new blog

ok we'r combining forces, hopefuly that means twice as many comments. the new address is www.teamdebi.blogspot.com

anchorage

so iv spent the day all on my lonesome, i went out and checked out downtown anchorage, lots of gift shops selling bear/moose/whale stuff. wasnt feeling super excited by it since poor debbies still stuck in her traveling nightmare, so i got some groceries and headed back to the hotel and thats where iv been watching tv etc ever since, its a long wait till 1am when debbie will hopefuly finaly turn up, fingers crossed

so here's a few pics from the flight etc, it didnt get dark till after 11pm last night and the sunset was amazing! the sun was so orange! didnt get a pic of that im affraid but hopefuly we'l have some more of those

i flew to seattle and then to anchorage, i had to go through the american thing even before i left vancouver, i have never been asked so many questions at an airport EVER, the guy was like a question machine, it was horrible!!

seattle from the air




the scenery was stunning flying into alaska






as we got near anchorage it started to flatten out


thats anchorage in front of the mountains, not a bad back drop for a city


the view from the hotel room, which is super nice and pretty posh, how on earth did we end up in such a nice place!! thank god for bargain shopping on the net


the main st downtown anchorage


so thats it so far, im geting realy bored with my own company, 7 hours to go till debbie arrives, hopefuly there will be no more delays, pleeeaaassseee

ooh someone jst pushed a note under my door aparently i have to close my blinds tonite as there washing the windows at 8 am tomoro morning, glad i got the note, might be a bit of a shock having people staring in first thing in the morning. ok im rambling now, thats what sitting watching tv all day will do to a person! lol

the worst news EVER

good news: i made it to alaska
bad news: debbie didnt, she's on her own in a hotel in colorado, im alone in a hotel in alaska, its the worst :(

im so excited, and i just cant hide it, im about to loose control and i think i like it, yeah yeah

well its finaly here, may 21st, the day i get to FINALY see debbie again, its been a looooong 4 months and im sooooo excited, team debbie will be back together rocking up alaska!!!!! yipeeeeeeeeee

anyway, im sure your all super eagre to find out how the rest of me and sol's adventure went so here we go

some pics from vancouver, we stayed there for 3 nights and the weather was so nice, we hung out down at english bay and played haki sac, good times. my record now is 26 on the haki sak, yeah thats right im pretty cool, lol

english bay and lattes




guess what country im in?


i even got to hang out with the simpsons, i didnt even know they lived in vancouver!!


then we headed to whistler where i stayed for 6 nights, we went boarding 1 day and i got to take my new ride out for a trial, it was wicked fun

creekside whistler


there was a lot of bear activity while we were there, they come realy low down the hill and most days could be seen chomping on the grass on the hill, 2 bears have already been shot this spring for breaking and entering, they like cookies aparently

this is a mum and her 2 cubs ( the bronw blobs on the right) we didnt go to close even tho we were slightly tipsy and i wanted to hug them


this was the view out of our room window


the room was pretty good, had cable tv and ensuite shower room, luxury, bit crammed tho when 3 other people moved in. this is the room


these signs in the bathroom made me laugh




whistler mountain, it was closed for the season, would be good to come back and see it covered in snow


heading up the gondola to the ski area at whistler blackomb




just to proove i actualy was there


me and my new board, sexy! jst need new bindings now, my old ones r bring it down stylewise, lol


sol


this was the bigest jump iv seen in my life!! and donw worry sol didnt hit it


just to show how huge this thing actualy was




the main lodge area


our friends tim and briony are staying in whistler for the summer, so we met up with them for the afternoon, this is briony in front of that amazing view


it was the hottest day ever!! far to hot to be wearing boarding gear, so after a full day on the slopes we headed to the irish pub for a well earned strongbow, yum! we were wishing we'd put board shorts on under our boarding pants


vancouver and whistler are hosting the winter olympics in 2010, tickets go on sale fall 2008, im soooo there!!

me geting in some practise


whatcha know, i won gold! no its not a gold painted cd on a bit of ribbon, its an actual gold medal


we'v been very active, some hiking and biking, we got some bikes from the hostel people for free and went on the biggest bike ride EVER!! i was so tired by the time we got back!!

this is the hi hostel entrance, i wouldnt like to be staggering home late at night there!!


us geting lost trying to find lost lake and realising that we were taking the longest way possible to get there


some pics from the bike ride








lost lake


whistler skate park


having some liquid refreshment


me absolutely shattered with a sunburnt face drinking wine out of a jar, im pure class!


while i was in whistler the lovelt greyhound people decided to totaly screw me over and go on strike!! first they said it would be in 72 hours, great il just go back to van a day early, no big deal, then they said oh no as of midnight we'r going on strike! yikees, i head up to the station to see if i could travel that day, no they had already went on strike as of midnight the previous day! thanks for the heads up guys! ever heard of giving people a bit of warning!! so my only choice was to book the train back at a extra cost of $111!! the bus is $15 aaarrrggghh i was extremely angry!! oh well i got the train yesterday, said bye to sol, was the end of our spring adventure, we had a wicked time, she's staying in whistler for 6 wks. the train was pretty nice, filled with middle aged english people. i got my lunch and all the tea i could drink, the driver even slowed down when we passed places to take pics, was good but id much rather have not had to have the extra expense, beans on toast for me for a while i think. anyway, the other annoying this was it only went to north van, so i got a transfer bus to a hotel downtown, then a taxi to the hostel, checked in, got another taxi to the sky train station then headed to steves to dump my board bag, good riddens, glad i dont have to see it again till aug, so heavy!! camilla arrived in van a couple days ago so we headed out for some food and a couple quiet beers, the quiet beers turned into 2 pitchers, numerous double vodkas and dancing till 2am, needless to say im feeling pretty rough right now, blah

mills puting the tunes on at the diner


shaking her groove thang, yes she is up on a platform, woo go mills!


so im in the coffee shop, filling in time till i head to the airport, flights at 5pm, get to alaska around 9.30!! i just want to be there already, i hate having to wait around! so i think me and debbie are going to combine blog forces and jst do one from now on, we'l post the link so u can all still check up on us

seattle

so next on the list was seattle, we headed of there on tuesday. it was great i realy liked the city and we got to see lots of stuff, i even bought a new snowboard for much cheapness, was panicing a bit geting it back into canada but it all went smoothly, cant wait to try it out once we get to whistler

sol, waiting at the border, we were first through and had to wait about an hour till everyone had went through


the border, looking back at canada


first stop was the most famousbuilding in seattle, the space needle, here's various pics








me at the top






then we got a realy nice sandwich from a deli and sat in the park


a fountaIn near the space needle, was so tempted to jump in


me getting in some practice for hugging whales in alaska


a cool old building down at the piers


snowboard seats outside the shop where i bought my new board


we couldnt find any other cool shops so we asked the guy in the board shop and he told us where to find some, was a realy cool area, even had a church that welcomed the gays, bless


one of the highlights of going to seattle was that i found a couple bars that sold magners, how happy was i? VERY!! it was pure bliss


look at how content i look, lol


this is the hostel we stayed in


right across from the most famous market in seattle


manhole cover


a whale! not that im obsessed or anything, dont think il be able to handle seeing one for real


the first starbucks in the world ever!! opened 1971 i think. yes believe it or not, once upon a time there was only 1!!!




this next bit takes a bit of explaining, its quite wierd and hard to imagine, but here goes. so seattle was started here at pioneer square, and we went on an underground tour, because seattle had a big fire, the city wanted to rebuild the city at about 8 ft higher than it previously was, but all the business owners didnt want to wait years to reopen there businesses so began rebuilding right away, the city still wanted to build at a higher level because of the water level so they continued with there project building everything city owned about 8ft higher than private owned land, what this meant was that the roads were 8ft higher than the pavements, people had to actualy climb down ladders to reach store fronts! people actual died from falling of the road! its so wierd to try and imagine! but eventualy they just built over the top of the 1st floors of the buildings, so on the underground tour u seen what actualy used to be the first floor!! wierd

pioneer sq where it all started, this used to be the hub of seattle life


this is a pic of how the road looked, 8ft higher than the pavement!


so this pic shows what would have been the outside of the building in the 2nd pic, we were standing in what wold have been the street, its all a bit wierd to imagine, but the first level of the building in this pic is now underground!




an original bathroom from this building


the original sewage system of seattle was a hollowed wood tube that ran overhead from the buildings to the sea, at high tide all the sewage would shoot back up the tube and out the toilet at about 6ft, the city was so stingy the only thing they did to help solve this rather disgusting problem was to print times of the high tide in the local newspaper so people knew when not to be on the toilet!!

part of the original sewage sytem


this was a pretty famous hotel in seattle, but it got torn down and replaced by this horrific car park in the 60's, since it was build the area has been made a heritage place, protecting all buildings in the area, unfortunately that includes the car park!! so it can never be pulled down!



the building behind it is seattles oldest sky scraper

the tour was so interesting, im glad we went on it, was very funny also

up until the 60's they were still offering rooms at this hotel for 75 cents a night


so that was our time in seattle, i have a few pics from vancouver, il post them on my next internet sesh! hope youv all enjoyed the show