housing, the weather, etc...

• someone asked me about my living arrangements, so may as well answer here... i live in staff housing. there are three different staff locations that vary by cost/newness/size/location. i live in brio, which is kind of the in-between one. its pretty sweet, i can walk to work in 15 mins (across a snow-covered golf course, not currently in use (except for dog sledding which i saw the other night!)) . i share a room. pretty much everyone here shares a room, its just too expensive not to. my roomie is a canadian guy, we get on fine and he doesn't snore or anything which is a bonus. other two flatties are girls - one aussie and another canuck. the canadian girl is a ski instructor, the other two do "bussing" - food and beverage retail/ clean up etc. everyone is cool, although my roommate and especially the aussie girl are total messy slobs, so the flat is pretty grotty. we have to pay for staff housing, i pay ~$400 a month, market rate for something similar is probably ~$550, so its a bit subsidised.
• the month of january was record snowfall for any month in whistler! i totally lucked out (in the sense that i was lucky), as last season was one of the worst on record. the weather becomes very important when you are here for a weather dependant reason. incidentally, it really isn't all that cold here (well obviously sub-zero sometimes, but not by all that much - other regions are much colder). the village is surrounded by mountains, so it is never windy which totally rocks. and if its snowing then its like a dry cold which isn't so bad. of course it gets pretty cold up the mountain, but you go up there prepared for it.
• bought a new snowboard. couldn't help it, after i demoed some boards my old one felt like a tank. its totally sweet - i bought it off a guy (funnily enough a kiwi from taranaki!) who won it but already had a board. it was the exact board i was looking at buying, got it for $200 less but its brand new.
• it was superbowl the other day, kind of a big deal here. especially so because seattle made the final (first time, prob closest american team to here). unfortunately they lost to pittsburgh. still think its a pretty boring game though, so many stoppages.
• i checked my details on the system, i went up the mountain 18 times in just over a month. i reckon going up every second day is pretty good considering i work about 4 days a week on average. day off tomorrow so will be up again then... and staff drinks in the evening...