Waking up achey...achy?...achey breaky? No... Breakfast of undercooked pancakes (uneaten), bran muffin with raspberries (They did get creative with the bran this morning), and traitorous eggs benedict (the delicious bastard). Oh and I lied last night I said 745. It was 845. Not bad at all. So we wander over to the ski concierge (a fancy ski rental place owned by the hotel)to get our equipment and onto the slopes! So a cultural side note for those of you hoping to travel to places outside of the US: teachers, instructors and guides are very rarely from the country they work in, in fact I'm not even sure I've met any born and raised Canadians in the four times I've been to Canada. It's not just Canada though. I think for someone to truly be interested and teach others about local attraction/history and make a good career out of it, they have to be foriegn. Almost a prerequisite really. Very few instances have shown me otherwise (my tour guide in Egypt was born there and remains there, but I think he might be my only example of the contrary). I am getting a lot of British or Australian accents though; this being BRITISH COLUMBIA I suppose that makes sense. Sooooo many white people... Really enough to make me go crazy. But I digress... Our first day, nay lesson! Went really well! I only fell down twice, needing help up only once. No one in my pod has been carted off with any broken limbs as of yet so I'd call it a good day. We did maybe two or three runs on the bunny slope then we tackled half of the blue slope! Go us! Not using poles yet... My legs are killing me. Did three or four runs on the larger bunny slope then called it a day and had sandwiches for lunch. For those who haven't seen the maps of the area, which I would guess includes all of you, Whistler is a mountain town spread over the bases of two mountains: Whistler and Blackcomb. I'm pretty sure I skied Blakcomb today. Any way we are in the midst of a resort "town" if you will. That is to say a town surviving almost entirely because of the resorts. This side, the Blackcomb side, is almost entirely resort town. The Whistler side, only a twenty minute walk from my hotel room, is where the action is. By this I mean the food and liquor stores, the large ones anyway. It's a really nice place, your typical resort-minded city (generous term in my opinion but hey whatevs)I suppose, though I haven't been to many (resort-minded places I mean, not one quite so obviously at least!). had lunch at a local resort-run (shocking!) deli/pizza/soup place... Is there a better name for that? Bistro? Eh. It's called Portobello, as in the mushroom. Good eats! Chicken salad sammich ftw. Last night at the sushi place I learned of a flea market aimed at raising money for the relief efforts in Japan. Of which I, of course, approve! Slap "Japanese" on anything and I'm all over it. So my plan is, after a brief siesta, to enjoy some flea market before, or possibly after, a wine tasting sponsored by my hotel.
-K
I forgot to mention that my rule of native tour guides only really applies to nice countries. Egypt and Jordan have been the only exceptions I think. That and Amsterdam, that guy was at least Dutch I think... Reason for this I guess is a combination of national pride and local life being so crappy that no one else would want to stay there for very long. Just sayin. I think for places like Canada or the US, where the country as a whole has everything, in general, sorted, we, as citizens, are always sorta bored with ourselves. I mean we already have all the good stuff. But citizens of developing countries (so named for they are indeed still developing and maturing as a culture and a government) see the rest of the world ahead financially, governmentally, and culturally so they feel a great need to better themselves and the world they live in. It was inspiring to hear the pride in my leader, Aki's voice as he described the history of each landmark in Egypt and significance of his country's achievements. I would be bored to tears if I had to lead some poor schmucks around Arizona. Anyway, just an observation from the traveler.
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