Lydia & Julz Go Large Week 33

Week Update 33
We're sifting through the 'must does' of Whistler in our last couple of weeks here, well the free highlights at that. We went to Lunafliks: Whistler's fresh air films which is an outdoor cinema with a blow-up screen at Lost Lake. In true Lydia&Julz style, we were late to the film, and got stuck slammed against the bike racks watching 'Limitless' under the stars with the wandering bears, if it weren't for the peddles imprinted in our backs, it would have been oh so romantic. A desperate ploy for the Whistler community to counteract the imbalance of alcohol-focused nightlife with some good old fashioned alcohol-free alternatives, an easier option than deporting all the Australians....yes...yes a little ambitious in one of the world's most renowned party towns.

We can also check off rafting down the river of golden dreams in our inflatable boat. We were a little ambitious taking on some of the rapids in our little blow-up dingy and found ourselves caught in the bushes that flank the river of nightmares, a number of times, we even have the war wounds to prove it where the tree branches went to town on us, slashing all our arms, the result of poor navigating on our part. Julia took one for the team and got into the ice cold glacial water to push off our boat to get us started on our two hour raft, ironically in front of the sign "PULL OUT AREA!" with a stick man getting his boat OUT of the water. With our "I'm sure it will be fine" attitudes, the rapids quickly swept our boat down the river when Julia had only half a leg in. We were flying down the first 500m of the river with no control, our oars completely failed us, although we should have really prepared a plan of attack as to what motion we were going to maneuver the oars, as there was a whole lot of yelling in the boat and waving the oars in all directions, "A bit more on your part!" "I feel like a one man team out there!" "Watch out for the ducks!" "Again a bit more on your part!" "Turn, turn, I said turn!" "Put the camera down and start paddling"

Shortly after taking out some suicidal ducks and getting grip of our tantrums, we found our rhythm. Everyone else around us in their inflatable boats, were sailing through effortlessly. We can't recall too many moments where we were able to relax and take in the scenery, as we were too engrossed in dodging the obstacles of rocks, bushes, ducks and the list goes on....to quote Julia, "No-one else seems to have to try this hard!" We were on edge as friends of ours that went rafting down the river of golden dreams, got a hole in their boat and had to swim through the glacial fed water and climb through trees to get out. It was naturally ticking over our minds that this would likely happen to us, as the scenery was all too familiar from the Anaconda movie.

                                              

We made friends with a couple of Australian girls along the way after apologising profusely for continuously slamming their boats into the banks, much like dodgem cars. They asked us where we were getting off the river, as right down the bottom was a three hour raft to Green Lake (the lake reported to be so cold that you would die after 7 mins of being in it) and also no buses to get back home. We really hadn't thought passed the point of putting in our boat at Rainbow Park and drowning ourselves in insect repellent. Despite being a Collingwood supporter, she generously offered to drive us home, after letting us share her picnic of sandwiches and beer, you've got to love the generosity of fellow travellers.

Love

Lydia and Julia x

Lydia & Julz Go Large Week 32

Week Update 32

The girls at Toni's Birthday (pre beer pong)

Just blowing out some candles...stating the obvious



Someone else playing beer pong as Julia was asked to take a seat for hogging the table



And you think I'm a bad loser, you should see this guy....



Don't be fooled by these smiles...a pure diversionary tactic!



Talking A Team tactics

This is the result of too much passion

The dog that was aroused by Sam...Hello friend!



We now look more like homeless hookers than the goddess' we were just four hours ago

"I'm not leaving here without a photo in that window"



All the cool kids are doin it



And more beer pong...another fight about to break out over a 'rebuttal'



Once again, I'm not going to fight you for your helmet, love!

Look what we have here,,,,

That state of confusion when you wake up in the morning saying "I don't remember seeing a raft?"



Lydia & Julz Go Large Week 31

Week Update 31 

Julia and I have had our travel injections for our trip to South America, after many discussions on getting the absolute bare minimum vaccinations required, now isn't the time to be a hero. Julz had to discreetly book our injections, as this really needed to be done without my knowledge to avoid a complete melt down for an entire week or so. You can imagine my delight, on receiving a call from Julia asking me to get up, as I have a doctor's appointment in an hour. 

Julia naturally goes first, taking one for the team. Julia's fear is just limited to a few "Oooooo's" and a few "Aaahhhaas". She has made peace with the fear of needles around the time she discovered my hyperventilating fear of needles. Much like my fear of spiders, it pushes the responsibility on Julia to man up in these instances as I'm clearly useless!

Julia had to sit in the chair and watch the doctor load up the syringe and plunge it into her arm. This is another instance, testimonial to Julia's sweet nature, as all she was thinking about was how it was going to affect me. 

Then it's my turn, my eyes start immediately welling up at the mere thought of getting an injection, I break out into an attractive sweat. I know that there are many of us that harbour the fear of needles. This fear is real, damn it. Julia down played the injections, much like she removes spiders without my knowledge. Reminiscent of the inconveniences of making her a coffee in the middle of One Tree Hill as a ploy to get me out of the room to dispose of spiders that have been inches away from me. Eek!

I have extreme anxiety around syringes to the point where I can barely watch shows like ER, and I disturb other people in doctors' surgeries when they see a a grown woman crying into her hands.  I was anxiously waiting in the waiting room, short of breath as the receptionist thought it would be comforting to tell me her horror stories of needles when she'd chipped a tooth, with the reassurance of "Well, at least that's not happening to you." My coping mechanism, to sound like I'm come straight out of a self help book is by owning my fear by making it known to an audience of complete strangers, that "Yes, I might cry!"Oh God! I wish I had  taken a few moments to compose myself in the bathroom, because I looked like a complete idiot crying in the waiting room with mascara running down to my chin. I sat there brooding about what was to come....then the doctor calls my name out in a deceiving tone, as if 'No, I'm not going to stab you in the arm, minutes from now,' I'm sure on some level my sheer panic was comforting to her, much like beauty therapists sense of fulfillment when they're waxing- it's people with these sadistic natures that really excel in these professions. Bastards. 

The doctor layed me on the table out of fear that I would faint after my Broadway production in the waiting room. She asked me to close my eyes, look away from the needle. Breath. In. Out. In. Out...and as regularly as I can make it happen. I made a concerted effort to think about something else, take me to a happy place, channeling my tension through pep talks in my head, "Yep, you can do it Lydia, you've got this, you're the man!," I was a regular old chatty Cathy in my head. Then the doctor tried distracting me with asking whether I had a dog. Then I found myself talking absolute crap of how I own a dog, I'm not sure how that flew out of my mouth, I've never really owned a dog. Before I knew it, it was all done and the talk of my imaginary pet Fluffy pulled me through. 

The doctor was so encouraging though, I've never heard the phrase "You were so brave!" so much in my life. I nearly rolled over, played dead and offered a paw out of good measure. I was then rewarded with a jelly bean for being such a brave girl, although a jelly bean can only console you for so long, and it hardly makes up for terrorizing me with a syringe. 

And then there was Julia, waiting for me. You know a true friend when they're there waiting with a packet of smarties to console you after four terrifying injections!

And after the needle, I took myself home, poured a  glass of red wine, and told myself how f@#kin' good I am. Much like bungee jumping, there was life before the jump, then there is only life after the jump. There was life before the needle, now there is only life after the needle. Four needles down, one more to go. 

Love 

Lydia and Julia x 

Lydia & Julz Go Large Week 30

Week Update 30

In celebration of Julia's birthday, we hosted the Holy Grail of Beer Pong Championships. Many are under the preconceived notion that this is just a drinking game, fool you not, it's a true sport of champions- an original American pastime verging on global domination as we spread the love of beer pong throughout our travels, we can finally call ourselves sports enthusiasts. Step One of Beer Pong is choose a team mate to battle it out to beer pong supremacy, our league was made up of 10 girls, so we had to have a few practice plays to decipher the weakest links in the room- we're not competitive at all! For the novices in the room that were mortified when their ping pong got slapped across the table by their opponents after the first bounce, this championship game was their beer pong 101. I will take this opportunity to apologise for slapping the ball into Carley's face though, I am normally a good sport with the minor fault of expressing too much passion on the field. Being apart of an elite beer pong league, there is always disputes that need to be settled. Over a '"miscommunication" of the rules of rebuttal, I become quite passionate about the game and accidently swiped my wine glass as I was graciously yelling, "This is bullshit!" which flew all over Lexi (the referee). If there is one person you don't want to be throwing wine on, it's the referee- an apparent red card offence.

We had a group of girls around for pre-drinks in conjunction with the championship where Julia was most spoilt with two of our friend's making her a chocolate birthday cake.

Erin came around with her infamous fireball which tastes like cinnamon whisky, this girl isn't recognisable without a bottle of fireball in her hand, as the last time we were all together she shoved my little Ted's head in the fireball bottle. Erin came bearing gifts of a fluro vest to spruce up Julia's party outfit which coupled with the glow paint picasso on her face, she was a stunner. I told the glow paint artist that I was her canvas which she took as an opportunity to paint half my body, I woke up with fluro swirls on my chest.

The bar was lined up at one point with shots that were lit up with fire, this was the bearer of a few blistered lips on our part and a scar on Julia's arm as she leant over the flames. It wouldn't be Julia's birthday without a war wound, reminiscent of the meat pie scar on her 16th birthday.

 

It was our cue to leave when our eyes just didn't seem to want to stay open by themselves, so we kept them half open thinking it looked exotically sexy. You know it's time to call it a night when your friends hugs start resembling wresting take-down moves.

We're now in recovery mode from Julia's two day birthday bender!

Happy 23rd Birthday Julzie!

Love

Lydia and Julia x

Lydia & Julz Go Large Week 29

Week Update 29

Our trip is booked! We've now committed to traveling to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil...

We've always maintained a VERY frugal approach since arriving in Canada (yeah this is clearly by choice) and anticipate that this will continue when traveling. We see “budget travel” neatly coinciding with our so called ethics and more in sync with our desire to make a contribution at the “local level.” This is our well rehearsed line when asked why we didn't stay at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. We wont be opting to take the “luxury” route in seeking accommodations, this fits well with our wish to immerse ourselves with the community- another well rehearsed line. Although we've sworn not to veer off the beaten track as my Dad is adamant that we will not get through to Panama, after the corruption of Mexico and after watching "taken" documentaries. Julia has been warned about South American's love of blondes which we've resolved through our staff discounts at the Hat Gallery. I, however will need a distinctive accessory so I don't get lost amongst the crowd. This joke stems from Julia yelling out "Lydia, make yourself known" every time a group of Asian tourists come through the store, I probably don't help my cause by wearing a metre width visor around my head.

Nonetheless, we have much to organise in the remaining 6 weeks before we embark on another blind leading the blind journey. We're become the epitome of Murphy's Law and hope that this trend breaks before we go large through Central and South America, last thing we need is to be left on a chicken bus!! 

After much advice from our fellow travelers in Canada, it's become necessary to learn the basics of Spanish as we didn't realise how difficult it will be with the language barrier in South America. We've been learning Spanish from tutorials from the most valuable information source- YouTube! So far we've got:

"¿Cuánto es este bolso?" translated "How much is this handbag?"

They'll be a heavy reliance on body language in South America, I think pointing will be our best source of navigating our way to and from the chicken buses. 

Love

Lydia and Julia x

Lydia & Julz Go Large Week 28

Week 28 Update

Happy Can-a-da Day, Eh!

There was nowhere near as much hype for Canada Day as there was for Australia Day, even Canadians fight tooth and nail to get Australia day off work but no-one seemed to have known about Canada Day until the Dudley Do Right Mountie paraded around on his horse through the village with a We Love Canada sign. We went to a house party hosted by an Australian, our Aussie beer drinking culture makes up for most nationalities in this town. A party with BYO beer pong table which many a feet have been battered and bruised being on the brunt of the trusty Wallmart purchase. The one Canadian guy at the party was draped in a Canadian Flag that was tied around as a cape, trying to get the crowd to sing along to the Canadian National anthem. As the party and village alike are mainly Australian (regarded as the squirrels of Canada, over-populated with the ability to give post-partum depression by wrecking havoc on everything), we've all stood there drawing blanks, some getting as far into the anthem as "Oh, Canada! Oh, Canada!"There are a great many experiences that reinforce our identity as Australians, as one Aussie considerately started the chant of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie Oi, Oi, Oi!" Australians define their own cultural identity by stereotyping themselves- what does one expect from the ancestry of convicts. Although, I'm sure it wasn't appreciated but not likely to turn into a New Jersey Housewives-style blowout like it would if the tables were turned. There then is always one classy lady at these parties that will duck tape the Canadian flag around her as a boob tube.We must admit there was a slight disappointment that the national flag tattooed foreheads weren't the rage like Australia Day.
As you do when you've just discovered your parents liquor cabinet, we raided our house, pouring in the dribs and drabs of what was left of our alcohol stash- nothing good comes of a bit of this and a bit of that. This concoction was then poured into a plastic cup as a traveller, although Julia persisted to tell me that the only other plastic cup in our household was a kids purple drink bottle. As she got dibs on the plastic cup, I came to the party with a fruit box that the straw couldn't quite reach the last 5cms of the bottle which became quite the conversation starter....yeah, I get it, it's a kids cup- observant! 


After the exhaustion of being BMX bandits, we were dead to the world sleeping when the fire alarm starts blaring through the hotel and sirens going off outside at 2:00am. Julia wakes after the sirens have been going on for 20 mins then wakes me as she wasn't sure whether we start bolting for the lobby. We were in the hall in our mismatched pyjamas asking the fire warden whether we should be worried. We'd like to think we have a finely honed bullshit detector but this Canadian was not making sense, whoever designated this guy as fire warden had no idea. Surely you have one responsibility- evacuate your area. We stood there staring at him in the hall, in our pyjamas not knowing whether to run, take cover or go back to sleep. I opted for going back to sleep, as I figure if it were serious enough there would be people running through the halls screaming hysteria. This has not put us in great preparation for having our wits about us for our South America trip, we need to learn the art of light sleeping.

It's rained most days this summer, although we've had a couple of nice days where we've taken our blow-up boat down to Lost Lake. We went down with our friend Jess where we'd envisaged the three of us floating around the lake in our boat sunbaking, as the two kids on the packet of the boat seemed to have had more than enough room. Once we blew up the boat, all our visions were crushed as the boat had a max capacity of 95kg.

As we come closer to our trip, we've been working as much as possible to save save save. Julia and I cover most of the shifts at The Hat Gallery which is great as we cover for one another if Julia has haircuts or if I'm working for the interior designer which doesn't allow for many days off. Julia has quite the client base in Whistler, her word of mouth referrals for haircuts is booming. I've been working for an interior designer for the past couple of months on job sites and in her home wares retail store which has been quite the learning curve. I've also starting doing the marketing for her business which will extend to starting a blog for her once I get back to Australia on interior design, it's amazing the opportunities that arise from our drunken stories. 

Our remaining days in Whistler is near. 7 weeks left!

Love

Lydia and Julia x 

Lydia & Julz Go Large Week 27

Week Update 27

Tale from the trail: We clearly don't have a will to live, as the dare devil is us saw for us mountain bike riding up at Whistler mountain with our friend Toni, where only a couple months ago we were snowboarding down the same tracks "shredding the mountain." We were lured into Ladies night with the incentive of beers at the GLC after, it doesn't take much to twist our arm with ol' Frank the Tank beside me. We were all kitted up in our ninja turtle outfits, padded out to the hiltons with helmets that made us look as though our heads were trapped in an elevator, to sum it up, we were pretty darn attractive. When asked which side we braked on, we all stood there drawing blanks with no recollection of the last time we'd actually been on a bike. The sports enthusiasts that we are, we waltzed out in our gear, twirling our helmets which the instructor had to remind us that they're not handbags, girls! simply an accessory to our mountain bike, much like our snowboards were. After I was disheartened with being offered a kids bike, I ended up getting stuck with a seat that was way too high, I was tippy toeing to keep my balance, a height that made you feel every knook and cranny along the trail. We all gathered around with our instructor asking all the appropriate safety questions, i.e the statistics of injuries, he assured us that it is unlikely we were going to injury ourselves. As the words flew out of his mouth, this guy comes flying down the mountain behind him, running straight into the metal pole, knocking him off his bike.

It's a lot harder to follow the breath catching method of standing on the hill look as athletic as possible without actually moving any muscles and if anyone asks what you're doing, you simply say "I'm just catching my breath." This method was applied early on with snowboarding but doesn't seem to be a successful approach for mountain biking. It's all good and well to look as athletic as possible seeing as though the biker outfit does this for you but we found it difficult to control our bikes especially when your bike seat is cutting off your circulation. We were totally unprepared for and unaccustomed to the terrain. People actually enjoy this? we wondered. We had to go back to learning the basics of mountain bike riding, suddenly we couldn't see passed the days of training wheels and now we're about to take on one of the best mountain biking trails in the world. Our instructor thought it would be easier for us to relate to biking to the way we drive, little does he know that I had to cry to get my licence. Julia and I took in turns of being on the tail end of the pack, the one sport that doesn't bring out the competitive beast in us.

Our first task was to put our bikes on the gondola. Julia was yelling at me from behind to watch how the others did it but I couldn't see or hear passed my helmet. As my turn came to putting the bike on the gondola, my bike wouldn't go. I was chasing behind my bike in the most awkwardest of movements as it was half on the gondola, while the gondola kept moving. Strangers yelled out for me to get my back wheel onto the gondola, while I'm still chasing after my bike like a complete idiot in front of an audience of fellow mountain bikers.

I saw my chance to catch up, digging deep, arms and feet numb from the repeated shocks of sticks, rocks and holes in the ground, then as I came to the corner, I lost control of my bike, skidding around the corner from under me. Following the instructor's advice of "biking is just like driving," I can assure you that my mountain bike didn't handle the corner like my Yaris. I took on a muddy corner the way I'd take it driving. Next thing I know I'm lying there in the mud with my bike on top of me, wiping the mud from my scunned hands, not to mention I ruined my pants. I don't know how I could have lost sight of "You don't control the mountain, the mountain controls you" I've certainly made no headway with that relationship.

We've finally came down from the mountain, even more attractive as we were all showered in sweat and ready for our victory beer. We've now adopted the summer phrase of "yeah we bike," this was a lesson learnt from the awkward conversation in winter as to whether we board or ski, the minimum requirement to living in Whistler.

Continuing with our sudden health kick, we took to the tennis courts to work off the after effects of 6 months of accumulated pizza and beer. The only tennis rackets that were available were the size of table tennis rackets, hardly a preventative for throwing a racket across the court. Admittedly, I'm more of a Leighton Hewitt on the court, as my brother can attest to being on the brunt of a thrown racket or two. Good sportsmanship is a thing of the past. That game ended quickly, with me storming off the court, racketless and Julia being forced to play against the wall. Tennis is a fickle sport. No matter how good you are at it, a wall will always be better, so that didn't last long either.

We were out walking on our usual walk, walking to Creekside along the lake. As we'd come around the corner, Julia freezes in her track, eyes popping out of her head and smacks me in the belly to get my attention. A couple of footsteps away, lies a snake. Julia has a major aversion towards snakes. In a state of panic, she knocked me completely aside and started back up the path. I was still bent over where she'd left me, recovering from the smack in the guts. If it's not bears or bats, it's a snake.

For two people to not really be snowboarders or skiers or mountain bikers or hikers or even have a slight love of nature, I'm not sure how we ended up in Canada.

Love

Lydia and Julia x