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I can now say we have boarded Canada!
Yesterday we woke up to quite possibly the worst weather for it, plus degress and heavy, wet snow! We didnt want to risk today being worse so we decided to go for it anyway!
I had booked a four hour, introduction to snowboarding lesson (though instead of a Discover Snowboard I asked for a Discover Scuba, just rolled off the tongue!) and Olof was renting a board and heading up the mountain. It was just me and ten million kids on the bunny slope and though it was nice to be in a group of only three, one was thirteen and the other eight! Olof had told me just to go for it and not be scared so that is what I did! I actually found it a lot easier than I had expected to! I do reckon, falls from a snowboard are worse than falls on skis! Lesson wise it was pretty poor, I could probably have done as well with Olof teaching me, a few more arguements maybe! Four hours was actually a pretty decent amount of time to learn a lot and have to time for practice! I had a great final run, a bit of speed and comfortable turns and no falls! Now I'm just left wanting more and I think I prefer boarding to skiing!
Since we didnt go and experience the event together I'll take over and write a bit about my snowboarding. You havent really heard from me yet but its me Olof! When Katie went off on her Discover Snowboarding I took the chance to go off and ride on my own. The boarding here would be amazing if it wasnt for the weather. Its harder than in Europe with a lot more black runs and black runs here seem to be vertical. I managed to find a lot more places of fresh snow which on a good day would have been powder. I think its a place to explore backcountry skiing and maybe stay off the piste. Not that the piste was bad. A summary of the day would still have to be, wet wet wet!
Knackered from boarding and back in town we went for a hot chocolate and we both had massive slices of cake, me an apple pie and Olof double chocolate cake to treat ourselves! With dinner being left overs from the night before we had a very lazy evening. I was already hurting in more places than I thought possible!
Today we were heading for Canmore, only a twenty minute drive from Banff but a chance to see another place. As we couldnt check in until four we spent the afternoon checking out things we'd like to do while we are here tomorrow and having a wander around town in some really cool furniture shops and photography galleries. We have an unbelievable place to stay in while we are here, a two bedroom chalet complete with full kitchen and living room all for $69 for the night! We are both looking forward to a couple of home cooked meals as we havent had the luxury of a kitchen while we've been staying in hotels.
Tomorrow we are going to be cross country skiing at the nordic sports centre here where the winter Olympics in 1988 were held and also we're going to try and have a go at curling.
Staying here means it'll be a couple of long drives to get to Whistler in time for our hostel booking but we think it is worth it as we've found another lovely place.
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