Saturday 21st November 2009

Today, the course officially kicked off. It started at 9am with a Technical session from Brett from a specialist boot fitting store in town. No surprises, it was about boot fitting. The entire course was there, skiers and snowboarders alike, some of us slightly tired/hungover from the previous nights antics, some fresh as daisys as they had been awake for a few hours due to not coping with the time zone change. As Brett was talking, it started to sink in. I was out here, finally doing it. In just a few weeks I'd be a qualified instructor, teaching groups of 6 year olds and having to help them with their boots and skiing. Scary. Still, the more I listened the more i took in, and then something he said made me realise that the oots I had been wearing for the last few years weren't (or probably weren't) correctly fitted to my feet. There seemed to be a few of us thinking the same thing as after his talk while everyone went to get ready 5 or 6 of us queued up to chat to him to see what could be done. Having booked an appointment for later that afternoon, it was time to walk home and get my ski gear together. I'd planned on not going up the mountain today and instead focus on getting all my gear together and bought. After 5 years without, I had decided that it was time to take the plunge and buy a helmet (as an early christmas present with the money that had been given to me already - many thanks to Nonna, Sam, Roman and Gill, the money has been put to good use slightly early - Happy Christmas!). However, always easily persuaded I found myself talked into going up with the group to ski the first afternoon together. I headed home and chatted to my housemates over a cup of tea. Still tired from last night,  and with everyone dropping out like flies around me, 5 minutes before needing to leave i dashed to get changed and made the bus on time. Getting up the mountain, it was a complete white out. With no goggles (i was supposed to be buying those today as well) it was rather cold, miserable and within minutes of getting on the first run I'd scraped a gouge out the bottom of my skis on the rocks and subsequently lost the group. Thankfully we had just taken the time to go off on our own and so 40 minutes late we rejoined the entire group and split up to "explore the mountain" with people who had been out a number of years. It was a quiet day skiing, with poor visibility and freezing cold weather, the main highlight for everyone was me in a retro pink 1 piece ski suit. the housemates had spotted it as I unpacked the other night and demanded that I wore it out! A nice early finish followed up with a hot chocolate at the bottom of the mountain before getting the bus home meant that we were back with plenty of time. The walk from the bus stop home kept everyone amused as every car that went passed nearly caused accidents as they double took on the pink one piece. Pure comic genius.

Tonight was out first mean together as a group, however I needed to go shopping first and headed out with plenty of time to spare. Banff is full of shops selling helmets tho, so hopping from one to another took massive amounts of time, and when I finally decided i'd try "just one more" shop to see if they had what i needed I found it. A nearly perfect helmet, with built in speakers and a nice white look, coupled with some sexy yellow goggles just outside my budget meant I was 10 minutes late for dinner. It  wasnt until I walked in that Harriet, one of my housemates, remembered that they had forgotten me!

Dinner was laid on with the course, but drinks were on us. Having been on a shopping spree already I definitely needed something to calm my nerves at all the money I had spent and the venue had a cocktail menu. The poor waitress must have been new as she hadn't ever tried any of them so couldn't recommend a good one - the best she could come up with was what had been ordered the most, so blindly i agreed and one elk sized blind oarsman later I was much happier to be half way through the shopping spree.

After dinner, I packed myself off to the boot fitting shop to have my boots checked out. Brett was an absolute star again, as he sized up my boots and confidently told me that there were an entire size too big. The effect this had was that my control of the my ski was severely diminished, and so he set about adding pads and bits of felt in all sorts of places, explaining as he went how each would re-distribute pressure to the right spots. While I was being sorted, Bianca off the course came in for the second time of the evening. She was collecting her new boots, having been in earlier and discovering the same thing, she had been less resistant in the new boot offers Brett was offering and had caved under the pressure. She still ended up paying less for her correctly fitted, custom moulded boots with new socks than I had for the boots alone. Equipment out here surely is cheaper. She also managed to pass on the location of the group for the evening drinking, and while I continued to shop for more bits, she went to join everyone there.

My shopping spree ended. New helmet, goggles and face warmer, consultation fee and labour on my boots and over $300 later - it was time to join them all myself. Tommies was a lovely little local bar, hiddne below road level with scaffolding and building work on just outside. many hours later there were 4 of us left. "Lesson tomorrow, lets call it a night. We'll have a big one tomorrow night!" was how it was left and the stagger home saw the end of another eventful day in Banff.