Canada eh?

I spent the better part of a year here back in 06/07. I went from east to west and I saw just about every season. I went snowboarding in Whistler, canoeing in Ontario, from drum circles in Montreal to the surgeon's table in Vancouver. Canada has given me mixed experiences in the past but before I made the full switch into Swedishness, I thought I'd better give it one last chance.

A combination of the US economic situation (which has meant the number of international working visas they are giving out has dropped by about 90%) and the Winter Olympics in Whistler (which has meant the number of instructors hired there dropped by over half) has made the snowboard instructor market here in Canada incredibly tight.

This means that I set my sights on other forms of employment and wound back the clock about a year and a half. After weeks of research and a series of internet interviews I landed myself a personal trainer's position at a gym in Canmore, AB. Canmore is about an hour west of Calgary and not too far from a couple of decent sized ski resorts. Approximately 30 mins from Sunshine Village and a little over an hour from Lake Louise. Most seasonal workers live in the next town over; Banff- but the lack of a decent gym and the quieter lifestyle in Canmore has made this
place my home for the time being.


The view here is amazing. I knew this before I came, having looked around at the street view on Google Maps. Actually being here, surrounded by the snow-covered peaks however.. is quite different altogether. Canmore is one of the towns along the Bow river; a stretch of land with massive peaks as far as the eye can see. Right out of the windows of my gym you can see the Three Sisters; so named as after certain snowfalls, they look like three nuns - apparently. I'm not the most religious guy in the world you know.

So far, this have been pretty good. Slowly settling in and enjoying work. I am being challenged all the time and get along well with the people I work with. Our first staff party is just over a week away. We're going to play 5-a-side ice hockey on the pond in town. Unsuccessful attempts on goal have a Jager shot penalty. Amazingly enough my boss is more excited than I am. Wish me luck.

Back to Sweden...

...for the 5th time for those of you keeping count.

While I am thankful for the entire row i had for myself from bangkok to london, it was still a pretty damn long journey. Surprisingly enough, 2 weeks of partying it up, getting eaten alive by mosquitos, wakeboarding, traveling and generally getting up to some pretty hectic antics had taken its toll on my body and one place you don't want to be feeling less than your best is on a plane. Trust me. I have done it all too many times.

After many a long hour I finally arrived in Sweden. I spent a few relaxing days in Karlskoga visiting Jenny and her family, eating home-cooked swedish food, watching tv, going to the gym, going for runs along the riverbanks and riding extremely girly Swedish bikes; seems like these things are everywhere! They have those old women's frames, they use back pedal rather than hand brakes, they have these crazy wheel clamp locks built-in and most importantly the steering column sits a little off so that it doesn't respond how you would expect a regular mountain bike to. Bikes are one thing you expect to be pretty universal all over the world but apparently not so. Despite the weird mode of transportation, it was a lovely way to recharge after the alcoholic onslaught that was Thailand. They have the most lovely house in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. It was a charming experience I won't forget in a hurry. Tack to the Kensen-Nygrens!

Coming back to Stockholm was like coming home. I had completely forgotten how many good friends I had scattered accross the city. While I did have my fair share of drinks, this time I decided to pull my finger out and did a few civilised things. I went ice skating in Kungsträdgården - busting out some pretty awesome but very awkward looking tricks such as spins and skating backwards. It's quite a bit harder to keep your balance than skis. I also drove a segway on 'World's Largest Indoor Segway Track' (possibly the most ridiculous claim to fame I have ever heard). I heard about the Segway many years ago and thought the whole idea was completely ridiculous. It's like walking for lazy people, a standing up motorised wheelchair, but in fact it was actually a lot of fun. And even more surprisingly it was both mentally and physically challenging. I could feel my legs burning as they struggled to keep the balance and did their best to push the Segway beyond its speed limitations. I eventually figured out that they had max speed settings pre-programmed so that they wouldn't go faster than 10km/h. That was a little frustrating to say the least.

One of the best nights out I had in Stockholm was with my roommate from Åre, Joel and his girlfriend Katta (for the sake of Joel's safety I would like to take this opportunity to make it clear that Katta is not pictured; this is Marissa, an Australian girl I worked with at Hard Rock back in the day). They live just outside the city limits in Täby and they took me to their local bar. The people there were so much friendlier than most people in Stockholm. 'Real' people I suppose you'd say. Don't get me wrong, I love Stockholm; but going to Tegel was like going to the OBH as opposed to The Cott. Pretty ironic coming from me I know. I have always been a Cott guy. Maybe I'm growing up? I wonder how many times I have said that in this blog now...

Koh to the Phanang

Accross the water lay an international island adventure. As always with Koh Phanang, it was filled with stupidly loud dance music, loads of incredible fire twirling, foam parties, beach balloon games, buckets, very questionable milkshakes and general madness. I love it. My second trip there and not likely the last.

Eventually Mathew sorted out his visa situation and met up with me over at the island. We got ajoining rooms at our hotel and arranged to hang out with the three Norwegians I had met the night before. We went over to their place for some pre-drinking and the madness ensued. Anyone who has spent time with me will know that I like a drink or two and am normally the one leading the charge in the drinking department. Not this time. These young psychopaths taunted me with abuse as I turned down drinks in favor of making it past 11pm. We played a variety of drinking games- mostly similar to those with which I am familiar but with some strange adjustments in the rules. We eventually made it out of the house to a pool party down the other end of the beach. Craziness. The girl were completely wasted. I restrained myself from saying 'HA! now who's soft??'

My last trip to Thailand I never got around to having a massage. Strange I know. Mathew was a bit of a Thai-massage veteran so he convinced me to give it a try. Best $7 I ever spent. For someone with as poor flexibility as I, this was a much needed bizarre stretching/massaging experience. As my muscles spasmed in pain and reacted in weird ways my masseuse, Matt and his all had a good laugh. I really need to work on my stretching obviously. Now I am just sorry I didn't go back for more.

As soon as Stroose caught wind of the Foam party going on down the beach he was as fired up as ever. It was pretty awesome actually. One of the bars down the beach had set up a big outdoor section that had foam everywhere. I don't know what it is about foam but people seem to go a bit mental and lose their sense of reality. Awesome huh?

While we were not there for the Full Moon Party this time around. We still met our fair share of interesting individuals from all around the world and got up to our fair share of shenanigans.

As always it was sad to leave. Saying goodbye to travelers you meet along the way is never an easy task. Waiting at the airport in Samui, reflecting on the weeks that preceeded and those to come I looked around to notice one of the most beautiful and picturesque airports I have ever come across. It deserved a picture or two as I lay out in the sun to soak up my last chance at a little colour before the very long winter that lay ahead of me.

Reliving Past Experiences

Someone once told me that if you ever try to relive a fantastic experience you've had in your life, it will always disappoint you. And while that is true of this one, it was still pretty kickass.

I set it up so that I'd meet Stroose in Thailand on my way back to the Northern Hemishpere. He'd been living up in the middle of nowhere going to a Muay Thai training camp and enjoying the ridiculous cheapness of it all. We met up for a night of craziness in Bangkok. Strauss has been there a few times so he knew where to go and we met some friends of his out at a real 'Thai club' rather than falling victim to the various tourist traps around town. Their set ups are crazy. You go in, buy a bottle of vodka or whatever and you're provided with your own table with a built in bar set up. Glasses, ice, lemon, lime, various mixer drinks, salt etc. Basically all the ingredients to get one messy. Well that and a crazy little Thai girl who makes you drink far more than you should before dancing around like a lunatic and getting thrown out (at least 3 times) I met some French dudes there and practiced my awesome drunken French. The thing about drinking is that it makes you THINK your langauge skills are getting better but in reality you just care less about how much they suck.

The next day we headed up to Dok Krai Resevoir for a week of wakeboarding goodness. A severe hangover in the taxi and massive underpreparedness meant that it took a lot longer than it should have and we arrived in a bit of a daze...

Once we got used to our surroundings we realised we were the only guests at the resort; being the very start of the season... In some ways this was a blessing but it was a little quiet around there at night. It was a shaky start but eventually we got some good riding time in and managed to get some improvement happening. Strauss had never gotten up on a wakeboard and I was trying some tricks I never thought I would get to. I even had a go of a wake-skate. It's much like a wakeboard but with no bindings. You stand on it barefoot and can do things like shuv-its and the like.

For the most part we were pretty lucky with the weather. We had mornings with glassy water, a little wind would pick up for us to head in for lunch and then it would glass over in the late afternoon ready for another session. It was really like a little slice of paradise. When we weren't feeling up for riding we set up a bungee cord to pull us over the pool and we had plenty of time to hit the gym equipment, watch dvds or just chill out and have access to a kitchen chef all to ourselves. We couldn't really complain (though looking at the state of my mosquito-bitten ankles sometimes I managed to) My last day on the water I was trying desperately to squeeze in as much time as possible. Strauss had gone on ahead to sort out some visa stuff and some Russians had shown up to start their 2 week waterski trip. The forces were against me. I managed to squeeze in 2 sets and finished up not a second too soon. There were thunder and lightning strikes all around us, and with a metal tower on a boat in the middle of a lake in the middle of swapland? We were the prime target for any bolts wanting to come down to earth.

I had a few days on my own as Strauss fixed up his visa stuff and much like my last trip in Thailand, I met some English guys on their way to Samui and we got on the beers as soon as we got there. It was a messy few days but we had a blast. These boys were in the Army and Thailand was like crack to them. Crowds of skinny Thai girls pawing all over them, practically fighting over them? They just couldn't get enough.

After two wild nights I moved on from them as they seemed determined to stick around but I knew that even better partying lay across the water on Koh Phangan...

I Still Call Australia Home

This blog has been suffering a little of late. This is not going to let me allow it to die however. So here comes the quick catch-up. I was last talking about my last days in the Australian snow. From there I headed back to Perth to see my friends and family and to unwind a little in the comfort of my rent-free home. This latest visit to Perth was much like any other. Beers with the boys, watching the grand final at Rich's new pad turning into a crazy drunken night at the casino getting home close to 6am... Catching up with the family for afternoon tea and dinners... But it had its differences too.

I had a friend from Perisher over visiting and I had the pleasure of showing her around our beautiful, largely un-explored coastline. We drove down to Margaret River and checked out some of the local sights. Something I've not done for many years. The rivermouth is a pretty amazing beach. Very wild at this time of year.

This time my sister and beau-frere were over visiting for some of the time with their new-born baby daughter; little Sonia is cute as hell. I have taken it upon myself to speak to her only in Swedish, singing her snow-game songs as lullabys to send her to sleep when she was upset. She seems to like it and I like the idea of having a secret language to communicate without her mother knowing what we're talking about. I suspect it might take a little more than a few whispers once or twice a year to sink in. But who knows. She has some pretty intelligent parents, a fantastic grandmother, a powerfully unique grandfather and I won't even mention her uncle's talents.


I have been meaning to do so for a long time while in Perth but I finally took it upon myself to learn to kitesurf. I couldn't get hold of an instructor at such short notice so I gathered my uncle's old, crappy and seriously inappropriate gear up and marched down to the beach. After several very dangerous incidents and about 5 or 6 days of practice I more or less had it down- right when I had to leave. At least I have something to draw me back home for once. One of the phases of learning is setting the kite up to drag you down the beach with your heels in the sand. I felt like I was getting a handle on this but one day the wind was a little gusty and I wasn't paying attention and before I knew it I was about 4 metres off the ground and drifting down towards some poor unsuspecting girl who was looking out to sea as she walked down the beach. I was about 30 centimeters from kneeing her in the head and SHE apologised to me? That was a close call.

While looking for an instructor I got chatting to a guy who works down at Safety Bay. He told me how in-demand instructors were these days and after I mentioned my instructor experience he became quite keen for me to do a season teaching there. A little strange considering I can't actually do it myself but hey, I was a snowboard instructor before I was any good and arguably I'm no expert on that to this day...

I found it quite amusing to see David's attempts to convince me to move back to Perth. He insists it's the most awesome place ever and that I will just need to spend a bit more time here to realise that it's where I belong. I think he just wants someone else to play with. One day he convinced me to come around and try out a pair of "ocean-going canoes" he'd borrowed off his father-in-law. He clearly had no idea what he was doing and when we got down to the beach it was choppy as hell. The seas were raging and the only people out on the water were kite surfers. No one was surfing, no one was swimming. All the smart people stayed at home. So we set on our gear despite my best protests and waded out into the raging seas. We tried every approach we could think of, getting in on the sand, getting in half way out, getting in past the breakers... Nothing worked. After at least 40 minutes of getting pummelled and smashed around the best attempt of the day was David managing to stay on the craft for about 30 seconds, and making it through one wave. The whole thing was retarded and I'm just glad we didn't attract a group of passer-bys to laugh at us. Not to mention the danger factor; I very narrowly escaped a broken leg when my canoe came crashing towards me on a wave while I stood in the shallows looking the other way. Luckily I did a very un-graceful backwards high-jump over it at the last second. Thanks David, I guess I need a retarded wake-up call once in a while.

Perth will have changed that little bit extra next time I am there. As we speak my mother is putting the finishing touches on moving to a house in Fremantle. I feel as though I should have some feelings of loss and nostalgia come over me but then I soon realise that I moved out of my childhood home about 15 years ago. Still, we were at Keightley road for about 7 years so it's hard not to have some sort of attachment...

The End of One Season Merely Means the Beginning of the Next

Hardly 3 months have gone by since I arrived in Jindabyne and it is already time to leave. That was quite different to my usual experiences in a variety of ways; many hard to describe. For the better part of the season, weather in town was quite mild. Tshirts, skateboards and open windows ran rife while the wind up top made skin coverage a necessity.

Beautiful Girls concerts and a real melting pot of instructors on the hill. Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Sweden, Czech, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, The US, Finland; you name it. Doing a season in Australia is, in many ways, very different to what I had expected.

At first glance I could not figure out why people kept coming back year after year; comparatively poor snow conditions, low pay, no guaranteed hours, employee perks few and far between... so why come back then?

It took me the better part of the season to figure it out but it's the people and the atmosphere that keep people coming back. The energy that the culture brings to the place can be felt all around you and why? I can't really answer that but at a guess I'd say it's because that's the only way to get by. Why are the Irish and Jews such famous comedians? Some say it's because they've had a pretty crappy time of it. Maybe that's the case here as well. Because the quality of life is not served up on a silver platter you have to look for it- perhaps that makes it so much more satisfying when it's found.

The house parties were excellent and when there was a sunny day down in town you appreciated taking a soccer ball and a few beers down by the lake. It felt good and the feelings were mutual. In a way it also served to cull the weak. If you could make it through an employer season after season they way Perisher treated you? You had to have a strong and positive personality or you'd get eaten alive. Frankly I didn't make it through easily. The word stubbornness rather than perseverence springs to mind.

We certainly found ways to keep ourselves entertained. When we weren't trying new stuff in the park or building craggy little jumps in between the trees; we were making funky photos with our camera, playing poker, hitting the skate park, learning card tricks or sneaking in to local resorts' trampoline facility to practice our inverted skills. You know; typically productive behavior of any good 26 year old.

More than anything; being around some pretty good photographers is slowly teaching me a thing or two about using this semi-SLR camera of mine. I've come a long way since David's 17th birthday present. Although giving it some thought I'm pretty sure he just bought me that in the hope that I'd take pictures of girls. What was he thinking?

It was sad to leave but exciting at the same time. I've lined up a few weeks in Perth, a wakeboarding trip in Thailand, a quick visit to friends in Sweden and Amsterdam before flying over to Canada to start a new season there. Who knows, maybe I'll take some of this positive engergy with me this time?

From Jindabyne to Perisher

For a variety of reasons; from bad internet connections to issues at work right through to moving into my third house - I have massively neglected the Wanderer.

Here we are two months later and I've finally pulled my finger out.

After a few days in Sydney to visit Amy - who has since given birth to little baby Sonia, the Wanderer is now an uncle! - I jumped on the bus down to Jindabyne. The road down is the most quintessential of Australian landscapes. A scene straight out of The Heidelberg or The Man from Snowy river; it's no surprise that half of the places in town are named after Banjo Paterson. A short 7 hours later I was setting about town and settling in to my new place. My roommates were veterans here, lift operators mostly who seemed like a good bunch who didn't mind a beer or two. I had a room to myself for a few days before Bobby moved in.

Bob was an interesting character, I couldn't tell if it was his accent or if he had some kind of speech impediment; but basically it was bloody hard to understand a word he said. As a pretty heavy sleeper, I'm not normally bothered by snoring but this was something else. Whimpering noises, snoring, talking... it made sleep a little difficult. Otherwise the house was pretty good, good people, but it got a bit much after a while so I moved on.

House number two seemed alright at first- I even went over to meet my new housemates and checked the place out before I moved in. What I didn't realise is that I was living with the biggest stoner on earth and pretty incredibly messy house habited house mates in general. The mess, the laziness and the tiny rooms lead me to look elsewhere once again. Third time is a charm so far though; I moved in across the street with another snowboard instructor and so far has been smooth sailing.

About a week ago I was playing poker at a friend's place with the guy who replaced me in house number 1. He started telling me a story that made my particularities over living circumstances feel a little wiser. A few nights earlier, Linden (my replacement) woke in the middle of the night to some strange mumbling/whimpering noises. Slowly finding his bearings he looked up to see Bob standing over him, mumbled a few incomprehensible 'words' and walked away. Linden thought little of it and turned over to get back to sleep. Not two minutes later did he feel a strange sensation either side of him... something wet? He felt around and there were two distinct wet patches on the bed. As he sat himself up to investigate he saw Bob sitting on his bed, completely naked and the horrible truth became clear. He had walked in his sleep to find the toilet - my old bed...

Jindabyne is a town at the bottom of the mountains on the banks of a man-made lake created by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric project. Most of the staff from both Thredbo and Perisher live in town and the better part of skiers find themselves a place to stay and make the daily 20minute drive to the Ski Tube to spend their day on the slopes. Most of the time you can get around Jindabyne in a t-shirt and jeans, maybe a jumper to find yourself 20 minutes later in minus 5 degrees surround by snow. It's an interesting set-up they have here. Most of the time we can organise a lift with friend and co-workers to get to the train, but sometimes it's easier just to hitch-hike. It's such a well-established tradition here in Jindabyne that you don't even need to stick your thumb out- you can just stand at the hitching point and without fail, in just a few minutes you'll be picked up by any variety of people, tourists and locals, young and old... it gives the town a real community feeling and can usually keep you pretty entertained for the boring drive up. More importantly; it helps keep you distracted from the distressing image of the flattened Australian fauna that litters Kosciusko Road.

Working in Australia I have never felt so unsafe on the slopes. Front Valley is the best place around for low-level riders because of it's clarity and accessibility but the chaos that ensues can be terrifying. People with absolutely no idea about skiing/boarding get their gear on and jump on the chair that accesses the 'green' run. They then get to the top, look down and think: "oh crap, now how do you stop on these things?" Long heavy objects with sharp metal edges attached to 60+kg people with no idea and no control can lead to some pretty disastrous collisions. I am surprised I haven't seen worse injuries while managing to avoid being cleaned up myself (touch wood). My theory is that Australians have an attitude that steers them away from lessons in favor of trying it out with little or no idea where to start. "Aussies having a crack" might be a charming element of our culture but it has no place in the snowsports industry. They are not only endangering their own lives but risk causing severe injury to those around them. While many falls result in a tumble, a laugh and back on the horse- the potential is pretty horrifying. Unfortunately there is no system in place to make lessons mandatory.

The Visit Home

Perth is fantastic. It's apparently Winter and the weather is unbelievable. You can't really fault it. Sure there were rainy periods - but only a handful of days were anything to complain about - a handful of days in 5 weeks is not actually much to complain about in the big scheme of things.

The visit home was a bit of an eye opener though; the majority of my friends have moved on. Jobs, houses, dogs, wives and in several cases; children. This is not a world I belong in right now and it really showed this trip.

I had a couple of friends on the same page and we did our best to make use of the evenings and weekends but Perth's nightscene leaves one wanting. It just doesn't shape up to the rest of the world and yet people still think they are the shit. Why is that I wonder?

You have to give Perth some credit though. They are doing their best; new bars and clubs are opening up around town and they aren't all replicas of the Cott, Bayview and aren't all in Northbridge.

Having just come from Sweden; one of the most notoriously expensive places on this earth for alcohol, I suddenly found myself in horror at the bar in Perth. $9 for a pint? $14 for a vodka redbull? What are these people on? My best theory is that the mining boom sent prices up as minors flooded into town all cashed up with nowhere to go; but what about the rest of us? Particularly the temporarily unemployed people back at home with mamma? How are we supposed to get on the sauce?

My promises of masses of skateboarding and exercise through the nose turned into a last minute attempt to gym it up - about 6 sessions in 10 days; not a bad effort.

And now for something completely different

Taking a break from Wandering, my brother-in-law put me onto an interesting bit of material. Stuff White People Like caught my eye with its Seinfeld-like observational humor and sucked me right in with its observations about career paths and Snowboarding. I like to think that the dry humor evident here is something I strive towards when I am going off on some random tangent. The book gets the Wanderer's thumbs up.

Preparing for NSW

To anyone who got all the way through my last post: well done but also: what the hell is wrong with you? In light of how ridiculously long-winded, directionless and alcoholic I have become blog-wise I am vowing to make an effort to make the next phase of the Wanderer a little more civilised and interesting. After all; partying is great when you're there (Thailand? Best 10 days in all my travels) but doesn't make for good copy. As I do the family (big sis is ready to pop out her first) and friends thing here in Perth and the temperature drops over east, I am gearing up for a fresh season in Perisher; my first on home turf. Put onto it by my Brother-in-law, I have been informed that white people like snowboarding.