How a Queensland Girl Lost Her Phobia of the Cold...

Whistler is all about winter. Its rated the number one ski resort in all of north america. Me....i have never really been a fan of winters being a queensland girl and all. I didn't actually experience the 'cold' until i was about 13 when we moved to Tamworth and ever since then i have tried to aviod it as much as possible, So naturally i didn't really think Whistlerwould be my scene but i was lured here because of the amazing community spirit, the unbeleivable natural beauty, the stories of non stop winter fun and the damn cool vibe this place has. Well i will tell you now, this winter has lived up to every expectation i had and exeeded them 100 fold! The funniest thing is it has officially only been winter for under two weeks as i am writing this! ha ha ha i have caught the whistler bug!
The best thing about Whistler for me right now is Snowboarding. It is truly my kind of sport. Anyone who is in love with surfing should try snow boarding i think. Its like riding one big wave for anywhere up to an hour (if your legs can still hold you up). Also you don't have to paddle or wait for the wave because you catch a gondola and the "wave" is waiting there to be ridden once your at the top of your run (wooohoo!). I am loving snowboarding more and more as i do it more and more. I have been learning jumps, riding some nice powder and hiking back country to some beautiful areas. Just being out there in nature rugged up in my warm clothes is so nice too.
But snowboarding is not the only thing that is helping me lose my phobia of winters. I love taking long walks through the snowy forest and watching how the rivers and lakes are freezing over, I love watching the snow fall and Matty loves playing hockey with the locals on frozen lakes. Then there are the wild nights where we have a few drinks and then grab our toboggons and tubes and run outside and take turns sliding down the hills (sreaming and giggling uncontrolably). We often build jumps to launch our toboggons off and end up with bruised bums but it is worth it. There are also the long steamy outdoor hot tubs we have every second night. All these things help me to forget for a while about warm summer days in sydney - about beaches and picnics in parks. I have to say this is the first winter i have been so excited about in my entire life. Phobia terminated!

Preparing for a White and Wonderful Christmas

Today was the the much awaited christmas tree cutting day we had been waiting for for some time now. In true white christmas spirit we set off into a very snowy and foresty area to choose and cut down our own fresh christmas tree's for our loungeroom. Whistler is basically in the middle of a huge expanse of pine forest so it wasn't to hard to find some great tree's but we decided we would only cut down the ones that are growing under powerlines. It is good to cut these ones down because they will only get cut down by the council later when they grow taller (so the locals tell us). So we trudged through the snow comparing the bushiness and perkiness of each tree and after lots of walking, comparing and careful thought we put our saw and ax to use and we had our christmas trees ready to go. We all had very cold hands (from the snow melting off the tree's) and the boys smelled like pine sap (because they carried the tree's to the car) by the time we got the tree's home but it was so worth it. Oh it was just such a christamasy festive wonderful thing to do. Our tree is so huge we had to cut the top off to fit it in the house and i had to re arrange the house to fit it into the loungeroom! I spent all afternoon putting the tree in its mount, decorating it excitedly and then vacuuming all the pine needles up from the carpet. Now it is glittering lights and colourful borbels are making me feel so festive and happier than ever that christmas is only a week and a half from now!
Our plans for christmas are to snowboard and toboggon in the day, have a snow picnic in the mountains complete with a few butterscotch schnaps, build some snow men, have a hot tub or two and then have a big yummy baked dinner and pressy opening that night! See why i am excited!!!!
Time to wrap the pressies and think about christmas dinner preperations next!

The Only Tourists in all of Italy – Us!

After Bosnia we drove all the way back to Dubrovnik and said goodbye to Kath (after a night of skinny dipping and drinking) and Lithy and I embarked on the next part of our journey. We jumped on an overnight ferry that would take us to Italy. The ferry was the biggest boat I have ever been on. I found it so exciting to be on a boat that size. It had 2 restaurants, a cinema and the most amazing thing – escalators! I just thought it was so cool that the boat has escalators in it. Now I’d seen it all! After a lovely meal and some great wine we had a silly and wild ipod party in our cabin. We danced, we tried lipsticks on and showed each other all the cool dance moves we knew. We had it all – the rope and pully, the windscreen wipers, the ‘jumping on hot coals’ and many more.

The next morning we were in Italy and our new adventure began. We were soon to be asked by 176 confused Italians over the course of 2 weeks, why the hell we were in Italy at that time of year. It’s off season! I swear we where the only tourists in the whole damn country!

We traveled in Italy’s south from Naples down the Amalfi coast and then down to Sicily over the two weeks and my highlights were…

Naples
Our first stop on the trip was Naples. A city renowned for its Mafia activity, crime and dodginess. Initially I was reluctant to go there, especially after I read the lonely planets description of the city which basically said the city had bad lighting, bad crime rate, bad traffic, bad paving, bad smells and was dangerous. But lithy convinced me that we had to see this city because the Italians say Naples is the real Italy. Well I never noticed bad lighting or bad paving (god the traffic was bad though!) and what I did find is that Naples is one of the most vibrant, bustling, full of life cities I have ever seen! I swear every one in this city has the strut of a catwalk model as they walk. Every ones has the Gucci shades, the Dolce and Gabbana belts and the Prada bags. It was just such a funky city! We did lots of wandering around cobblestone streets, lots of shopping (the shopping was amazing!), some exploring of stunning churches, plenty of pizza eating (they say Naples is where pizza was invented) and we even got to see anciet smut at a secret room in a museum. This was an exhibit of ancient sexually explicit art (we are talking thousands of years for some of it). We definitely had to watch our backs in Naples and we were constantly on guard while we were there. There were lots of very dodgy looking characters some of which looked they belonged in the movie ‘the godfather’ but we managed to leave Naples in one piece and with all of our possessions and a big smile on our faces. We also did a side trip to Pompeii from Naples as well that was an incredible day of exploring ruins and letting our imaginations run wild imagining what life would have been like there 3000 years ago. We were pretending the city was still alive and we were virgins being sacrificed on the alters there, or merchants selling goods or the kings daughters (running away with the stable boy), or peasants.



Shopping
Living in whistler has me very far away from any decent fashion (besides just snowboarding clothes) so it had been a long time since I had bought any new clothes but boy oh boy when I got to Italy I made up for lost time. I know it is so girly to say but it was just so fun! I found it very hard to zip up my bag with all my new stuff by the end of my trip and had to pack my bag very strategically to get it all in. yay!!!



Ruins, statues and churches
I loved Italy’s churches so much. They were mind bogglingly, unbelievably beautiful. The first one we walked into almost brought me to tears. We walked around it in awe. The huge painted ceilings, the amazing colorful stain glass windows, the detailed and inspiring statues of saints and scenes of biblical events. I remember saying to Lithy that if churches were like that at home I would go because you feel inspired just to be there. You can feel god there. We also saw an amazing church where the interior was totally covered in mosaic artworks depicting Jesus life. God I love mosaic so much and it was breathtaking in there. So much work went into it. So much detail. The artists were so talented. We also explored so many beautiful ruins including Pompeii, and King Tiberius’s holiday houses from 3000 years ago on the island of Capri old churches and much more. We would get very exited exploring ruins and sometimes we snuck into some places we weren’t really supposed to go. One day we found a secret church in a secret garden. We explored every nook and cranny of the little church and then realizing the church had an intense echoey sound quality I sang in the main hall for lithy. It was a favorite memory from the trip. Italy also has so many amazing statues, fountains and monuments. There seems to be a beautiful piece of art at every turn. My favorite was the fountain of the cavorting nudes in Sicily. A fountain surrounded by statues of nude men (well endowed men (it wouldn’t have fit under a fig leaf like most of the ancient statues you see!)) and women in provocative poses of all kinds including a woman having her legs licked by goats and a man laying with a lions head between his legs…..hmmmmm a bit odd but interesting.

Dirskin
Lithy and I had wanted to go to Italy together for years. We had the idea a long time ago that we wanted to go and crush grapes with our feet and make our own wine from it. We giggled many years ago that we would crush the grapes with dirty feet and then call the wine dirskin (a mix of dirt and skin (gross I know!)) and make our boyfriends drink it.
Anyway towards the end of our trip we realized this old fantasy of ours would not come to be as there were no winery’s around to do it so we had the idea we’d do it ourselves. We’d make our own dirskin! We set off and bought containers, strainers and a hell of a lot of grapes from the market and some little wine bottles and we were ready to go. We spent a night picking grapes, then crushing with our feet in the hostel bathroom with the ipod pumping out tunes and us giggling uncontrollably and squealing as the grapes squished in between our toes. We made our own labels for the wine bottles and had a taste test. It wasn’t to bad at all. It really was just grape juice. But not to us. To us it was a dream come true! Our trip felt complete.

Food
Anyone who has been to Italy knows that it is pretty hard not to put on weight while your there. Everything is so darn delicious and there are so many great things to try. The best pizza ever, Seafood that is to die for, and oh my god……the pasta’s are unbelievable. We spent lots of time sampling yummy things in restaurants and drinking lots of delicious wines and yep…we both put on weight too.

Hike
When we were in Sicily we had the most wonderful Hostel to stay in. Well not that the hostel itself was anything special really. It was the owner who made it so. He was so friendly and helpful and one day he took us and 2 other guests on a wonderful hike along a breathtaking coastline high on some cliffs overlooking the turquoise ocean. First we visited a tiny village and picked up some sandwiches and then spent the day just walking and talking and admiring the view. So relaxing and revitalizing after being in the cities so much.

Islands and beaches
This is the part where we had a hell of a lot of people asking us ‘why are you here?’ over and over again. The amalfi coast and Capri especially. It was winter so there were no tourists at all and locals just could not understand why we would be there. I sure am glad I went though. I have never seen such crystal clear water in my life as I did at Capri. The water is so perfect and I swear I was every shade of green and blue in the water that exists. The natural beauty around us on the islands and in the coastal towns we visited made up for how ‘dead’ they were. We spent our time going on long walks, picnicking, reading, having long chats and eating at charming restaurants (and attempting to find some night life (mission failed – we could barely find internet).

Italy was amazing – My company made it even more amazing. Lithy is so fun to travel with!

Bosnian Road Trip. Bullet Holes, Craggly Mountains and Breathtaking Landscape

When we started our journey from Split to Bosnia I had no idea what to expect of
Bosnia besides a very very long drive (8 hours to Sarajevo to be exact). I had never
heard much abou this tiny country exept that there had been a war there in the not to
distant past. Now i don't know exactly what it is about my personality - but the idea
that it might be a bit dangerous only made me more facinated by the idea of going
(like the time i went to nepal during when it was on the brink of a civil war and got
held up by terrorists - fun!) and after reading up on bosnia on the way there i found
out the war was over but the place was bullet ridden and not to walk any where off
main paths as there were thousands of landmines still unexploded. thats a nice happy
medium of the excitement / danger scale.
Anyway, as happens on all trips, just when i had no expectations at all Bosnia turned
out to be one of the highlights of my trip. The drive there was absolutely amazing.
The beautiful rolling hills, vast perfectly still lakes, and the towering craggly
mountains that were so craggly we couldn't stop saying the word craggly the whole rest
of the trip. The landscape was dotted with gorgeous little villages and farms. It was
on this drive that we saw our first bullet ridden homes.
The war in Bosnia, or should i say, the genocide attempt in bosnia has left the place
with plenty of reminders of what happened here. There are bullet holes in most homes
in bosnia, there are landmines and burnt out buildings all over the place. It is
really quite eerie. You can't help imagining what happened as you stare at the bullet
holes. Our short stay in Sarajevo was well worth the trip. It is a funky vibrant city
with so much history. The city was a battle feild for 3 years from 92 to 95 with the
Serbs surrounding the city and wanting to take it over and kill the remaining
bosnians. There was constant shooting in the city 24 hours a day for those 3 years so
the city is absolutely riddled with bullet holes, ruins of buildings, and horrific
stories or war attrocoties. We learnt alot about war history while we were there.
World war 1 was actually started is Sarajevo, Hitler also came through Bosnia in world
war 2 and then the recent war as well so if there is anywhere to learn about war
history its bosnia. The main thing i learnt is that we could never really understand
what the Bosnians went through. I realised that the realities of war were so much more
horrible than i ever thought. It is not just people shooting eachother, its people
torturing, raping and killing babies. Some of the stories i read about made me cry and
made me so angry. I just can't understand how people could be cruel enough to do the
things i heard about. They must have so much hatred and fear in their hearts. I really
can't imagine how it feels to have gone through something like this.
Dispite its hardships through, Sarajevo is full of life now. Its also full of yummy
food (wich we ate lots of), beautiful cobblestone malls (wich we srolled through) and
lots of scarf stores (wich we bought from). Another nice surprise we had in Bosnia was
an absolutely enchating medievil village that we visited on the drive home. I have to
say though one of the most wonderful things about the time in bosnia was all the great
girly chats we had in the car and the games we played to keep ourselves amused as we
drove. We played the genital alphabet game, the 'getting to know you' game (where you
ask a series of question to the others to get to know them better), we played the give
a compliment game and many more. This is what really made it an amzing road trip.
Great company makes a long drive such a delight!

Skinny Dipping, Squid and Streets of Marble....Yeeahhh Dubrovnik!

It has been a long time since I got myself into this much of an excited tizzy over a holiday but I felt I had been waiting so long for it. Kathleen, Lithy and I were finally all in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Together.

Well let me just start from the beginning and say that Kath and I almost didn't make it to Croatia at all because we missed our train to the airport. (We were having a great chat and forgot to hop off at our stop which would have got us on the only connecting train that would get us to the airport on time) We ended up running out at the next stop and catching a 100 pound cab to the airport stressing all the way that we may not make it. We had to do something to alleviate the stress in the cab for 50 minutes so we made up songs about our bad situation, using a pen as an "air guitar" and wincing at the fact that the cab ride was costing much more that our airfares. Thank god, we got there just in time to catch the flight and then we sung songs...again
with the pen "air guitar" about how wonderful it was that we were finally safely on our way. This is a picture of kath showing her 20 pound train ticket that we purchased but never got to use

This was my first ever trip to Europe so I was beaming with excitement and when we landed in Dubrovnik the scenery outside was like nothing I had ever seen before. High
Pale Mountains that looked so barren and strange to me, Craggily (very craggily weren’t they girls) cliffs and buildings that were all made of sandstone or painted pale colors so they all matched with bright red roofs as well. Kath and I settled into our Hostel then went exploring Old Dubrovnik, an absolutely mesmerizing 2000 year only city with streets made of marble and buildings made of sandstone (with the same matching roofs as the rest of the city), with tiny winding alleys and dotted with ruins and the odd erotic statue. The entire city is also surrounded by huge stone walls and a mote and you have to walk over a big drawbridge to get in. If all that wasn't enough, the city is surrounded by perfectly calm turquoise water and pebbly beach. It’s the stuff of fairy tales.

As we were exploring the tight alleys we stumbled upon a bar tucked away in a corner where they were playing live jazz by candlelight so we sipped 9 Euro Wines till it was time to greet Lithy. We got lost on the way home and Lithy found the room to be empty when she arrived but we came bearing wine when we did arrive so she still loved us. he he he. With a first day like this I knew the rest of the holiday would be a great adventure!

The next day and a half was spent exploring Dubrovnik. We walked a lot and found so many wonderful things. We found the most beautiful cemetery I have ever seen which was exploding with bright flowers and ageing statues of saints and angels, we ate squidgy
squid which the girls loved but I thought was too squiddy. We walked the top of the city
walls of Dubrovnik marveling at the breath taking views of the ocean and buying yummy ice creams of friendly locals. We had many wonderful girly chats and made our own little picnic on a pebbly beach at sunset.

On day 3 we hired a car and set of on a big road trip. First stop - The island of Hvar. So off we set with the sun setting over the ocean splashing intense unforgettable colors all over the sky as we drove. A few hours, a car ferry, a game of cards or two, and many wonderful girly chats later we found ourselves on Hvar but still a few hours drive from our destination city. We
were not anticipating more driving this late at night and the road was the windiest,
wiggliest, car sickness inducing, highly flammable (that’s what the sign said!), steep
road ever.....with of course a massive drop over the side to the ocean far far.....far
below. You had to turn gracefully round the corners. We turned up tired, hungry and
car sick in Hvar city but still happy just to be on an adventure. The next day was
spent lounging around beautiful (but totally dead because it was off season) Hvar which
is a seaside town with the whole marble streets and sandstone building thing going on,
eating giant seafood platters and listening to kathleen make tummy noises which she can
make on demand. Then it was time to jump back in the car and make our way to the city of Split. A huge coastal city which we were going for one reason and one reason
only.....to go clubbing. We had heard it had a pumping nightlife and we were ready to
party! So a few hours, another car ferry, 4 games of cards and more highly flammable roads and we were in Split and we were ready to party. We spent about 4 hours getting ready drinking the foulest vodka I have ever tasted, dancing wildly to Lithys ipod and getting changed at least 6 times each and then we hit the road armed with the knowledge of where the main dance clubs were. Boy were we amped and very drunk. We were ready for a big night indeed but it turned out that Split had a few surprises up its sleeve for us. You see the roomers all turned out to be true....Split has a pumping clubbing scene but ummm how should I say this....it is pumping Croatian style. That means clubs heaving with funky young people enthusiastically dancing and screaming to polka folk music (think accordion sounds with a beat) that we just couldn't get into. We tried too.....and we tried 3 clubs but it just wasn't to be. Maybe next time aye?

The next day it was off on our long drive into Bosnia......I guess it was a good thing that we got a good night sleep