What can I say about dragging around your own bodyweight in 5 bags, that you can’t figure out for yourselves? Only 2 of the bags have wheels, and on gravel, that doesn’t make a great deal of difference anyway. Had to discard a few items as it was. Ski jacket that was too warm except in temperatures it was immobilised (frozen stiff) in, ski pants that had worn through in places, and a helmet that had interfaced directly with a few too many trees.
I secured some heavy lifting help from a friend who couldn’t get down the mountain in time, then from another in a car who had to depart before I had squeezed everything in the cases I was sitting on, and then my flatmate who suggested I get the shuttle bus to drop me at the other end of town (a capital idea) and then got the driver to wait while I dragged my suitcase and snowboard bag up a 30 degree+ incline. Seriously hard work that. The driver kindly dropped me off near the pickup point (Sobey’s), where I had to drag my bags up an embankment and along a gravel path, in the rain. I had worked out I could put my boot bag on my suitcase, and my nigh-on 2m long ski bag on my snowboard bag. It seems to work. Some local yelled something at me, and I thought he was offering help, but no, seems he just wanted to laugh at me. Thanks Chap.
After waiting a slightly paranoid (being the only person at the pickup point tends to do that for me) 45 mins, the bus arrived. Not much luggage space, so my bags had to go in the isle, while one of the guys asked if we could wait 20 mins while a friend drove down from the resort with his passport. There’s always one. I did a mental check of where mine was. We couldn’t wait as it would already be a little tight on time for one person to catch their flight.
As soon as the bus started, I realised which bus it was. In the last couple of months, it had developed an unpleasant knocking sound in the engine, as if one of the cylinders was not firing properly and the gas was just escaping. I had been wondering when it would break down ever since it started.
About 20 minutes beyond Radium apparently. It had started snowing hard, and I saw what looked like wisps of cloud streaking past the window. I muttered to myself “Please don’t let that be the engine.”, minutes before steam was billowing from the bonnet, and the air vents around the steering wheel. A nice touch I thought. Very atmospheric.
Well we had to turn around, and limp back to Invermere to change buses, by which time, the guy’s forgotten passport had arrived at Tim Horton’s (THE Canadian Coffee shop which is as prolific or more so than Starbucks).
We swapped into a different bus, which had more space for the luggage, dropped half the passengers off in Banff, and reached Calgary airport without further excitement. Whether that girl caught her flight in the end, I know not.
Stayed overnight at a friend’s who collected me, and took me to an excellent Curry house, first curry in almost 6 months! I spent the morning of the next day, wandering around the +15’s in Calgary. In winter, it gets flipping cold, and understandably, few people want to wander the streets for shopping when it’s -30 outside. So there is an enclosed walkway system connecting most of the tower blocks, 15 feet above the ground on the first floor. Pretty cool, if really quite disorientating. It’s not laid out in a grid pattern like the roads, and I stumbled upon a cool food court called the Bankers Way (or something to do with Bankers), and then couldn’t quite remember how I had gotten into the previous Mall. I did a couple of laps inside and out, before overcoming my ingrained nature, and asked a security guard for directions. He wasn’t completely helpful, but I spotted two electronic maps, between which I was able to work out scale and direction, and realised I had been walking past the smallish exit with each loop.
Dragging my bags from end of the airport in Toronto to the other and down a floor, made me believe my decision to pick a hotel with a complimentary airport shuttle, was a wise one. Though my ski bag being nearly 2m long did present difficulties in packing it into the minibus.
While it took a little getting used to, the transit system in Toronto is fairly straight forward. Takes an hour to get to Downtown from my hotel, and I spent my first day (afternoon really, like I was going to get up early on my holiday!), walking around Downtown, in the light rain (felt right at home!), getting an idea for where things were, the scale of the map, and what was on. Due to the rain clouds, the view from the CN Tower would not be terribly far, though it would have been pretty cool being just below the cloud ceiling.
Today, I got up early (10ish, breakfast stops being served at 11), and headed into town. The CN Tower provides an impressive view, one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, with the tallest viewing gallery in the world. The glass floor still feels a little perturbing to stand on, though this time around, there was no small child jumping up and down on the glass (unlike my trip in 2001).
It was amusing hearing people comment about how freaked out they were being up in the SkyPod. One lady wanted to go back down in less than 2 minutes, and some guy found he was better if he walked against the wall, and kept it to his left. Normally I have an issue with heights, but we were in a completely enclosed space, and I felt fairly confident I wasn’t going to fall nearly 400m onto the home base in the Rogers Centre. For a start, the stadium’s roof was closed.
Once I had completed the full tour (don’t bother with the movie and motion theatre, they’re ok, but have nothing to do with the CN Tower), I headed across town to the evening’s show. Medieval Times. A tournament with feats of equestrianism in a dramatisation. Oh, and we got a meal. The costumes were exquisite, the food was pretty good even if I had to eat meat off of the bone with my fingers (I had paid for it, I darn well wasn’t going to leave it!). Swordplay and jousting. Certainly choreographed for the purpose of the story, but in no way diminishes their skill. Grabbing a small hoop on their lances was purely skill, and it was very impressive. Highly recommended show.
The hotel’s keycards have been playing up. Sometimes taking a few tries to work, sometimes requiring me to go back to reception to get it refreshed. After breakfast, I headed back to my room, noticed that the vending machines sign now pointed at some actual vending machines, rather than empty wall sockets, took the Do Not Disturb sign from my lock, and tried the key. It didn’t work. I had planned ahead, and taken the second for just such an event. I must have alternated between the two keys for a couple of minutes, refusing to give up and head to reception, when I heard a voice say “Hello?”. Ah. That would be the occupant of the room I was attempting to gain access to, who didn’t wish to be disturbed. I apologised through the closed door, and went up one floor. I noted that there were no vending machines, removed the Do Not Disturb sign from MY lock, and opened the door. The manifestation of the vending machines should have tipped me off, and if it wasn’t for the DND sign, I would have noticed the door number.
Nearly repeated the fiasco this evening, when someone on the floor below called the lift, and I didn’t check the floor number. This time the presence of the vending machines tipped me off, but the ladies who got in the lift at the same time wanted to go down, and the lift granted their wish first. I got to my door, and neither key worked! I was still trying when the ladies appeared, I commented that I had two and neither were working, then they opened their door on the first try! They laughed when I told them they were just rubbing it in. So I gave up and went to reception. Again.
Life at a Resort 