So I know I've been incredibly mean, because I emailed several of you about my exciting news then told you I'd put up the full story on my blog that night…and that was about 48 hours ago! Haha But in my defence I faced some quite problematic technological difficulties, plus I've been sick over the weekend so have basically been "moleing" or "slothing" around (depending on your terminology of choice - I refer to it as slothing, whislt I have discovered JL calls this a moleing period haha), in bed at Jan-Louise's sucking on orgnic echniacea lozenges galore. So…after all that suspense, let me fill you in!

Over the past few weeks I've come to the realisation that there is no way I'm going to be ready to start heading home in 3 months. When I came over here I organised a Canadian working visa with the intention of gauging my feelings once I'd arrived and seeing how likely it would be that I could get work, accommodation etc etc. So having absolutely fallen in love with Whistler my mind started to tick over ways I could make this adventure last longer. After all, I'm already over here, have already paid for a working visa, and have this one opportunity to defer from uni for a semester without setting my graduation time back overall…then last week, after a bit of investigation I discovered that because I've been a student at a Canadian institution in province of BC I have the one off chance to get a season pass for Whistler for under $500 - that's a saving of approx $1400, because the normal price an adult would pay for a season pass on that mountain is nearly $2000 - like, crazy expensive!

I started looking in the Pique (Whistler's local newspaper) to see just how desperate the accommodation situation was looking…pretty desperate. Last time I was up there the Starbucks counter had a sign up begging for accommodation for a bed for their barrister's because they couldn't find a place to live for the winter season. That gives you an idea of how scarce housing is in Whistler. And it's not cheap either - it's basically accepted that you're looking at around a grand a month starting for a bed in Whis. But (after trawling through many ads totally out of my price range) I stumbled across an advertisement that looked promising…a set of three large chalets, each housing 8 people, that offer no muss no fuss accommodation for the winter season. Twin share rooms with all of the hydro, electricity, cleaning (yes, they are cleaned weekly!!), snow clearing, hot tub maintenance (yes, you read right, there is a HOT TUB on the deck) all for just under $1000/month. It's called Peakside Lodge and it's about a 5 minute bus ride from the village centre (3 minutes from Whistler Creekside), and the bus leaves every 20 minutes from right out the front!

So, I'm getting pretty excited at this stage thinking, yes, this sounds perfect, but they've advertised that they only have a few spots left so I spend the next couple of days persistently calling the owner and emailing him until I finally get a hold of him and we have a chat. He says that of about 30 beds in total he has around 3 or 4 left and I'm realising at this stage that I really don't have much time left on my hands to make my decision…so he says he'll be home in a couple of hours and I say I'll email him with my decision by the time her gets there. I jump on the phone and call Mum and 5AM in Aus (sorry Mum!) and she answers sounding kinda groggy, and I'm like Ok everything's totally fine but…haha I think I've found a place to live! We agreed it sounded like an opportunity too good to pass up so I emailed the guy and we set up the payment and in the next 24 hours it'll be all done and dusted. I can go up any time from early/mid November, so may even spend a bit of time up there studying before exams…yes…studying…haha and then I have to move out by mid-April, at which point I'll head on over to NYC before I'm off to Europe in the spring on my way back home to Aus!

So there you have it, HUGE change in plans! Super super SUPER exciting! And I couldn't be happier =) I feel in my gut that I've made the right decision…so the rest of the week was an exciting blur. I went to the pub on campus that night and broke the happy news to all my friends who were all very excited for me. Several of them are planning on going up to ski at various times during December so it'll be great to spend time with them all up there.

On Friday I spent the day in China Town with Jan Louise wandering around all the stores, including the most amazing old food store that had been run by the same family since the early 1900s and sold all sorts of herbs and cheeses. We went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and then wandered through the traditional Chinese gardens in the afternoon. That evening I went out with my Euro-crew (ie. Swedish Jess, Norweigan Helle, Spanish Monica, and Danish Veronique - and me, totally token Aussie haha) to a party down town that a friend of a friend of Jessica's was at (his company was hosting it)…I know, totally random right? haha But the food and drinks were free and it was all set up with a DJ so hey, why not? It was in this really nice office building in Yale Town (very upmarket area down town) and it was a work do for a company that produces x-box games. Well, I have never seen an "office" quite like it!! It was decorated in this uber funky style with modern furniture and all these little lounges etc. but by far the coolest room was the tiki room. One of the guys asked Monica if she'd like a drink and she said no because she doesn't particularly like beer or wine, and he said "well how about tequila then?" lol oh (Stella my eyeballs just popped haha) and we're like um…OK. And he took us to the "tiki room" - one of the offices that is decorated entirely tiki themed!! Like bamboo round the walls, nets across the roof with things floating in them, hawaiin music playing, even a little cocktail bar with COCONUT SHELLS TO DRINK FROM!! And this is where these people work…I momentarily considered quitting university before I remembered I don't actually like computer games.

So there we are, sitting in the Tiki room drinking various fancy cocktails and chatting to different people and after that we headed out to a bar in Yale Town (again, very swish hehe) where the company credit card was put to good use and many drinks and plates of food were ordered. Like fancy, freshly baked breads with warm brie and fruit compote type plates…not your average chicken wings and wedges type pub foods! At the end of the night I walked a couple of blocks to the bus station, caught the bus 5 minutes up the road to Jan Louise's - simple as that!

Saturday was a hard core moleing day. Well, that's what Jan Louise calls it anyway, I'd generally refer to it as slothing. Basically it involved doing very VERY little. I glanced at a text book once or twice but was beginning to feel kind viral so that's about as far as my "study" went. By Sunday it was pretty evident that I'd caught something (not really surprising when you share a "bucket" with a table full of people drinking from God knows whose straw…lol) and whilst JL went off to work I barely moved except to rent a ridiculously soppy Patrick Dempsy movie that provided exactly the kind of brainless entertainment I was looking for. Today I dragged myself back up to campus, still feeling pretty rotten, and was pleasantly surprised when Jesse came to visit with ski magazines and green tea =)

So now I'm going to head to bed early and try to get on top of this bug! Because I have an exam next week =S wow, that rolled around mighty quick huh?

Nighty nighty,

LIVxo