Christmas Crumble, N.Y.E Naps and Skiing Fails.

“Excuse me. Excuse me…Hi, yeah, do you have any paper towels? One of the kids threw-up near the skate pond.”

A parent yelled out to me while I was in the middle of pumping out ice skates and helmets to sea of demanding school children. Now I know how One Direction and the Ice Cream man feels.

There was paper towel in my little skate-pond shed, but I was too overwhelmed by the demand for ice skates to see it. Instead I called for cleaners and went back to taking ice-skate orders:

“Can I have a size 7 hockey-skate, but not the girly design” from one very fickle, freckled faced pre-teen.

“I want the figure skates please….ah no I said figure skates…. These are the only ones you have?... Oh really?” from another girl with Disney on Ice skating aspirations.

“I don’t like the red helmet can I have a black one?” asked one 10-year old kid who felt the colour of his helmet would improve his chances of demolishing his mates on the skate pond.

It was my second official shift at Grouse, and dude, was I thrown in the deep end. Who knew something as delightful and romantic as ice-skating, would be so hectic and intense. When I started my shift I was briefly told by my manager to expect two busloads of school kids and parents arriving at 11am  – ‘sweet’ I thought, something to look forward to as the first two hours of my day went so S-L-O-O-O-O-W, I swear I saw a frozen tumble weave roll past.

When that first bus load of kids turned up I was like “holy moly guacamole, where are the Dorito chips?”- It was busy! Children, men, women, Blades of Glory wannabes, lined up in what looked like a queue for ‘FREE DENTAL CARE’.  As crazy as it got, this rookie managed to survive her first ever skate pond shift, without pissing too many people off. I’d rated myself a 7.2 out of 10 for my day’s work, and for that I celebrated by dancing to Christmas carols with my co-worker David, whether our ice-skating guests liked it or not.

Now before I move on, let’s address the awkward turtle in the room, I have been an incredible slack blogger. The worst. Kind of like a deadbeat dad who sees his kids twice a year, and apologizes by giving them an expired Crocs gift card for their birthday.

“Why is it so?” you ask, Marisa, who is the only person that actually reads this blog from beginning to end.

Well I’m sorry to say I don’t have the greatest excuses. When I haven’t been working I have been either:

a) Sleeping into the disgraceful hour of 11am on my days off. Leaving only enough time in the day to shower, eat granola and watch #HOTMESSMOVES on YOUTUBE.

B) Watching my new favourite TV show in the whole universe: Diners, Drive- in, Dives on the Food Network. Basically this beefed up TV chef with peroxide bleached hair, tattoos and rich fat man-bling, tests out all the best heart clogging burgers and ribs across Canada and the USA. As a vegetarian, this is my secret little guilty pleasure, eating vicariously through each deep-fried triple beef; mac ’n’ cheese burger.

C) I’ve had bloggers block. – Maybe I need some protein, like a crispy pulled pork, bacon and gravy burger…. Oh dear Lord, make it stop! Dear PETA, please forgive me, for I have sinned, filling my head with unsavoury savoury thoughts.

So please excuse my tardiness and let’s vacuum pack bag everything that’s happened since we last meet, in the next few paragraphs. Let’s do this shit.

Let’s start with my job in rentals at Grouse Mountain– I love it, I just friggin’ love it. Why? I get to do something different every day, from serving customers on the cash floor, to setting up the guest’s skis and snowboards on the tech floor, to taking charge of the skate pond. Sometimes when we are quiet the supervisors let me play with a hot iron, a block of wax and hot wax snowboards and skis–idiots.

The people I get to work are possibly the best-looking, top-notch humans in North Vancouver, and I get perv on these views every day and night.

Don’t get me wrong, the pay is shit and there are some days I’d much rather run outside and make snow angles than spray citrus deodorant into smelly sweat soaked ski boots, but despite being paid in chewing gum I still love going to work every day.

The rentals crew makes up of about 60% Canadian, 39% Australian and 1% NZ. It’s been said that Canadians and Aussies are basically the same people, so really it’s 99% Canussies and that one random NZ kid in the corner all by himself with a packet of Jaffas – how’s it going over there Clint?

“How’s it going? What do you mean how’s it going? Where is he going?” asked one of our confused Canadian co-workers. This is where our lazy Aussie slang we call English gets lost in translation.

A heated 30 minute debate on the rentals floor followed between the Aussies and Canadians, arguing that you ask, “How are you doing?” because “How’s it going?” is just plain stupid.

Other everyday normal things us Aussie say that confuse the fuck out of Canadian are:

“Far out brussel sprout!” – what?

“See you round like a rissole” – excuse me?

“This is going to be sick!” – who’s sick?

“This is sweet as” – sweet as what?

“Pull up a stump” – huh?

“Do you have an esky” – a what now?

“Where’s the dunny” – what’s a dunny?

“Do you know what you thought? You thought you’d stick a feather in the ground and grow a chook!” – what the fuck did you just say? (That one even confuses my own mates, I blame my parents)

There’s a few perks that come along with working at Grouse Mountain, every employee receives a FREE ski season pass, and when you work in rentals, like me, all ski and snowboard rentals are also FREE. I can count on bee’s dick how many times I’ve taken advantage of this awesome perk. Just once. A few weeks ago I went skiing for the first time ever with my flat-mates Sophie and Kim and I could very well be scared for life by it. I wasn’t injured or anything, I was just thrown down the bunny hill in a pair of skis with a couple of airy-fairy tips from Sophie and kept repeating in my head the words ‘Pizza, French fry, Pizza, French fry’* as I was speeding down the hill yelling “I CAN’T STOP!!!”.

(*If you have ever been skiing in your life, you will understand why I was repeating a fat kid’s lunch order in my head. If you have never skied and can’t understand why I thinking about what I was having for dinner that night, then please watch the following South Park clip** below.)

** Please excuse this shitty, shitty video clip. There was a far better qaulity video link my cousin Greg sent me before my f@%king trip, but the link is being a little bitch, ruining this whole f@%king joke, the f@%king asshole. 
Can you tell I've been up all night watching South Park on YouTube?

 I eventually stopped at the bottom of the hill, still standing, before crashing into the barrier gate and making friends with a pole. My New Year’s resolution is to take that free lesson from one of the Grouse Snow School instructors who will teach me how to not ski.

Between all the failed skiing, ice skate vomiting, oversleeping, food porn watching, language debating, - my Grousies and I have certainly been able to squeeze in a few social gatherings here and there.

There have been many Monday Night Madness happenings at the Cellar Bar in Down Town Vancouver, Tuesday night shenanigans spent at our new local, Two Lions, an ugly Christmas sweater birthday party, and a game of Kings drinking with our Perth mates, Brad and Callan, in their bachelor pad.

These nights lead to many memorial events such as: Stealing a mini pot plant from the Two Lions beer garden to use as our Christmas tree; meeting a legit lumber jack man at the Cellar Bar (ladies they exist); discovering the world’s most delicious and cheapest vodka six pack, then falling asleep in the corner of Brad and Callas apartment; finding out I’m really, really bad at beer pong, but I’m really, really, good at making super ugly Christmas sweaters, using Christmas decorations from the $1 Dollar Store; and finally learning that if all beds and the sofas beds are taken up in the house after inviting everyone back to your place to crash, a cozy bunk bed can be made on top of the washing machine and dryer using the sofa cushions, and wearing a onesie as an alternative blanket.

Prepping for our ugly Christmas sweaters.

Evidence of a good night after Two Lions and a trip to the big M.

A loving selfie moment with Sophie and I in a washrooom....somewhere...

One of the most exciting events I know I was looking forward to, along with my fellow Grouse Aussies before coming over to Canada, was of course celebrating our first ever White Christmas – it really was beautiful. The only I can describe snow, is to compare it to food. Yes my mind is back on food. My friend Bree back home in Australia during our Skype date asked “What is snow like?” I said it looked like white sugar; it looks like as if they have dumped a hundred million bags of White Wings castor sugar over the entire mountain, and when it snows, it looks like coconut flakes falling from the sky- shredded not desiccated. My take on describing snow I’m sure would truly impress all those legit writers out there with their fancy Masters in Journalism, their Noble Prize awards in Literature and have the ability to spell Literature without touching “Spell Check”.

Like most of my co-workers, I spent our Christmas day at work. My day was spent once again on the skate pond – lucky me. I of course prepared myself with coffee and snacks to get me though the day. I was lucky enough to share my Christmas day and my M&Ms on the skate pond with my mates Callan and Brad - the Zamboni ice-rink boys.

Knock off time at 5.00pm and my Christmas shift was over. Time to stuff myself stupid into a Christmas food coma.

Hanging with Prancer on Christmas Day

Waiting at home was Sophie’s sister, Melissa, who was visiting us during her trip through America, and had been kind enough to cook up a homemade Christmas feast for us all. Thanks Mel!

We were still yet to upgrade to a dining table and chairs in our little place, so we went for a ‘minimalistic’ (or you could say ‘economical’) style, and set up Christmas dinner on Sophie’s sleeping bag as if it were a picnic blanket. The night’s menu included; roast pork; green beans; honey carrots; potato bake; stuffed peppers, pumpkin pie and pear crumble. Queue the stretchy fat pants and embrace sloth position post-feed.

Fast forward another week and the countdown to beginning 2014 in Vancouver was a-tickin’.

The N.Y.E plan was to have no plan and just see where we would end up.

Where we ended up was at the Lonsdale Quay overlooking the water and Vancouver city, with about 15 Grouse kids and friends in the hopes of seeing fireworks. Three untimely countdowns later and we said ‘OH HEYY!’ to Twenty-Fourteen, and the fireworks…yeah there were no fireworks, awkward giraffe much? Pfff…Fireworks, shimireworks; the beautiful view of the city, at least one drink in hand and hugs all round with our Grouse peeps was more than enough for us.

The party moved on to Alex’s apartment, just up the road, where we celebrated the rest of the night by dancing to Shania Twain’s- Man I feel like a woman (before you judge me, I didn’t pick the playlist, but you have to admit that song is still bloody catchy) and a few sing-a-longs to what I think I remember was The Goo-Goo Dolls (again I had no say in music, stop doing the face-palm and shaking your head at me). 
At some point in the night my hand and eye coordination was shot and I could feel a very heavy nap coming on, so in true Amanda style I ended up in the bathroom, (as I always do) tucked myself away in the bath tub and drew the curtain for a bit of shut eye. I had few visitors to the loo during the night, who were completely unaware they had company behind the shower curtain when they thought they were doing their private business in private... that was until someone must have noticed my shoes peeking out of the shower curtain. The next thing I knew, I could hear the sound of an IPhone snapping pictures, feeling someone putting a bath towel over me as a blanket and then gently placing two rolls of toilet paper under my head as pillows.  Another sleeping option I never thought of, good thinking to whoever has photos of me passed out in the tub on their IPhone. I’m sure to find it on Instagram somewhere under #NYE2014 #whitegirlwasted #legend.

Where's the bathroom? Amanda's going night-nights..

Pheww! OK we got through it, are you still with us? Were you paying attention? If you were, here’s a surprise pop quiz to test your undying loyalty to me.

Q: What else should Amanda be doing on her days off instead hibernating in her house and watching the Food Network whilst eating vegemite-hangover- toast, pretending it’s a bacon, hash brown and egg burger?

a)    Woman-up, pull-up her thermal socks, put on her never used mango coloured helmet and turn up to a ski lesson.

b)   Go on an adventure like a nerdy tourist! Ride a bike around Stanley Park, go the aquarium, visit the Capilano suspension bridge, maybe even find her own fast food diner that serves vegie friendly burgers, epic grilled cheese sandwiches and Instagram selfie every moment.

c)    Hit up the shops for some retail therapy - because all my drinking/socializing requires more outfit choices. (Do you think H&M would accept strawberry Hubba Bubba gum as a currency?)

d)   Make Lee a dread-headed snowman, as was earlier agreed, and double check edits he makes to my blog when proof reading it. He could write almost anything...(Nice work Lee...)

e)    All the above- but she’s allowed be a useless sloth some days after a night out to the Two Lions, drinking cheap ciders and sending Snapchats to everyone on her contact list wearing strangers hats.

f)     Other……

g)    All the above.

Leave your answer in the comment box below and be mesmerised by this vag slapping Miley GIF.

 Until next time, you crazy forgiving kids.
Love Amanda xx


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