Around the World with Brooke and Katie

The snow has melted in the village, the birds are singing and the bears are out. It is finally spring in Whistler and the town has all of a sudden been subject to the seasonal decrease in population. Gone are the days of avoiding town because its too busy. Cheap deals at the fine dining restaurants fill the local paper in order to put bums on seat in the 'dead season.' And many people have no work. Including us. However Brooke deservedly was awarded Employee of the Year at his work which is a great achievement. His snow carvings were popular amongst everyone.

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Kidlets hanging with the snake

Last week signified the last of the big winter events in Whistler, the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival. I volunteered three nights at an art exhibition, the film contest and a ski jumping comp. There was a fun vibe but since then we have been to loads of farewell drinks to say bye to colleagues and mates. With only a matter of days left here it has dawned on me that we have been here for 6 months! Gosh how it has flown by.

Spring fun

I promise to write more often from now on because we will be in new places again and will have way more to say. Next stop...Vancouver Island

Hello everyone,
We have been in Whistler for 2.5 months now and are having a great time.

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We managed to cook ourselves a very nice christmas dinner at 4pm cause that was the time that most of us were home due to busy work schedules. I glazed the ham and Brooke did the roast veggies. We also did fresh tracks on christmas morning- it was soo much fun!

our tree

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Tonie and Dan

Thank you to all those that sent us a card. It was very exciting getting mail. New Years Eve was very uneventful. Brooke has now got a job at Whistler Kids where he supervises children playing in the Tree Fort and Castle. He loves it and plus he gets to do a lot of boarding. My brother visited us for almost two weeks. It was awesome to show him around and see him after 6 months of being away. We went ice skating, tubing, cross country skiing, skiing and to an ice hockey game in Vancouver. The match was between the Vancouver Canucks and the Anaheim Ducks. We had great seats and the atmosphere was unreal with loads of entertainment when the game stopped. It was more like a show than a sports game. It has been -18 degrees here for the last couple of days. I wear five tops and two bottoms every time I leave the house and your nose boogers freeze when you breathe in haha.

Last week I had my work christmas party (it was after christmas because its too busy beforehand). Many of the other housekeepers are from the Punjab region in India and so they had half Indian and half european music. I enjoyed trying to dance like in Slumdog Millionaire 'Jai Ho.' It was so much fun and the women looked lovely in their saris.

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I won a zip lining tour which I will do when it gets a little warmer. Not much else to report. We will be having a few mates visit over the next couple of weeks and we look forward to having fun on the mountain with them.

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Lots of love to you all. Katie and Brooke.

Hello all, I hope the lead up to Christmas is going well for everyone. We have moved into our new house in whistler and it is really nice. There are eight of us in a four bedroom wooden log chalet. Our house is really close to town so we can easily walk to the chair lifts and the village. It hasn't snowed for about 10 days so we really need a good dump to experience the powder skiing again. Skiers here have really wide skis to cater for the powder snow and the end of them are pointed up too. I saw my second bear outside our old house with arms full of groceries...I freaked out for a split second but it strolled along the street. Brooke helped one of our flat mates to cut down the Christmas tree which is now nicely decorated. Whilst in argentina we met two lovely Irish girls who are now living in vancouver and they came to whistler for some skiing last weekend. It was so nice catching up again and we had ourselves a little groove on the dance floor. I finally have found a job in a hotel working full time so I'm very happy with that. My brother will be visiting in january which will be awesome. Brooke is happy boarding most days and is trying to perfect the art of bread making. We are really looking forward to Christmas day but most of us will be working so it is impossible to have a sit down meal. So it will probably be an open house full of food all day wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and hope Santa finds your house.

After Cancun we went two hours south along the coast to a small town named Tulum. It was definitely more like what I had predicted mexico to be like....roadside stalls, people riding bikes everywhere, chilled out beach life and jungle.

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It rained for two days but we managed to get to the beach twice Tulum is known for its Mayan ruins. We could see the ruins from the beach so we decided to walk there. However the beach ended and the rocks began. So we climbed the rocks and the rocks became steep so we thought 'we will swim there.' So we jumped in the water with our clothes in a plastic bag above our head and swam about 200m to the beach between the ruins. After we got out at the beach the lifeguard spoke to us in spanish in a stern voice and escorted us to the front entrance. All I could understand was that it was a national park. So then we had to pay and then got kicked out. haha whoops..lucky we didn't get arrested

Then we flew to Vancouver via Texas. Houston airport is scary for many reasons...one: the place is gainormous, two: staff are incredibly serious, take their jobs way too seriously and have no sense of humour at all, three: the continental airlines airhostess basically shouted at me to put my seat in the upright postion, four: beacuse the airport is so big they have buggies to drive fat people around and the drivers are brutal (watch out or you'll get run over), five: bad vibes. So we were glad to leave there and arrive in Van where the customs people were markedly friendly. We had a speedy catch up at the airport over breakfast with Lucy. It was so good to see her Then we had a full on day getting our social insurance numbers and organising phones.

The next day we caught the greyhound bus to Whistler and settled in to Lucy's lovely room.

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It was such a relief to unpack and not have to repack. Also being able to drink the shower water and flush your loo paper were highlights of our day oh the creature comforts! We managed to secure a 6 month lease over the winter starting December 1st in a really cool house. Brooke has joined the gym, I am volunteering at the animal shelter to get my animal fix, and we both volunteered at the food and wine festival last week. There are so many people in town looking for work it is insane. So fingers crossed when I write the next blog we will both have jobs

The snow is falling and the mountain opens tomorrow! yeoweeeeeeeeee!

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Hello from Cancun! We have been in the Caribbean paradise for the last week and have had a great time. The weather was great for the first three days. We have been swimming in the aqua sea and at the pool,

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enjoying cocktails and having a holiday from our holiday haha.

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We went to a fun park and did zip lining and snokelling in caves.

snokle

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Then on wednesday Hurricane Rina decided to visit but it was downgraded to a tropical storm thankfully. Last night was a little scary but it was lovely today so its all over
Last night we went to a Mexican restaurant which had a real Mariachi band and they sung a 'romantic' song to us at our table.

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It was such beautiful music and the singing was divine. It was the best restaurant we have been to so far. Now we will do our best to soak up the sunshine before we head to Canada for the ski season