Whistling

Short Version:
Freeski? Non! Free ski!

 

Long Version:

Last time we were in Whistler, Nene won her first Canadian National Championship*. Hooray!

The loot from her victory was cheese, and a pair of Whistler-Blackcomb Winter Season Passes. We’d originally thought they were dishing us Summer Passes, and that we had several months of gravity-fed mountain-biking to look forward to. We were disappointed at first to find that we were being invited to participate in winter sports instead, but warmed to the idea over the next year and a half, and arrived in Whistler geared up, revved up, and ready to go.

Except that there’d been no Puppet-skiing for over twenty years, and Nene had only ever done half a day, as a university student**, on NZ’s North Island icefields.

The obvious best course of action under those circumstances was, of course, for Tim and I to wind Nene up mercilessly about how difficult learning to ski was, and how much pain and unfun she should be expecting, to the point where, by the time it was time to actually hit the slopes, she was… less-than-enthusiastic. And had no idea what she was supposed to actually DO, as we’d steadfastly refused to actually impart any information of actual value***

Luckily, a friendly Sunshine Coaster took pity on her and gave her some instruction on how to put skis on, and to execute a pizza wedge. Which she did. With irritating ease.

We were slow, we were clumsy, but we were skiing, and we kept doing it pretty much every day for three months. We had visitors from Canadialand and Orstralia and Nuzzilind, we played disc golf in the snow equipped with snowshoes and cinnamon whisky, we barbecued bacon in the snow, visited a trainwreck become graffitoed bikepark, . We drank good beer and read good books.

And then we left, and went to work.

 

 

 

 

* = Details at http://neneandthepuppet.blogspot.ca/search?q=cheese

** = ie probably drunk

*** = To be fair, it’s entirely possible that only one of us actually HAD any information to withhold.

Long Time No Rant

Short Version:
We’ve done some stuff

Long Version:
When we last wrote, we were in Barcelona*, cycling around seeing cool and/or mad stuff, and hanging with Senor Brettus, Senora Sylvia, and hombre poquito Miquel. We left after a week feeling like we’d just scratched the surface, and that Barcelona still held a bunch of cool shit we’d like to see.

We also left hungover, and with the beginnings of what would eventually be diagnosed as pneumonia, which I advise you all to not get.

A week or so of coughing and spluttering later, antiXmas rolled into town, with ye olde festertivities and animal feet/head slippers.

And then onwards and upwards, to Whistler, and to snow action.








* = Actually, we were in Whistler, but the subject matter was Barcelonan. Do you feel cheated?