19th February 2003
19/02/03

!!!New photos uploaded, click here!!!

Sorry about the delay in updating the site for those of you who have been checking since the last posting. I'm going to try and stick to updating the web site roughly every 10 days in the future.

Things have been going great since the last posting with the money starting to role in from the new job. Lou and I made the most of Winterlude although it wasn't quite the type of festival like we enjoy back home. An army of little toddlers to trip over and an absence of any mulled wine or live bands at night meant that although the event was interesting it lacked a party atmosphere. I couldn't help but think that if the event was held back home there would be copious amounts of alcohol and partying involved and the little kiddies would have to stay home out of fear of being stomped to death by a drunken crowd of yobs.
Lou and I made the trip to the Mont Ste Marie ski field yesterday and had an awesome day (Click on the icon on the right if you want to see the trail map). We hired a car and left first thing so that we could get to the ski field before the lifts opened. It was pretty intense driving overseas for the first time, especially when they drive on the wrong side of the road over here (although I'm sure thay would argue that
it is us that drive on the wrong side of the road). Either way, I managed to stay on the right side of the road (I was so paranoid about drifting into oncoming traffic Lou had to tell me in a panick to get back over towards the centre before I drove onto the edge which was covered in a thick black layer of ice). Thrifty didn't have the little car we booked so they gave us their company shuttle car  which was a brand new Dodge. The car turned out to be a gas guzzler (American made) so I don't know if he was doing us a favour in the end but we had a really comfortable drive through the Quebec countryside, winding up through snow blanketed hills and driving past frozen lakes and old farm barns. It was interesting watching Lou's progression during the day. Her face was sheer shock and panick when we first hit the slopes, after 3 runs it was mild happyness, after 2 hours it was a huge smile of excitement, and after 5 hours it was an exhausted, pissed off, "I've had enough" look. I cranked it through some nice single and double black runs and it felt great to be back on my own board after using a chunky hire board last time a snowboarded over here.

Lou's recovering from her work out yesterday, she can't sit on the stall at the computer because she is so sore, but I think she'll recover for another day. Next on the list is 2 days in Mont Tramblant. There's only 5 weeks left of good ski conditions so I'm trying to cram in as much as possible.

Lou and I are slowly expanding the number of people we know in Ottawa. We recently caught up with one of my friends from Adelaide, Kate Mitchell, who was in Ottawa visiting a few of her Canadian friends last week. We joined Kate and a bunch of Canadians at a house for drinks and then headed out to one of the bigger clubs in town after. Turned out to be a big night, and we made met some great people so we're making plans to catch up again with them in the future. As I'm sure you can imagine back home, one of the vital elements of keeping your sanity over here is establishing a friendship base so it was great to make friends with some locals.
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