..you're only lost if you know where you're going..
Posts tagged whistler
Living Life in Whistler
Jul 4th
It’s been ages since either of us have posted, I know.
Up until this point in our lives, we have both lived in Adelaide, South Australia. I’ve travelled around Australia for work, but only for up to a week at a time. Jess travelled to India back in 2001. Obviously both of us have since done some overseas travelling, however neither of us have ever lived in another place for a prolonged period of time, let alone properly relocated and found work.
Before leaving Australia for our honeymoon and then Europe some 5 months ago, our working holiday to Canada had already began. We applied for our visas through the Working Holiday Program, which was fairly straightforward. My application was quick and easy – Jess’ was complicated by the fact that she wanted to work with children. As it turns out she could have quite easily ignored the more expensive and complicated process of having health tests and examinations, but these are the things that you find out when you actually go through with the plan.
After being told by just about everyone that accommodation is hard to come by in Whistler, we booked ahead. We made the choice when we were in Switzerland. It has made the experience of living in Whistler somewhat easier, but I regret spending so much time on the computer while on the other side of the world.
Arriving in Toronto was once again quite straightforward. Being the well prepared people that we are, all of the required paperwork was printed and ready to be presented to the immigration offer who took care of our file. The experience was great – he knew Whistler quite well, gave us some advice and wished us all the best for our time in Canada.
The next day we flew into Vancouver, then caught a bus to Whistler. It was May the 1st, and we were in our new house, starting our new life. Since arriving, Jess has began nannying, and I am now a mountain bike guide for Whistler Blackcomb. The big things are out of the way, but the surprise to come of our relocation is all of the little things that we take for granted in everyday life.
After being in Europe, with little idea of where anything ever was, it is great to be settled in. To be able to walk to and from the shops with full confidence, knowing that we won’t get lost, or to know and be able to communicate with 100% clarity to your neighbours. We can catch the bus to and from the village without having to check 5 times to know that we are on the right one. It’s just a nice rest.
We have some sort of routine back. My work is quite sporadic, but we are able to have breakfast together, and usually finish the day with a walk down by the lake where we usually sit for an hour or so.
Riding the bike park is great. My riding improved quickly and then as the exhaustion set in it has declined considerably. Hopefully I can take a day or two off this week just to rest, and then I’ll be ready to go and have some fun again. Jess is doing great on her bike and is loving the park too.
Whistler is nothing of what I expected it to be. If we hadn’t visited Domat/Ems in Switzerland before visiting Whistler, I think we would be 100% in love with this place. Given the comparison though, this is just another amazing place in the world. A place that we are happy to live in, and are able to thoroughly enjoy, but also find some faults in too.
Anyway, it’s time for dinner, or “supper” as the locals tell us. Hopefully it won’t be so long between updates in the future.
It’s happening!
Nov 2nd
We’ve already done some preparation, but I’ve only just organised the website. I’ll try and cover what we have already bought/organised/planned in the next few days. There’s still so much to do!
To set the scene, our current “plans” (we don’t really have any plans, just happy to see where it takes us and happy to change our mind mid-trip) are to fly out to Singapore, then to Langkawi (Malaysia) to honeymoon for a week or so. After that we will fly to Athens in Greece, do some sightseeing, maybe some snowboarding in Greece, and then catch a ferry across to Brindisi in Italy. From there we will make our way up to Udine to meet Jess’ family in Italy and see how they live, eat their food and so forth. After that we will just try and see what we want to see, and go where we want to go.
Europe has some pretty popular tourist destinations but we aren’t real “touristy” people. We will see some of the sights just because we are there at the time but I doubt we will really be going from landmark to landmark. I’m happy to be proven wrong though, so long as we enjoy it.
After we are done spending our money in Europe, we will then head across to Canada to work for the rest of the year. I’d love to live and work in Whistler, so I can ride bikes day in day out but we’ll see. It’s not my trip, it’s our trip. With that said though, Jess seems pretty keen to live the “village life” for a while so it could work.
Who knows though, we might be home a month after we leave!
