first christmas away

hello!

i'll write a monologue later (as always) but right now there's some banana bread that i need to go and claim....

photo diary: nights in lake louise

now when the sun come up i'll be there to say what up in the morning brush my teeth find that clip i've been lookin for since last night i feel so caught up in a bud i float somehow in my bedroom turn around see myself in the mirror i guess i'm cool and 

those happy thoughts, in my head, i'm feeling like i'm peter pan minus the tights and the fairies happy to see how far i've come to the same place it began my dreams and imagination perfectly at peace so i move along a bit higher

i'll be up up and away up up and away
cuz they gon' judge me anyway so whatever
i'll be up up and away up up and away
cuz in the end they'll judge me anyway so, whatever

my walk to work

(The top photo is my house, if anyone was wondering! I'm gonna do a more detailed post of where I live at a later point.)

I am so friggin lucky, right? And I'm only just beginning to appreciate this opportunity I have - if I'm honest when I first got to Lake Louise I absolutely hated it. I spent the first week hiding giving myself salt burns on my cheeks I cried that much. At the time I would've been embarrassed to admit it - well, I'm still kind of embarrassed now if I'm honest - but now I've moved on from that it seems ok to talk about it. It sounds strange, but it's taking me a while to accept that I have to settle down now, even though when I first got here that's all I wanted... For the first two weeks my life was going at a million miles an hour, I slept for maybe three hours a night so the days felt like forever, and something crazy and exciting happened every day. I went to sleep sometimes feeling like absolute shit but always in anticipation of what would happen next. It means I completely understand how people catch the 'travel bug' - I think the excitement would have been more intense if I wasn't always like WHAT THE HELL I'M IN CANADA ON MY OWN WITHOUT A JOBBBB and instead was just travelling the world with my best friend (which is gonna happen one day, I'm making sure of it) so I've been slightly apprehensive about what my life is going to be like now - in a moment of madness I was thinking, now I'm settling down life is going to get boring.

Um, no. :)

It's more just like I need to accept that I'm making a life here, I'm not travelling, so some days are going to be off days and things may get monotonous. But one thing I am now totally sure of is that I am so friggin' glad I came here. I cannot imagine being sat on my arse back at home working full time at maccies. Even if I had gone to uni I feel like it would not beat this... The idea of having responsibilty, hahaha :) ! I'm NOT looking forward to going back to education... I'm scared I'll just end up back like the workaholic zombie I did back in college. It's going to be a strange transition - at this moment in time I really don't want to go! Maybe I'll crave education after a year of chillinzzz but I'm not so sure about that... When I was 16 all I saw in life was education. Go to school, go to college, go to university, get a good job. It was almost like there was nothing else to life except that - and that thought is something I had a massive issue with in the last year of college, and one of the main reasons I took a gap year. I've met so many 20-29 year olds who have never even been to university and have just travelled and worked everywhere, and it sounds so exciting... the boring part of me goes blah blah blah it's not sustainable what're they gonna do when they hit 40, but they seem so happy with their lot it makes me envious...

Oh dear, I've gone all 'I'M ON MY GAP YAHHHHH' on you already, and I've not even been here a month yet! Please forgive me!

So I was chatting with Sophie yesterday and we were saying imagine if my blog was still a fashion blog - it would go something like this:

Monday: So today I got up and it was cold and snowy so I put on my walking coat and boots

Tuesday: So today I got up and it was cold and snowy so I put on my walking coat and boots

Wednesday: So today I got up and it was cold and snowy so I put on my walking coat and boots

... you get the idea (:

I LOVE that about here though. Don't get me wrong, I miss my clothes back home, but I don't miss that horrible competition I used to feel with my friends - when you have as fashionable friends as I do (who also have more disposable cash than me, hah!) it can be really difficult because, let's be honest, there's a certain competition... like, we all shop at the same shops so sometimes it's almost a race to see who can get the item first and it can be so horrible when someone gets something you wanted. it's so good to get away from that -for one, I live in the middle of nowhere, the nearest mall with normal high street shops is three hours away! And I don't have the cash anyway - I would much rather spend my money having a good time (aka SNOWBOARDING!!!) than clothes... Although, I am going thrift shopping in Banff on tuesday with Grace! I am SO excited - hoping to pick up some crazy shirts, because I left all mine at home... All you British lot might appreciate how much better and cheaper american bloggers seem to have it when it comes to thrifting, and I can second that for Canadians! I had a glance in one of Banff's thrift shops whilst I was there and it looked awesome. It'll be funny 'cause when I come home it's likely I will have no idea what is currently in fashion and won't have anything current from topshop, so I'll probably swagger in something hideously tie-dyed etc...

I love fashion, but back home I think it was becoming an unhealthy obsession for me. I enjoyed it but I worried too much, and I wouldn't want something that is so rooted in consumerism to be my focal point in life. (Argggg, I sound like such an arse, I'm really not!) I'd like to come home and still love fashion, but be a lot more chilled out about it. Fingers crossed! 

Getting my nose pierced soon! (Um, hi dad, yes I haven't told you about this yet... er...) I cannot wait, I have wanted it done for three years now but haven't been able to because of restrictions at school/maccers. It's gonna hurt though - not the piercing itself, but the stud in the cold... when I'm walking around my ear cuff kills!

Speaking of my dad, I'm gonna give a big up to my old man :D Haha he was saying about how he was sad that I hadn't mentioned him on my blog yet, especially on the post where I said about staying overnight in London and I didn't mention him even though he came with me (and we spent like, two hours in some strange heathrow area-suburb trying to find a legit taxi) so yes, hello dad :D !

One more thing - I've finally got a board!!!! Bought second hand off some Austrailian girl for $90, which is a friggin good deal. Slightly worried that it might be an incy bit too long, but Grace said it'd be alright so I'm trying to trust her. It's a beaut though, I love the design, I'll take a photo of it at some point but the colour theme is black & white with green & pink accents. Now I just need to get everything else...

So my schedule for the week: Tomorrow I'm off, hoping to hike up to lake louise and go ice skating on it :) Maybe going with a guy I met on the ski hill called Pat (who, wonderfully, is ginger) and is from Harrogate, the toff hahahah. Tuesday I'm going to Banff and on Weds I'm working + then going christmas grocery shopping in Canmore... 

So yes. Thank you for reading, if anyone does (: !

Speak soon, love!

Alsos, happy ten months jam, i miss you (:

get me some sausage rolls woman

so the bonfire party last night - oh dear god. it was actually a christmas party that happened to have a fire pit out back... it was at the lake louise rec centre and we were told it was a locals party, so as we are all technically local we assumed it'd be full of people like us. um, no! i felt like i'd crash some 60th family birthday party or something, it was so awkward! but as with canada, the people were so nice to us group of dirty youths, and there was free food and everything - consequently, we stayed...

but it was really quite lame. got chatting to a girl from quebec there though called grace, i'd already met her in the rental store when she fitted me for my snowboard! she's half indian and half french canadian and is the only person  i've ever met who can pull a bull ring off. so yea, that was pretty good. we went cross country skiing today, which was so so so good! basically you ski... but on regular ground. we went round by the river (cannot remember the name for the life of me) which may as well just be normal terrain - it's pratically completely frozen over and as it snows so much you can't really tell that it used to be a river! i fell a couple of times, but it's to be expected! at one point we strayed off the trail - completely bad idea, and ended up in snow up to the top of my knees, i am not kidding!

the snow here is so much nicer than in england. it never melts, so when it snows again it just builds up - this worries me slightly as to what it will be like in a month! it's so dry that it glitters, i've never seen anything like it. a lot of it here is so untouched as well, due to snow not being a novelty. one of my favourite things to see is when the snow on a branch gets too heavy and falls in a cloud of dust (:

i've got a day off tomorrow which i was gonna spend chilling, skyping and exploring lake louise, but i've just been offered a lift to calgary which i'm kind of desperate to go to - i was supposed to be going on saturday with my friend brooke but i can't afford the $75 bus tickets, i am reeht skint! can't decide if i'm gonna go though because I AM SO TIRED literally living on three-four hours of sleep a night, but there is just so much to be doing (well, kind of. i want to do everything!) they're going at 7am so i'm gonna wake up at 6 and see how i feel. funny, back in the day waking up at 6 traumatised me but seeing as most days i'm up at 5 for work, i'm getting used to it! i don't think they do daylight savings here like in england because the sun doesn't rise til past eight and sets past five. i prefer it that way though!

bit of of a rambling post, but i really need to get some sleep. speak soon, love!

wanna die and have no fear

me on my first day of snowboarding (: more on this later, (don't i always say this?) i'm in a rush out to get to some kind of bonfire party? i don't really know if i'm honest, but it sounds fun...

(a very sparse and rubbish) photo diary: first two weeks

i like that here, the sky is always blue.

a tribute to room two-oh-nine

Today i finally got my netbook (: although my house as yet doesn't have wi-fi, this will make everything easier. I am hoping to post a lot more... once again, so much has happened! I feel like I've been here for months, not two weeks. Anyway, I'll talk about my current situation later. Right now i just want to dedicate a post to THE best room in the HI hostel banff, room 209...

Last week gave me some really great memories. 209 is actually the room next to the one me + will stayed in (211), but was the room that we hung out & and pissed everyone off in at night. 209/hi banff moments : $3.75 drinks and dancing the night away in your walking boots, seven people crammed into an old-ass 1980's mercedes listening to tupac at 3am, one two many youtube videos, cranking up the dub at 4am, cheap beer, dancing in stairwells, happy rums, movember moustache shavings, waking up germans, THAT tweed jacket, there's an elk outside the window, bus rides with small children and the daily, "fucking canada."

I met so many great people at that hostel and it's wierd to think that the majority I'll never see again. I suppose that's the thing with hostels though - you say hello and you say goodbye, and everyone moves on.

As I'm writing this blog technically for my own future reference and don't want to forget anyone, here's to Will, Mark, April, Ellisa, Charlie, Bron LETS THREAD OUR BROWS BITCH, Andy, Isla, Joe, the two Germans in our room, and the girl that drove us home that I saw in Safeway today (cue awkward moment). It was a really fun time that I didn't fully appreciate 'til I came to the snoozetown that is Lake Louise - but more on that later...

Speak soon, love!