have some happy news to share and that is that on the 23rd of November, a couple of days before I left, I became an auntie of a little girl, named Lore. With some delay My brother and his girlfriend are proud parents now and I was lucky enough to witness it all.
29th of November, 4am, my brother drives me to the airport of Paris, where my 24 hour trip starts to get back to Calgary. For all those people who have never been to the airport in Paris … don’t. It’s the worst place I have ever had to fly from, such a spider web, and after we finally found the terminal where I was departing from, It took my brother another half an hour to find his way out again.
So now back In Lake Louise, where I can experience the well known Canadian winter. The first week of my arrival it was around –25 degrees, which made me feel like my nose and my longs would freeze every time I took a breath. The first weeks I had to crash at a friends place, because there wasn’t a room available yet. So I practically took over the whole room, having the couch pulled out permanently, my over weighted suitcase on the only space left in the room and here and there clothing pieces floating around. I can say it took a while to get my stuff together again when I ended up moving, definitely with my energy level and my never ending motivation of packing.
After a couple of days working as a painter, I started working in transportation, which organises the ski busses between Banff and Lake Louise. I’m responsible for selling and scanning tickets on the bus, awesome job, as my colleague always says; “90% of the job is showing up” and that’s what I do. The days are quit long, most of the time we leave around 6am and get back home at 5pm, but we have a break in between which gives us the opportunity to go for a ski run or just to have a nap in the van (which is necessary sometimes).
What else is there to tell? Well I had my first experience preparing a turkey dinner for Christmas. Me and a friend managed to stuff the bird, bake it, make gravy and made it even taste good, victory! During the holidays we had some party’s going on, this in combination with to much food and alcohol, as usual, so one of my new years resolution will be … no I’m not even going to try, because I know I’ll fail, so what’s the point in disappointing yourself?
Anyway I hope everybody is having a good time, enjoy the holidays and a Happy new year.
Ps. Pictures will follow

Pictures say more then thousand words!

A Mid Summer Dream

At the moment I’m spending my precious time on the airport from Houston. I flew out of Vancouver this morning at 8am, so that means I left my bed at 5am, landed here at 2.30pm and will not leave before 10pm. My journey will not be over then, because I’m flying to Paris first, where I have to wait another 4 hours to catch a 2 hour flight to Hamburg, aaarrggghhh!!!!

I shouldn’t be complaining because after all it is a very cheap flight (about 100euro), but still I’m losing more then 36 hours just to get over the Atlantic ocean (even longer then flying to Australia). After my nice, isolated summer in the Rockies a big change coming back to civilisation. The first shock I had when I arrived in Vancouver after a 14 hour bus drive. Again a big and modern city, but at least here you have the ocean and the mountains close by. It’s a beautiful, multicultural and relaxed city and I can see why a lot of foreigners get stuck here.

My last 2 weeks in Lake Louise were grand. We closed the hotel on September 15^th, my official last day as housekeeper, with a nice dinner and some drinks with all the staff of west Louise. The last days at work were really relaxed and chilled out. We cleaned up the hotel, scraped the paint of the balcony’s (even started painting but came that then to the conclusion that doing it by hand would take us way to long, so we’ll leave it up to the machinery) and all sorts of other small jobs. Going on hikes wasn’t really planned anymore, first of all because of the weather change (winter has started in Lake Louise and even on the day I left it was snowing on ground level as well) and because of the lack of interest (or maybe energy after a long night) of certain people J. I still did my share by walking to Lake Louise from our hotel or back, which is about 13km.

More isn’t there really to tell, I can just say that the money I saved during the rest of the season was easily spend these last weeks (in the bar unfortunately, but hey you do have to say goodbye to everyone). I made some good friends and had heaps of sun, even so good that they convinced me to change my winter plans. Yep again some changes, I did a really lousy job in planning my whole year ahead and now I know why I shouldn’t have bothered, because there’s always something that changes, you’ll never know what the future might bring.

So when I fly back in November I’ll spend the rest of my working holiday in Lake Louise, but this time it’s gonna be even better. I got a good job offer which at least allows me to earn some money, a nice room where I can stay the whole season, fun people around me and a free ski pass for the whole ski area in the Rockies. I know Whitehorse would have been a nice experience as well, but this was difficult to refuse and this year is not only about seeing Canada, it’s also about meeting people and having fun with what you do.

I’m looking forward to the winter now, but also to catch up with some of my friends and family, we’ll all have some stories to tell.

The end is coming near, only 2 more weeks to go before I’m moving on, it seems time is just racing by and still so much things to see and to do, aaaahhhh!
Off course together with the end of a season also come a lot of goodbye party’s or any other good reason to drink and eat J
We had a Mexican night, soft ball finals celebrations (lost or won) in the bar (some local teams have a kind of competition during the summer), birthday bonfire and barbecue, … hangovers, and more to come.
I managed to do another couple of walks, this time a bit more relaxed. I walked along the ice line trail of the Yoho valley, where you actually just walk next to some glaciers. You can see waterfalls forming out of the glaciers and off course spectacular views and some climbing is involved. Another hike was to rockbound lake, a lake hidden between steep edges and behind Castle Mountain (a mountain range not far from Banff). Our guides were a bit confused about the name in the beginning, but we found it. I just walked back from Lake Louise to our lodge, which is about 14km and goes straight through bear country. Tomorrow is Lake O’hara on the agenda and Friday probably a sleep in day. Work is getting more and more quiet anyway, so lots of times we can finish earlier then normal.
What happens in 2 weeks, well I’m making a city trip to Vancouver and then I’m flying on to Germany. Yes that’s back to Europe again, but I had an almost free flight and this way I can save some money for the winter. I can pick up some missed European culture, like the Oktoberfest, just the Belgian beer, catch up with friends and then prepare very well for the hard winter that awaits me end of November. More about that later, now I’m going to enjoy the last bits of summer!

Picture Time!

Takakaw Falls

Skoki Valley with a view on Mount Temple

The king of the world: 3500 metres high

Lady of the temple!

Half August, only 2 weeks have past since my last writing, but so many things have happened that I don’t even know where I should start. After the Christmas party I spend one of my days off at Herbert Lake, pretty much the only lake where you can stay in longer then 30 seconds. We had a picnic, some beers, a nice swim and the evening ended in the bar in Lake Louise and at Dance night, this is a weekly party for all the staff of RCR. It was my first time there and actually my first time out of west Louise since I got here, so it was pretty exciting. Unfortunately it was totally not my thing, but we had some beers and some laughs and at least I know what everybody’s talking about now and I know I’m not missing out on anything.
In the first week of august we had another big staff dinner, roasted pig. It was pretty cool to see a whole pig hanging on a roast, it reminded me a bit of the comic books Asterix, where they always have a huge buffet with a wild pig in the end, it looked so tasty.
Off course on my day off I went on another hike with the usual company. We walked the plain of the six glaciers at Lake Louise, where you walk all the way up to the tong of the Victoria glacier. After that we drove up to Emerald Lake, another gorgeous lake in the middle of the mountains and made a small walk there (5 km in 45 minutes, not that bad). Our last stop was the Takakaw Falls, the second highest falls in Canada, not far from our Lodge. It wasn’t as impressive as the Niagara Falls, but much nicer because it’s in the middle of nowhere with no tourists around. Despite the bad weather we had it was an amazing day.
The next day I tried to sleep in a bit and tried my running skills once more. There’s an old highway which is closed for traffic and which runs from our hotel all the way to lake Louise, it’s about 12 km, so a good exercise and a pretty high chance of seeing bears (which is less attracting if you’re running alone). That run I saw two big black bears and on another run a couple of days later I even saw a mamma bear and her cub. I didn’t see them until I actually was right beside them (about 5 metres away), but besides a scare nothing happened. I was just pissed off that I didn’t had my camera with me.
That week we also had a big birthday party for all the staff members who have their birthday here. Again free food and drinks and some stupid games made the evening a success. (My evening ended in the toilet unfortunately, my stomach couldn’t handle all the greasy food in combination with punch)
It’s Friday evening at the moment and I’m exhausted after my last 2 days off. I first went horseback riding for 7 hours, which gave me such a sour bum that I wasn’t able to go sit properly without feeling mussels that I didn’t even knew that I had them. The next day it was a rise and shine at 6am (even before sunrise) because we were going to climb Mount Temple, a 3500 metres high summit which rise above the Valley of then peaks and gives you pretty much a view over the whole valley around Lake Louise. We managed to do the hike on 9 hours, with a small detour which turned the walk into a mountain climb. The trail wasn’t always that visible and so we ended up on the other side climbing up with our hand and feet, pretty sketchy but when we finally reached the top after 5 hours, the view was definitely worth the pain (undescribable!). Proud and with a satisfied feeling we walked the right path down again, which wasn’t always that simple either with all the loos rocks and the steep descent (bruises can prove it).
So now I’m ready for bed and hopefully I my legs are willing to work tomorrow. When I get a chance I’m gonna put some pictures up which are worth while looking at.

Time flies by!

July has come to an end the days keep on flying by. After 2 weeks of non stopping work, I had 2 days off again. Sleeping a bit longer wasn’t on the programme for me, I’ve been suffering insomnia since I got here. Can’t seem to sleep longer then just a couple of hours, although I’m feeling pretty tired. Our first day we spend on shopping in Canmore, groceries and alcohol. We had to stock up for our Christmas in July party that same evening. Yes, Christmas it was, at least according the Australian standards. Summer reminds them of Christmas time, and it actually really felt like it for as long we stayed inside. We had our Christmas tree, decoration, a nice meal (roast chicken with sweet and mashed potatoes), free alcohol and off course not to forget, presents! Secret Santa brought me 3 oreo ice cream cookies and a nice picture of a dutch guy who was posing for us on one of the walks we did J
A party with free alcohol and the boss behind the bar doesn’t really end well and off course the next day the bruises on some peoples arms explained it all. Luckely I didn’t had to work and I had a nice, boring and relaxing day, sitting in the sun, eating my oreo ice cream.
Now we’re back to work as usual, there are some new staff people again (the crowd is getting bigger) and I got another pay check. Becomes off all the extra hours I did, it was pretty nice, I just have to be able to get the money now.
That’s pretty much the end of my life story up here, the main thing, I’m having fun!
pictures will follow.