Halloween & Beavers

Halloween was a debauched affair. Banff turned into Party Party Party town, where everyone but EVERYONE was dressed to the nines and out in force in the bars. Everyone had made such a fantastic effort, and though I had bought the lamest and cheapest costume I could find, it still made an impact. I arrived dressed as a ghost with my face mask at the Magpie & Stump to find Hayley and Laura, already pretty trollied, shouting 'NO FACE NO FACE! Come here to have a picture taken with us!' to me. Assuming they had realised it was me, I went over and much hugging and phototaking was had. However, five minutes later, Laura suddenly said 'And I don't even know your name!', to which I pulled off my mask and she freaked out that it was me. Ha ha. The evening passed in a blur - despite the fact that I was the only person in Banff not drinking - and contained such gems as Jamie being sick into his hat at 9.30pm and Laura shouting 'Kiss me NOW!' to some Aussie guy in the middle of the road. A good time was had by all.

Yesterday was my orientation at work, which consisted of a day listening to talks about Sunshine Village's various different departments and what they do, how not to get STDs whilst in Banff - where I won a condom holder for knowing what the second most prevalent STD in Banff was (gonorrhoea of course - I wonder what I'd have won for being able to spell it correctly?) - and a long talk about different ways you're liable to kill yourself on the mountain.

It scared the bejesus out of me. As a non-skier, I have no idea what it's like to be out there in -15 degrees hurtling down a mountain, though it sounds scary enough. However, when you are then bombarded by pictures of people with various different hideously scarring and/or life-threatening injuries, and repeated stories of 'staff members whose bodies I have pulled out from under an avalanche/under a snowcat/peeled off a tree' and 'phone calls I've had to make to parents to tell them their son/daughter isn't coming home', it makes you think twice about even trying it. I mean, I know that's why I came here, and I also know that thousands and thousands of people ski every day without killing themselves, but I'm still getting nervous about it.

Then I headed back to Banff on the bus, picked up my bags and headed down the hill to my new home, on Beaver Street. Many people have pointed out that, given my job back home, I pretty much already live on Beaver Street, but now it's official. The house may not look like much from the outside, but my room is twice the size of the other girls (yay!) and I have a big comfy double bed. I already know one of my roomies, Laura, who travelled over from the UK to Vancouver with me back in September, but met the other girls last night, Chelsea (Aussie) and Jess (Canadian) and they're cool. Of course I immediately began doing a big clean, to which the others looked on in total bemusement. "Is the landlady coming over?" When I told them I was cleaning for myself, because I wanted to be able to cook/clean myself in a clean environment, I was given some odd looks. I pointed out that they've clearly never owned their own place. But hey, they're very young yet.

Despite the 'no visitors after 10.30pm' rule, we had visitors till around 11.30pm - ha! - Kate & Chris, who both moved into their respective places yesterday too, and Dave & Zander, who are living in the flat below us, so we ate dinner, watched Gladiator, tried to get the wireless internet up and running but failed (though we can hard wire it), and chatted about stuff and things. Damn good start to the living arrangements.