Wed, Apr 18th

Hey all. I'm back from an amazing weekend in the Whistler ski resort so I thought i'd better update ye good folk. Firstly just a quick note on my Easter weekend. I just had the Friday off and not the Monday but it was better then nothing. I didn't get up to anything too crazy as I needed to save for Whistler the following weekend. The weather was nice that weekend so on the Friday myself and Kelly walked along the coast of downtown Vancouver which brings you to Stanley Park. The place was packed as everyone was off work and it was the nicest day in weeks. Stanley Park is massive so we walked as long as we could but only made it less then half way round. So we decided to go back on the Sat and rent bikes so we could get a good tour of the park. It was well worth renting the bikes for a few hours and it was nice to get back on the saddle since I haven't been on a bike since leaving home.

During the week I had a second interview with a small new games company that has set up here. It went quite well, much better then the first one, but i'll have to wait another week to see if I got the job. If I did get it i'd have to seriously think about staying here past the year. Will wait and see I guess.

Well I finally made it to Whistler after months of planning and it was definitely worth it. It's pretty much the end of the ski season now with just a couple of weeks left so this was about our last chance to go. I went with Kelly, Melissa, Kyungmin and three of his friends (two Korean guys and a Japanese girl). It was great that they came as it enabled us to rent a nice minivan and they'd also been snowboarding before so they gave us some lessons. We collected the car as early as possible on the Sat, 7am and headed straight off on our 2 hour journey. Its a nice journey there through the mountains and along the coast but there's also loads of construction going on in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

We got there around 9 and went and rented our gear straight away. I went for skis on the first day and headed straight up to one of the easier slopes with the rest of the gang. Our first trip down the mountain was hilarious with lots of tumbling, crawling and laughter from all. After a couple of practice runs myself, Kyungmin, David and Erika got the gondola up to the top of Whistler mountain. The gondola takes about 20 min to get to the top of the 6000ft mountain. While I was getting the gondola up I just kept thinking that I really wasn't ready for this yet. I did ok though, lots of falling, but nothing too bad. It took us almost an hour to get down to the bottom of the mountain and headed straight back up again. I stayed skiing for as long as possible and then we hung out in the village for a bit. There was a great buzz around the village as there was a music festival and world ski and snowboarding championship on. We headed back to our hostel then which was actually pretty far from the village, almost a 40 min drive, but it was the only place still available when we were booking. We had a pretty quite night, just went for dinner and got a few drinks.

On the following day we got up at 7 and got back to Whistler for 8.30. Kelly persuaded me to try snowboarding, I was skeptical as everyone had told me that its much harder to pick up then skiing. I'm glad I gave it a try though as I loved it and I had Kyungmin to give me a few free lessons, which I sorely missed while skiing. Kyungmin kept trying to persuade me to go to the top of the mountain to the big slopes on the snowboard and while I really didn't think I was ready I went with my motto for the weekend, Fuck it, why not? I'm so glad I just went for it as it was brilliant fun. Think I may just pass on the skis and stick to the snowboard in future. We all had a brilliant weekend and I reckon i'm well on my way to competing in the Olympics in skiing, snowboarding and ice skating.

Getting back to the real world after the weekend sucked. Especially as all of my muscles were aching for the next few days. And to top it all off half of my face was sunburnt from the snow. That was nice and embarrassing having to go to work with half my face white and half bright red. Well that's the price you pay becoming a professional snowboarder.

Cycling through Stanley Park

Kelly looking slightly gigantic on her bike

I need to stop taking pictures while doing something potentially dangerous

We enjoyed some great views on the way to Whistler

Here's the beauty of a Dodge minibus we rented. We could probably just have slept in it too.

This was the nicest hostel i've ever been in, pretty far from Whistler village though.

David, Erika, Dennis, Moi, Kelly, Melissa and Kyungmin in Whistler village before embarking on our day on the mountain.

Straight up to the first stop on the gondola to test what i've learnt on my previous skiing trip, not a lot it turns out.

Some extra snowfall should help us out, right?

Pose for a picture or help Erika? Pose it is then.

The view of Whistler village from one of the easier slopes.

Oh Canada...... We venture up to the top of the mountain, 6000ft up. Pretty windy up there.

1 last photo in case I didn't make it all the way to the bottom of the mountain in 1 piece.

And off we gooooooo

Erika (from Japan) was quite the snowboarder.

Myself and my roommate Kyungmin

Day 2 and its time to try snowboarding

Erika gives Kelly a few lessons

Kyungmin demonstrates the procedure for encountering a bear.

A few pics from the gondola on the way to the top

The Telus world ski and snowboarding championship

The gang all set for a day of snowboarding

Mon, April 2nd

Just had a brilliant weekend so I thought i'd better update ye good folks before I forget it all. Firstly though i'll give ye a quick update on my St Patrick's day. It's actually a pretty big deal over here as everyone hits the pubs for the day, just like home so. It was handy that it happened to fall on a Sat this year so we were able to hit the pub nice and early. Amazingly there were a lot of queues to get into pubs as early as 2pm. Well myself and Kelly went to an Irish bar called Smiley O'Neals at 2pm and stayed there all day. We had a great day and partied for a good 12 hours. The pub had a live band and dancing all day too to keep the drunken Canadians happy. I even had a pint of Guinness and a pint of green beer. I went all out. And our waitress was so impressed by our drinking that she bought us a round of shots, like we needed them.

Probably the highlight of the day was when an Aussie girl came up to me at one stage and asked to explain to her what St Patrick actually did. I convinced her that he brought leprechauns to Ireland in the 4th century as a religious symbol. Obviously they're extinct now though. And the colour of the leprechaun is green so that's why everyone wears green now. She then asked me what about banishing the snakes and I told her not to be silly, that that was only a myth. How I kept a straight face throughout the story I'll never know, especially as Kelly was laughing away behind her. It was classic stuff.

So the following morning when I woke I managed to piece together my trip home by reading the texts I sent. Apparently I got lost, went into a coffee shop, then got lost, then went into a 7/11 for a while where some girls invited me to a party, then I got lost for a bit and eventually made it home in one piece. So an average night out for me then.

Last weekend then, myself and Kelly went to Granville Island which is just outside Downtown Vancouver, it was a beautiful day so the place was packed. It's a really nice area with great markets, shops, lots of live music and just a great buzz about the place. It's very popular for both tourists and the locals. It's a cool place to hang out on a nice day so i'll prob be back there quite a bit during the summer.

Ok, that brings me up to the weekend just gone, which was my second time up on the local ski mountains. Except this time I wasn't going skiing. It was time for some tubing (or chooobin if you're Scottish). I went to Cypress Mountain instead of Grouse. It was a special SWAP organised event so there was a group of about 20 of us from all over the world. Tubing, by the way, is when you sit in a rubber tube, like the tube in a wheel for a car, and fly down a specially made slope in the snow. The fun really starts when you go down in a group of people all hanging onto each other. A couple of times all of the SWAP people went down at once. We had 22 people going down the slope at once all hanging onto each other. Great craic. It was a strange day to be on the snow as it was about 20 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, so we were running around in the snow in t-shirts for the day. I even got a bit burnt.

A few hours of tubing later we all went to the pub and went drinking for the night. I met a lot of cool new people that day and exchanged numbers. There was more crazy coincidences again when two girls we were out with had previously met me in Toronto. They hadn't met each other before so i'm starting to think that I must be some sort of beacon that people get to know each other through. Almost everyone i've been out with in Vancouver i've met in Toronto already. Not that I remember half of them as there was a lot of crazy nights out in Toronto. So now i've got lots more people to go out for drinks with, then again i'm not too sure that's such a good idea.

That pretty much covers the last 3 weeks for me. Work is still going fine. Glen and Jamie are still away but will def be back within 2 weeks. I'm surprised they haven't ran outta cash by now. Think i'll prob head to Whistler with Kelly in 2 weeks so gotta cut down on the spending as it's very expensive there. I'll report back in a few weeks.

I'll upload clips of the tubing on my pictures site here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/boriordan/Vancouver

A lovely green pint on Paddy's Day

1 too many green Long Island Ice Teas? Who am I to say..... but yes.Me, pretty happy with my desert.

Paddy's day parade, which strangely was quite Scottish...

...except for this fella

Our day on Granville island, we had a little boat trip.

Choobin time. These were the slopes we went down.

Here's my tube.

There was no need to walk to the top of the hill as they just clip you onto a rope which drags you up, as displayed here. Perfect time for a snow ball fight too.

Here's our gang deciding how we can all go down the hill at once.

And here's the result. Carnage ensued.

A great day of chooobin had by all.

Here's the best part of tubing. Trying to get out of the tube without falling over due to the dizziness suffered from a good spin. Also note Kelly's AWESOME teenage mutant ninja turtles t-shirt purchased in Toronto.

Mon, March 11th

Hello all, it's been a while since my last posting. All is well, I just haven't been up to much besides working during the week and boozing on the weekends so doesn't make for very interesting reading for ye folk. Amazingly work is still going fine, i'm quite busy all the time so I just go in, throw on the iPod and work away till its home time. I have discovered a great coffee machine in the office. I don't drink coffee but it sure does make a wicked hot chocolate so I think I may be addicted to them now. While work is fine now i'm still thinking that it might be more of a problem during the summer when I want to do things in the evening with everyone else but will be stuck in work. Gonna stick with it for now but may need to check elsewhere in a couple of months.

My other news over the last few weeks is that I have moved into an apartment. I got the one I wanted with the Korean and Japanese guys. I'm very happy with it as it's right downtown and I get along well with the Korean fella, Kyungmin. I've only met the Japanese guy once as he's out the whole time, which is fine with me. I've had a few all nighters with Kyungmin just staying up all night boozing to watch some footie in the morning. He doesn't drink beer though really, only whiskey which has led to a few sore heads in the morning time. He's also cooked me dinner quite a few times too which was very good of him.

It's been crazy the amount of people I've bumped into that I originally met over in Toronto. I've had a few nights out with two really nice girls from back home, Tara from Cork and Lisa from Belfast. It was a major coincidence meeting up with the two of them again as they didn't know each other back in Toronto at all, just bumped into each other over here and my name came up some how so they gave me a shout and we've been boozing it up since. Kelly also arrived back over last weekend so been spending most of my time with her. Angela, the Cork girl I used live with is coming over to us for Paddys day too so that'll be a major session i'm sure. And finally Glen and Jamie should be back from their U.S. trip in about 2 weeks so the old gang will be back together and ready for some wild nights out. Should be good craic. I'll be back to let ye know how that all goes.

Here's my work, Cathedral Place, it's very fancy.

And again at night, exciting stuff, eh.

And across the road they've just unveiled the countdown clock to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Here's my new apartment block, 5 minutes walk from work. I've been late every day.

This is the view from my bedroom window. Straight ahead is the Fairmont Hotel and you can just about see my work right behind it.

Lisa, myself, Tara and some Aussie bloke.

Sun, Feb 18th

Finally got to go skiing this week, but first, the boring stuff. I started work for Raymond James on Monday. They're one of the leading financial investment firms in North America. Why did they employ me, instead of someone who actually works in this area? I've no idea, but it's work so i'm happy. And for the first time since reaching Canada, I actually kinda like it..... so far. My job is organizing new clients' files and sending them out the appropriate details. It's not brain surgery, thankfully as I failed that class in school, but at least there's a number of different things I gotta do during the week so it's not the same repetitive thing day-in, day-out. And most importantly i've no dealing with the public, no phone calls, no emailing, nothing. Thank Jebus. The worst thing about it is I work from 3pm to 10.30pm. Doesn't bother me too much at the mo, but it's gonna be a pain when there's gigs on and when there are others around doing stuff on a Fri night and i'll be working. However because of the hours it means there's only 6 of us in the office as everyone else has gone home which is great. Everyone I work with is nice too and we're all pretty busy so we just put the head down and do what needs to be done, a bit like Ghostbusters.

So that's work sorted for now. I'm sure i'll be sick of it in a few weeks and will prob be back looking for something new, but i'm happy I managed to get work so quickly again. A lot of others here are finding it a lot harder then I did. What i've had slightly more problems with is finding accommodation. As I mentioned last week I went to see two places which I didn't really like. Well I've had a bit of a change of heart after seeing them and am now hoping to find a place downtown as I couldn't be bothered with all the commuting. I'm willing to pay more money as the commuting is prob gonna cost $100 a month anyway. Earlier in the week I went to see a condo in prime positioning downtown, about a five minute walk from work, if that. The rent is $475 which is very cheap for downtown, usually a room is over $750. I was expecting it to be a right dump but was pleasantly surprised when I saw the place. The reason it's so “cheap” is cause one of the lads actually lives in the living area. Doesn't really bother me as my room has everything I need and because of the hours I work he won't really be there when I am. It's a Korean guy and a Jap guy so if I get it, that should be fun. I told him i'd take it there and then but he said one of his friends was thinking of taking it so he'd get back to me around the 19th. Since seeing that place I haven't really checked anywhere else as i've kinda got my heart set on living there now. The Korean guy even works in the games industry too, so i've someone to nerd it up with. If I get it i'll be moving in on Sun the 25th.

Well that's about all I got up to for the week..... yeah fupping right. I had Friday off work due to a systems update so myself and Melissa decided to finally go skiing. They had just gotten fresh snow and it was a pretty nice day so it was perfect for us. We went to Grouse Mountain (http://www.grousemountain.com/) which is one of the local mountains. It's open from 9am to 10pm as it's one of the few places to offer night skiing and has their slopes lit up with flood lights. To get there we got a bus to the harbour front, then the Seabus took us across to North Vancouver where we got another bus right up to the mountain. In total it only took around 30 min and cost $3.50. When you arrive at the mountain base you must get a gondola up to the top. That was great as it offers a fantastic view of Vancouver and the surrounding mountains. It was crazy when we reached the top of the mountain as it's like a completely different world to Vancouver and it's still so close. I was major excited already at this stage. We went straight to rent our gear for the day. Thankfully there was an Irish guy working at the rentals desk so he helped us out as we had no idea what we were doing. We tried to get some lessons but they were all booked out for the day. So it was just up to us to figure it out for ourselves, which was a bit of a worry. I had no idea what to expect. Well we got all suited up and headed outside.

We went to a pretty flat area with just the slightest of slopes to get warmed up. Even getting into the skis was tricky as they were mad to take off with or without me. I got in to them and went down the slope without any major difficulty or falls. There was a practice area there that I stayed on for an hour or so to get to grips with using them. I took to it quite well so eventually moved on to the training slope which I managed to get down without falling either so was quite proud of myself. This is where everything started to go downhill for me, literally. I thought I had it sorted so decided to give one of the big slopes a go. The problem with teaching yourself is you've no idea what to expect so I just went to the top of the slope, which was over a mile long, and went for it. I started well but what I didn't realise is you're supposed to zig-zag your way down so you don't build up too much speed. I learnt this by watching everyone else as I flew passed them at some crazy speed. I didn't know how to turn or stop at this stage so my only option was to just go straight down. By some miracle I made it about 1/3 the way down without crashing and it started to level out a bit so I managed to stop. After clearing all the water outta my eyes I noticed the view of the city below me, absolutely stunning. I had a look around to see if there was any other way out besides skiing down the rest of the mountain. There wasn't. I figured I made it this far, maybe i'd make it the rest of the way down without crashing. How wrong I was. Turns out the mountain just gets steeper and steeper. So off I went again at even crazier speeds this time. I lasted quite a while flying straight down past everyone before I just couldn't control the speed anymore and I had a major wipeout. Ski's, poles sunglasses, everything, just went flying everywhere as I tumbled down the hill head first on my back. I stopped eventually and started making my way back up the hill to collect everything. Thankfully a guy working there helped me collect my stuff. So now I was 2/3 the way down with still no way out but to go down again and it was way too far to walk, so I put on the ski's again and went for it. It just got steeper and steeper so after getting to some crazy speeds again I had a major crash and went all over the place again. After collecting everything again I was close enough to the bottom now to walk so I just went to the chair lift and went back up to the top where the practice slopes were.

Now that I knew what I was supposed to be doing I practiced turning and stopping for a couple of hours on the practice slopes. I picked it up pretty quickly but wanted to keep practicing as I knew on the real slopes it would be much harder. I also bumped into Melissa again who was having major problems picking it up. She may have been better off going sleighing as she spent more time on her ass then standing up. I def think the lessons would have helped her out a lot. At around 7 Melissa had enough for one day so went off for some tea, which was my cue to go back and try the big slope again. It was dark at this stage but I don't think really made it any harder as the lighting was very good. I had no idea if I would actually be able to control the skis on the big slope as when you start going really fast it's hard to do anything but hold on and hope for the best. Straight away I had much better control then my previous attempt and was going nowhere near as fast. Around half way down when it got very steep I started going faster then I should have been going again but I just couldn't seem to go any slower, so again I had some major wipeouts. Thankfully it was snowing all day so it wasn't very painful when I fell, except for the fact that I burnt the shit out of my ass, not literally, thankfully. There was snow everywhere on me too, in my bag, clothes, all of my pockets, EVERYWHERE. I was completely hooked so I went back up for three more goes, getting slightly better each time. I stayed until around 9 before meeting up with Melissa and we headed back home again. Needless to say i'm dying to get back up there asap. The only problem is the money. In total it cost me almost $100 for one day's skiing. Absolutely worth it but not something I can do too often. I'll see if I can pick up and cheap ski's and boots so i'd only have to pay for the lift pass then.

Sorry for making this post so long but I could talk all day about my skiing experience. I had to cut half of it out so I wouldn't put ye to sleep. I didn't get up to much for the rest of the weekend, partly because I could barely walk after the skiing. An Aussie girl I knew from Toronto, Megan, was in our hostel for a few days before she flew back to Oz so we went for drinks on the Saturday night to send her off. She was super nice and will be missed. Ok, I better stop typing now. Hopefully this time next week i'll have a new place to live and will be all set for my stay for the next few months. I promise my update will be much shorter next time.

The harbour where we got the Seabus to North Vancouver. That's Grouse Mountain in the distance there.

On the Seabus

The bottom of Grouse Mountain where we got the gondola to the top.

One of many amazing views from the gondola.

Step off the gondola into a winter wonderland

One of the many slopes on Grouse

Ok, what do I do now?

Myself and Melissa before we actually get started.

And i'm off.

Probably not a good idea to take a pic of yourself while actually skiing.

My first trip down the big slope

Time for some night-time skiing.

This view really needs to be seen in person to fully appreciate.

Me, sitting halfway down the slope not looking too happy, after yet another major wipeout. Don't be fooled though, I was having the time of my life.

Bye Bye sweet Megan. Quite possibly the nicest person in the world..... ever.