August 5, 2010

Alright, it's been awhile. No one cares that I'm not writing because any of you that read this probably email me fairly regularly anyway. Nothing new here. Still in Thredbo. There's only 4 staff now. The other receptionist and chef left. Our kitchen is now closed for dinner. Probably a good thing since I'm getting fat, but now there's heaps of food in the kitchen that we need to get rid of and most of it is desserts. So I've been eating heaps of desserts; cheesecakes and gelato and cookies. Bad news. I haven't gotten into skiing as much as I was hoping for. I don't DISLIKE it, but it's not really my fav so I haven't been rushing up to go. I've gotten my 4hr lunch break back, so I have more opportunities to go up, but I haven't taken them. We got heaps of snow over the weekend, non stop snowing for 2 days, so Tracy and I went up for my whole break. We stayed mostly on the same runs we normally do, but ventured out a tiny bit and did a few next to it. There are like three runs that are right next to each other with a line of trees separating them. We found that the one that we always do was covered in people and ski classes, so we did the other ones and it was much quieter. The snow was wonderful and it was so sunny, such a good day for skiing. All of the staff was up all day, so when we got calls from the manager we got a little worried we'd have to get down. No one could get ahold of him so we didn't have to go down.

I've been working every day lately. At the lodge I get 1 day off a week but I started working at Frostbite at the top of the mountain. I have to take the lift up and ski down a bit to work, then after work I have to ski the rest of the way down. So I get at least one run a week. It's been going really well. Pretty chill place so it's not rough working 6hrs on a Monday for it. Neither job is hard or even stressful, but working 7 days a week takes a toll. All I really want is one morning to sleep in. I'm thinking of asking Scot if I can have a morning off to sleep in. He'd do it, but I think I'll hold off until I really can't do it anymore. I've been feeling a little sick these past few days too, sore throat and head ache, so that day might be coming sooner.

I did get an afternoon off last week. When Brooke left she needed a ride to Canberra so we all thought it'd be nice to go together and spend the day there. Luckily it was a slow day anyway, so everyone got their stuff done early in the AM and we went up. Canberra is super boring for the most part. It's the country's capitol so it's like DC without the monuments. There are some museums and art galleries I think, but we just wanted to go shopping. Everyone had all these plans. They all wanted to go to McDonalds and KFC, I really wanted sushi. We would watch ads on TV and be like, ADD IT TO THE LIST so we could buy it later. Trace wanted a hair cut and a dress and Angel wanted a tat. I needed to get to a bank to set up a money wire. We ended up going to two malls, buying stupid stuff we didn't need, and going home. Got all the food we wanted, plus stopped at a supermarket to get some cheap food. We normally have to get food in Jindabyne, which is pretty expensive so we were pretty pumped to get lots of food.

Angel's birthday was this past weekend. Jackie (the old receptionist) came in from Sydney to celebrate too. We had the 5 of us, Scot, and Deon (weekend help) go out to dinner. From there we went bar hopping for the rest of the night getting pretty drunk. I think we went to 4 bars and then hung out at an apartment for the rest of the night. I got home at 330 and had to be up at 7 for work at Frostbite. Meaning, on 4hrs of sleep I had to ski to work! Not that cool. We had a blast though! It was such a fun night. Trace and I don't go out very often, so we were going to live it up. We did shots most of the night with the boys and then we started getting vodka and redbulls when we started getting sleepy. That hyped us up for the rest of the night.

Most of my plans for the rest of my trip are still in motion. Scot wants me to stay here until Mid October, so I have to plan accordingly, but I should be able to do most of it still. Still planning on going to CA on 15 Nov and going to LA and San Fran until the day before TGiving. Should be fun. I keep thinking that this is all ending so soon. I still have close to 4 months left, but because I have all of that time planned, it seems so soon. I've noticed that most people I've spent time with have left the country. Dani and Rob, Vinny, Annika, Roscoe and James. Roscoe and James just left last week and I was so sad! I was only with them for a few weeks, but I totally felt for them. Not sure why I was more sad for them than everyone else, maybe just because I'm closer to leaving now than I was.

On the home front, Ryan's having a boy! I keep trying to give him name suggestions but I don't think he's been much of a fan. Steph and Derek are having a baby too! She's due in Feb, so I'm hoping for a boy for them too… then the babies could be a few months apart, so BFF. I'm much more hopeful about my involvement with this next one. Being away has made me realize how easy it is to not keep up with family and friends. For friends, I've just let a few drift away. They don't keep in touch with me, so I'm not really pushing for it. With family though, I've noticed that I've gone almost a full year not talking to a lot of family members, which I think is pretty upsetting, so I'm trying to keep up with family members more.