It took a while but we finally found a little one bedroom apartment for only $550 a month. It's in a house with five other apartments and there's four like this next to each other.It's funny cos we are in a pretty nice area and then there's the four 90 year old houses. Our place isn't furnished but it has a fridge and stove so we have been making do with that for a last wee while. We moved in around the 5th July and had pretty much nothing except our clothes a food haha. We slept on the bed from the van for the first week until we found a double mattress for $20. We figure a double will fit in the van and be super comfy for the big trip next year. So we now have the bed from the van, stacked on top of each other for a sofa. We have the table from the van sitting on a box at a table haha, it's so funny!
The stove is about 100 years olf but cranks real well. We have no doors except for the front door and the bathroom one and they have tried to do it up a bit in the kitchen, with lino on the bench bahahahaha. Oh yeah, and our fridge has an actual light bulb in it, one that's for a light on the roof haha. Ironically, all the lights on the roof are different though.
The neighbours are all real nice (mainly piss heads ha, and random as but nice), everyone is pretty hippi which is fun, more fun than the suburbs where we were anyway. We have an artist, a poet, a band next door (who are awesome), a fossil hunter who is amazingly good on the guitar. Althogh did wake up one morning to someone sleeping outside our door which was not that sweet but I guess you get that in this type of place.
Have had some real neat fridays here, having drinks on the front porch with people playing their guitars and singing. Our neighbour plays lefthanded and crazy.
What else? I've changed coffee shop jobs, decided that the other place is too far to travel to cos it took me about 45mins each way. There's a Second Cup 2mins from here so went and asked for a job and started there yesterday. A girl from the old coffee shop used to work at this one and said the owner is real cheap so to count my hours etc. He seems pretty sweet though and there's people who have been there for over a year so I'm sure he pays them. I'll see how it works out anyway. There heaps of bars and restaurants on 4th St, that I can get work at if I need to.
Went to the Stampede parade on the 9th July which was ok. People talked it up too much to me so wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Was pretty much just floats and heaps and heaps of horses. A week later we went to the Stampede grounds, the chuckwagon races and the grandstand show. My boss gave me some tickets to play games etc, so we won a couple of toys, had a few drinks at the races. It's awesome, crazy how fast they go. They start facing to wroung way on the track, then do a figure 8 and take off around the track. They have two jockeys who go round the track too, and have to be within a certain lenght of wagon to win. It's so neat to watch. Neat that they have kept the tradition of it going here.
Works all good, got taken out for lunch by our District Manager for making 20% more than our target the second month I worked there so that was nice. Going to tell the DM tomorrow that I'm going to leave at the end of Oct, ahhhhhh, I hate doing stuff like this. I already told them I wasn't going to renew my visa so they know I'm leaving. I need her to be a reference to my CV for applying for mountain jobs so need to tell them asap.
Heading off on our trip next week, so can't wait to get away for a bit. Heading up to Jaspar National Park and then down the bottom on Britsh Columbia to Salmo for Shambhala for four days of partying and awesome music!
Have been getting the van ready for the trip. We are making a tarp into a awning so have been stiching it today. We have to hooks to screw onto the side of the van, a pole that will sit on them with the tarp wrapped around that. Two 6ft poles to hold it out, will take some pics at the festival. Also making some sweet black as curtains cos we have white ones at the mo.
Got birhtday cards already and your treats package Mum, yay, thanks for all from home xoxo. Can't believe I'm going to be 26 already!!
OOooo annnnnddd I bought a new snowboard the other day too. Went into the store to suss out exactly what I wanted and then went online and found it for $345 Canadain when they wanted $460 plus tax in the store. So freakin stoked, YAY for me!
