Lake Louise

Lake Louise, made Sunshine look like Mt Baw Baw. This place is an endless myriad of deep snow runs combined with the most amazing landscapes. Riding this mountain has enabled to me experience the most awesome feeling: flying on knee deep powder down a steep tree infested valley. Big Cam Moorhouse again came down from Red Earth and him, Patricia, myself and our buddy Brett, tore Louise apart. That sounds bad I know but, we actually did. By days end the four of us were literally asleep at the wheel!! The place is so big and long that you can ride all day and not see the whole mountain. My personal favourites were " The Gully", a huge tree run combined with a massive powder bowl. The other, "The Larch Area", was similar, with kickers and tree runs galore in tonnes of snow. The scary thing is that it's still classed as early season over here!! Here's to Lake Louise, apparently Whistler makes you look stupid, so we are hanging to get to Whistler and experience the ultimate!!!

Sunshine

Our first taste of snowboarding within Canada erupted at a mountain near Banff called Sunshine. The mountain itself had tonnes of snow, heaps of snow, knee deep powder snow basically. The runs are quite short and lumpy, more a skiers mountain you'd say, but nevertheless we had tonnes of fun. Our favourite run was called Miss Gratz. Let's just say, after Patricia and I had finished for the day Miss Gratz was now a Mrs!!! We combined tree runs with sweet little kickers and overall had the run to ourselves most of the day which was cool. I have to admit though that the vibe on the mountain wasn't that chiled, alot of punks and skiers vying for the "too cool" award. My vote goes to a skier with a scooby-doo outfit on..........enough said.

Winter

The fall leaves us and the winter comes in like a sledgehammer to the face. No seriously, the weather in Banff today: -26 degrees. That's right, that reads: "minus twenty six degrees", not "underscore twenty six degrees"!!! Next time I walk around in Melbourne and that southerly wind tickles my face, I will gently laugh it off. So cold, that I would rather take that ring to Mordor and Mount Doom than go to the store for Milk. It seems Frodo's task would be so much better!! Anyhew, we came home last night from town, and we couldn't open our sliding door because the thing had frozen over, now at -26 degrees, you do anything humanly possible to get into the Casa de Zomer!! Anyway, its cold, seriously cold, cold like none other..........very pretty though!!

Food in Banff

The Banff food industry may be dwindling somewhat, but Patricia and myself would like to pay tribute to the local delights that we have endured this past 6 months. First up, Bruno's, and their Chicken Wings and Chicken Quesadilla. Our personal favourite on a friday night with a cold pint of Kokanee. Next, Caramel popcorn from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Co. Mr and Mrs Moutia will vouch for this addictive concotion of caramel, cashews and popcorn, all rolled into one big bundle of joy. See above picture for bundle of joy! Next, Safeway Donuts, now Candians consumer more donuts then any other country in the world, and even at Safeway, the donuts are rad!! Last but not least are ribs and steak, now I know I have dedicated are previous post to these bad boys, but worth another mention nevertheless.

Back in Banff

So we leave NYC and get back into Banff. It's -13 degress, the trees all have shed their leaves, and there is snow all over the place. It is a little depressing leaving a city like New York, but, the snow is here. The mountains open next Friday, I started work at Sunshine yesterday, pretty cool. Working with 8 guys, riding snowmobiles and driving track trucks etc, tough life. Patricia is working in the day care but doesn't start for a couple of weeks. We are both stoked that the snow is here and we can start riding again!! Feel free to just jet on over anybody, free accomodation, good company, and soft snow.......................tough life!!!

New York ..........Day 7

Our last day in this amazing place. How sad we were. Nevertherless, we did our favourtie things: we strolled into west village again for our bagel and coffee. Then cruised through the meat packing district, through to Magnolia Cafe for another cupcake, and sat by the Hudson River and reflected on life. We walked through the Chelsea Market which was cool, so much fresh produce, bakery, flowers etc for the rich and famous. We couldn't leave NYC without another visit to Chipotle Mexican Grill, damn I'm missing those burritos already!! Off again across the river into Jersey territory for the season opener: Nets vs the Toronto Raptors. As much as I like the Raptors, for Cam and Kyle's sake, they sucked on the night. The Nets ended up cruising to a 12 point win, but our seats were the huge highlight of the night. Patricia and I were in row 14, behind the basket. We got given these Nets banger things to distract the opposition free throw shooter, classic times. Beer and basketball, how I'm going to miss it. One day I'll be back to watch my boys again..One day. So we ended our NYC trip with a great day of doing the things we loved in this great city. We are both already missing the place, and it will be forever in our hearts. New York City Baby, we love it!!!!!!!!

New York ..........Day 6

It's not New York without getting a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast. Cafe Condessa on Sixth by far has the best coffee in town, so with breakfast sorted, we head downtown. The huge space where the Twin Towers once stood is still a deep and deserted void in the world that is NYC. The place is slowly making it's way back and the plans for the new freedom tower and memorial look both great and respectful to those who perished that fateful day. We got the ferry across to Staten Island for the best cheap view of NYC. It was a beautiful 16 degree day and the ferry ride was calm so all was well. Halloween was chaotic in the city. There was a huge parade on 6th so we caught most of that. Alot of people laughed at our costume, a cross between 80's rockers and aussie bogans. Special mention to Loz and Lochie for the flannies, they were a hit. After the parade we had too many beers in the best bar in NYC: Johnny's Bar in Greenwich ave. Thanks Rohan!!! The place is awesome. After beers it was onto Vilage Pizza for a pepperoni pizza. NYC wihtout a pepperoni isn'y NYC!!!!!!!!

New York ..........Day 5

Another big day, but we never get out of third gear. We have created walking slowly into an artform and I feel that if we strolled any slower we would be sitting on the ground. So we go into West Village again for brunch at Cowgirl NYC, a wicked little sidewalk cafe also featured on Sex and the City. Sitting there eating my BLT with egg, I feel a nudge on my thigh. It's Patricia, motioning towards the sidewalk, where none other than supermodel "Helena Christensen" walking on by us. She looked amazing even in jeans and a tee. Patricia's quest to see a celebrity was complete, and none better than someone she has loved for ages!! We leave there and walk straight past "Sandra Bernhardt", another celeb, but a little less famous, those that know her will appreciate it!! So enough celeb spotting for us, we head onto the great Whitehorse Tavern on Hudson for a beer, and purely only to use the toilet, it's very hard to find a toilet in NYC. Patricia went a little crazy in a great store called Urban Outfitters, the coolest store in NYC by a long way. Her purchase of vintage black boots was top notch. Onto St Marks place and the Grassroots Tavern. A great dive bar with a resident cat,dog, and jukebox. That's it, I wish some bars would strip it down like that in Melbourne, people come to the Grassroots to drink and talk, a great pastime!! A visit to St Marks place is void without a visit to Ray's Pizza afterwards, the best pepperoni pizza in town. On the way back to the hostel, we saw a Will Smith movie being filmed which was cool. We managed to stand right next to the director and crew, before being asked to move, politely!!!!!! Another day in NYC, strolling of course..................

New York ..........Day 4

So it's hard to get used to changing your watch for Eastern time etc. However, when it's Daylight Savings also, then it gets kind of hard!! We were ready for a big day of shopping before we realised the shops don't open for another 3 hours, so we venture into the beautiful Central Park and simply stroll once again. When the bell rang for 11:00, we were ready, and Fifth avenue was our mission. I somewhat got sidetracked in the NBA store!! Buying some assorted nets gear as usual, my best buy however is an awesome mousepad shaped like a spalding basketball. It is so rad. I actually have some footage of me buying something from GAP too. Don't tell anyone though. So we shopped til we dropped, Patricia got some cool shoes and some presents for home!!! For dinner we headed to Regional Thai, an amazing place on W22nd. The curry was something else.

New York ..........Day 3

So, here we are, just the two of us, on none other than Carrie's footsteps. Those that don't know, that's Sarah Jessica Parkers character in Sex and the City. We went on a very cool tour of the show and it's sites in NY. I was apprenhisve about the tour when I saw that I would be one of only four men on the bus, but after the tour I was very suprised at how cool the whole thing was. Not only did we get a really great tour of NY itself, but we saw bars, clubs etc that were used in the show. We also went to the famous Magnolia Bakery in west village which is one of the episodes. They make the most amazing cupakes, when we where there, the line was about 2 blocks long, that's how good they are. After the tour we walked, and walked, and walked. all the way from uptown, to the Flatiron district for dinner at a very cool place called L'Express. At this stage however, we had worked out that in total on this day, we had walked a total of 76 blocks. After dinner we simply went home to sleep!!!

New York ..........Day 2

After living in a sleepy quiet town, we are abruptly awoken by the hustle of the city. We then headed down into Greenwich for a coffee. Now, Canada can't provide alot of things for us, one namely is good coffee. And being Melburnians, we downed this Greenwich coffee like water!!! Strolling through the West Village, and onto NYU and Washington Square Park, seeing uni students and artists alike mingling and talking politics, it's not hard to want to be a part of it.....ah, the NYU film school, students such as DeNiro, Scorsese and Keitel, you may have heard of them. We shopped a bit too down sixth, I found the best hi-top old school vans, leather and brown, sweet. We found a cool little mexican grill chain called Chipotle. The chicken burritos, just amazing. The name, hard to pronounce: is it "Chee-pot-le", or "Chi-poo-te"??? Someone mexican please fill us in!! Anyways, after a lazy day of strolling through the coolest part of Manhattan, we were on the bus heading across to New Jersey. Those who have been reading this blog will no doubt know what happens next. We won, and this obsessed Nets fan was pumped, Patricia and I drank beer, ate popcorn, cheered our boys on to a 138-121 victory over the NY Knicks. Pretty hard to top this day, easily one of the best i've had since my inception onto this planet!!!

New York ..........Day 1

New York. For those who have been will understand, the buzz, the lights, the style. I would like to feel somewhat qualified in labelling NY "the most amazing city in the world." For those who wish to venture to the big apple one day, I hope that you do, because there is no other place like it. I feel obliged to actually give New York the credit it deserves..............by posting on this blog every day of our awesome week there. Anyways, so we fly into JFK, not security screened this time which was a pleasant surprise. Get to our cosy little hostel in Cheslea (thanks Roh and Vero), and decide, beyond all drowsiness, to head out anyways!! On to Dallas BBQ for dinner first, great huge rack of ribs for only 9USD, just gold. We then went on for a quick visit to Times Square, the place itself still amazes me. Always a great spectacle in the city.