Is it summer yet?

Holyyyy, it’s been two weeks since I wrote last. Sorry about that. Last weekend I was feeling super unmotivated to write, so I kind of let it slide. Apologies.

I realized this past Friday was my one-month anniversary of landing in Wanaka, which is crazy. Time flies when you constantly ask yourself, “what the hell am I doing here again?”

In truth, it’s been a pretty good month. I’m definitely feeling more settled at work and I’m beginning to meet more people. It’s starting to feel a little more like home here.

So let’s roll back to last weekend. Once again, I had zero plans, which was a great thing. Both Saturday and Sunday were perfect riding weather, so I went out for some solo laps on Saturday evening and then got up early on Sunday to join Phoebe and her friend Sophie for a few. Sophie is much more on my level of riding than Phoebe is, which is nice because sometimes I feel like I slow Phoebe down.

The girls were talking about an enduro race that’s happening in December in Dunedin and how they both want to go. I’ve never done an enduro race before, but I do have enough self-awareness to know that my climbing skills leave something to be desired. But Sophie assured me that if she can race five stages, then so can I. At the moment, I’m considering it. I think I’m going to go with Phoebe to Dunedin on Nov. 18th for a “fun-duro” which covers a lot of the same ground as the December race, so that will be my first trial.

On Monday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my first Mons allowance had arrived. Each new season, Mons employees get an allowance to spend on clothing and my shipment came in! So now I actually look like I work for the company.

Summer seems a long way off here lately. It keeps snowing in the mountains and it’s freezing in the valleys, so my new merino-wear could not have come soon enough.

Speaking of Mons, for the first time last week I started to get a little frustrated at work. I’ve been feeling like I’m on training wheels a bit and I think, in an effort to not overwhelm me, I haven’t been given that many responsibilities right off the bat. So on Wednesday, I was a little bored and feeling unhelpful to the rest of the team. Weirdly, I didn’t want to call attention to this, so I didn’t know how to ask for more tasks.

I finally got over myself long enough to ask my coworker Ed if he needs any help writing content and he tasked me with writing some blog content. Which is awesome. It feels so good to get creative at work and use a humorous tone; it was something that I always disliked at Tourism Whistler – the lack of creative freedom. I also got some Photoshop duties put on my plate as well, so I’m pretty stoked on that.

This weekend has been pretty fun. On Friday, the weather was hell so Alice and I decided to go to a movie. The theatre here is SO cool. It’s set up like a regular movie theatre with tiered seating, except the seats are couches. There’s also old school cars set up that you can sit in.

They also do an intermission halfway through the movie where you get to go out and have FRESH BAKED COOKIES.

The next morning, Alice and I met up with some of her friends at a cafe and had brunch. Brunch is a little different here, it consists of mostly just having coffee and a baked good. I’m more one for a huge brunch with every breakfast food imaginable, but this will do.

I then headed to the gym to burn off the past 12 hour cookie/croissant eating extravaganza. I’ve really, really been trying to be good about going to the gym, but I’ve been in a bit of a motivation funk lately. It’s like my body was ready to hunker down for the winter in Canada and embrace hibernation eating and now I’m like, nope the quest for a summer bod is eternal. Plus when I go, I look like this,

Anyway, it’s a good thing I did because Saturday night was a big one. Millie, one of my other housemates, has been deadset all week on going out. So, that’s what we did. After some sangria pre-drinks at our house, we headed out to Cork for a craft beer tap takeover. We were all going round-for-round and somewhere along the way, things escalated and we ended up at Water Bar, which is kind of a club. Unfortunately (or fortunately? Up for debate), Millie literally would not allow my glass to be empty and I feel like every time I turned around a new beer was in my hand. It was a super fun night, but needless to say, today has been painful. So painful, in fact, that Alice ordered these at 11am this morning…

I really, really love how lawless everyone becomes when hangovers strike. Dominoes for breakfast? Why the hell not. It 100% helped though and now I’m up and moving again, getting ready for the coming week. If someone can explain to me the science behind greasy food curing hangovers, I’m all ears.

This week is gearing up to be a fun one – I’ve started riding in Phoebe’s girls group on Thursday nights and I already love all the girls in that group! I met another Canadian chick who might come with Phoebe and I to the fun-duro, so I’m pretty stoked on that.

I’m also riding in a women’s clinic on Tuesday nights starting this week with the Mons girls! I think it’s more a skills clinic than a trail-riding session, but it’s pretty rare that I actually take the time to try to work meticulously on skills, so I think it’ll be super helpful to be in a coaching setting.

Alright, well that’s all for now, I have to go and do some adulting.

• JB