Prepare for Takeoff

               And so it begins! Here's the first awkward post to begin what is going to be a fabulous adventure to a town a twentieth of the size of my humble town of Trail BC. Except this town is going to be 20 times more awesome, because the majority of people living there will have accents.
Tomorrow morning I am off for the next 6-8 months. The weather in the Kootenays is starting to warm -the water is almost warm enough to not give you a heart attack when you dive in, the flowers are blooming, there are plenty of puddles to splash in, the sand will soon feel hot beneath your feet and bear sightings are being documented on facebook. And here I am, with my backpack stuffed with sweaters, ski boots and crochet hooks for making heat-conserving toques. I am heading down south to Springfield, NZ, to forgo all the wonderful summer happenings and instead spend my days working for Porters Ski Field (check it out! http://www.skiporters.co.nz/ ) shredding the Magic Carpet and perfecting my pizza and french fry. Hopefully I'll also be able to shred some powder, meet some people, gain an accent,  and have an overall amazing experience.
           Since I began ski instructing in 2006, I have always dreamed of doing a season working overseas. It was something that I never thought would actually happen. In high school, I planned to go away to University and become a boring person with a boring job. However when it came time to actually move away, I couldn't imagine only being able to ski for about 2 weeks when I would come home for Christmas break and Reading Week. And so (along with other reasons) I decided that by staying home and studying at Selkirk College, I would be able to both ski and do school. That worked great for those two years, until I moved on to the University of Victoria and thought I was going to have to finally move on from Ski School life. However a brilliant and amazing friend came up with the idea of taking winter semester off so that she could come home and ski and then go back to school for spring and summer semester! It seemed like the perfect plan and I was thrilled to be able to come back home for the winter. While in Victoria, I figured out that school wasn't where I needed to be right now and with no idea what I actually want to study, it gave me the perfect opportunity to take some time and travel! And so, I was finally able to make the dream of ski instructing overseas come true!
           The journey begins in the morning with a drive to Spokane and a flight to LA were I will spend 3 days acting like a tacky tourist/ sugar-fed 4 year old at Disneyland (!!!!) before I fly to Sydney, then Auckland, and will then make my way south before I finally get to the hustling town of Springfield around June 18th.