But then along came the sneaky, slimy, Vodafone. There were rumors of him coming between me and my beloved. I fooled myself into thinking that he was a good guy: a decent guy. He wouldn’t do us wrong. He’d be ok. Time went by and things were going well, until one day… just before the 11th of July, the day I was to again rejoice in the ecstasy of buying my new Apple toy, at the eleventh hour, that sneaky slimy Vodafone made his move: he came between me and my beloved. The third, clunky wheel. The thorn in my side. A bitter pain with which I had not felt in our relationship before. He struck me where it hurt: my wallet.

And alas, he has taken her from me. There is nothing i can do. There are no words.

I was looking through the features, and one of the cooler ones: visual voicemail (the ability to see all your voicemail messages and choose which one you want to listen to) seems noticeably absent from the feature list for NZ. Compare these two pages.

Come on Vodafone NZ. Surely you have some crack engineers/developers there who can get this running?

Desperate times here at DNA this week. With payday on the horizon, prices in general going up and the resulting low bank balances, we’ve taken to a diet of mass produced pies and tom sauce.

Tasty.

I’m talking about those terrible robin-hood/puss-in-boots style leather boots that seem to be all the rage in womens fashion these days. You know the ones. They almost always have a pointy toe, a small low heel and then a whole bunch leather just stacked on top which has the effect of making the boots look like they’re full of water. I can’t help but think of robin hood every time I see them!

Now, if my opinion is not enough to encourage you from ever wearing these fashion victim inducing calamities, then please heed the advice of one of the world’s top 100 fashion design influencer’s:

…Those boots never make a girls legs look good, they always hit at the widest part of the leg which makes your leg look shapeless. I don’t think I have ever shot a young lady for this site wearing that type of boot… (Quote from The Sartorialist)

OK, now that’s off my chest i’ll resume normal transmission.

Staying with my sister in Clapham Junction, which is a nice place about 30 mins from the city center. Super easy to get around on the tubes and busses. I love places with good public transport!

Took a flight over to Rome, Italy on the weekend with Alana and some old friends: Tracey & Beth (who I travelled around S.E.A. with) and Josh who I went to high school with. We stayed three days and it was amazing. Rome is such a beautiful and laid back (apart from some of the traffic) place. It’s littered with and surrounded by amazing antiquities and you don’t have to travel far to find them either - they’re all right in the city! We went on a tour and walked around most of the classics: Circo Massimo (massive entertainment/chariot racing venue), Trajan column, the Roman forum (huge celcebration parties held here after kicking ass in battle), the Pantheon (one stop deity shop), the Jewish Ghetto (Jews got rounded up and placed here), Colosseum, Mouth of Truth, the site of Julius Caesar’s assassination, Piazza Venezia, and Mussolini’s balcony! It was about a 4 hour tour all up and it was brilliant for giving you a good orientation of the city as well as some good history from a pretty entertaining tour guide. Won’t bother you with the details of the history, but it was fascinating, brutal, violent and full on. Checked out the Vatican and St. Peter’s bascillica plus the sistine chapel on the monday too. Sistine chapel was dumbfounding. I wish there was some way to get right up close to the frescoes, but the enormity and scale of it all was enough.

Ate some superb food while in Rome: tasty authentic pizzas, amazing espresso coffee (everywhere! I swear even corner dairy owners know how to brew a god espresso!), bruchetta to die for, pasta that melts in your mouth and extremely quaffable wine. I think I’ve loaded on a few pounds over the weekend!

The people are lovely and really helpful. We met a really nice old restaurant owner who helped us with our order, brought out all the different types of food that they cook so we could see what each dish was and was a pretty funny fella to boot.

All this in a setting to die for: gorgrous old buildings everywhere, not to mention the amazing antiques, with not a Reading Cinemas in sight!

Off to Greenwich tomorrow and catching dinner and Les Mis with Alana wednesday night, to bath on friday then Hong Kong on saturday! I am crazy…

Currently listening to: The Postal Service

Just spent a little over a week hanging about the rockies and a few other places getting in some serious powder and riding action. Every day, even if it was snowing and a little cloudy/windy, was an absolute cracker with all but one day offering fresh snow, with the most being a cool 30cms at Mt. Baker - BAM! Having never ridding in that much pow before, it really is an amazing experience and makes even the worst weather day so much fun.

Had a great time riding in the trees. Had to work on my quick turns a bit, but soon got the hang of things. There were a few hairy moments and close calls with some rather solid trees, but mostly it was a lot of fun a big smiles.

Off somewhat of an off day at the Lake Louise field where they had no new snow and icy groomers on offer, I decided to hit the bunny slopes and teach myself to ride switch. Spent all afternoon there and got it down pretty sweet. Also dropped in some nice little 180 spins and kicks, so I was pretty chuffed. I’m sure the girl on the lifts thought I was just there to chat her up as I was riding a bit better than the rest of the rookies there, but I assured her I was practicing and the fact that i kept turning up in the lift line had nothing to do with her!

So the final round up of fields included: Lake Louise, Sunshine, Kicking Horse, Revelstoke, Big White, Whistler/Blackcomb and Mt. Baker. There may have been a few others but it’s all a bit of a blurr! I came away from each day with a big smile on my face but the highlights were riding with Mike and Kirsty every day, Jamie and Hill at Baker at Whistler, landing my first 180 spin with a cheeky little grab at Mt. Baker, riding with James and Kris from SFC Banff at Sunshine and finding some untouched powder tree runs in the back country, and just being in Canada - such a beautiful place and full of good times. Also came away with a numb middle toe, very sore knees but all in all some great memories of a top notch country.

Big thanks to Mike and Kirsty for having me at their place and almost literally in their sleeping bags the whole 2 weeks. So good to see you guys and i’m looking forward to the next ride.

Off to London tomorrow to see my sis and check out Rome and hopefully Paris. Can’t wait…

Decided to take a wee stroll this morning to get some picks of the snow that had fallen overnight.

Socks? Nah, won’t need em. Pufer jacket? Ok, better take that just incase it’s cold out. Keys? Nah, won’t need them cause i’ll leave the door open. Mobile? Nah. Wallet? Nah. I’m good…

So off I go, taking photos of the snow, get back to the door and it’s locked. S***!!!

Ended up having to go introduce myself to the neighbours - lovely folk - and ask to borrow their internet so i can log into email and get M&K’s details. What a mission!

Kirsty kindly came back from work to let me in, bless her heart.

So today I learn’t a lesson: never go out in the snow without socks on cause you’ll freeze your toes off!

Headed up friday night with mike and kirsty, and picked up their friends Ben and Deanna. After a good chat to the US border security guards and getting a visa, we got to the town of Glacier where we were staying but initially had real touble finding our lodge. Turns out we were looking at the wrong place: snowwater not snowline! Once we’d sorted that out, and after meeting the rest of the crew including Jamie’s fiancee Hillary, we settled in for a good nights sleep.

Saturday brought pretty good snow conditions, but no new snow. Spent most of the day getting my snow feet and rolling around the hills. Tried a few tree runs but was feeling pretty sketchy and not quite ready for it. They have pretty old school chairs at Mt. Baker with no cross bars to hold you in, so if you slip off the seat there aint much but thin air to stop you falling. It got me wondering if the states had heard of OSH! Late in the morning saw us get a good dumping of fresh stuff, so all afternoon we were riding on fresh snow. Not bad.

Saturday night we chilled out back at the cabin. Jamie and Hill cooked a great dinner which was thoroughly enjoyed. We spent the rest of the night quaffing red wine, eating choclates and telling stories. Lots of fun.

Sunday saw us wake to what would be 27.5cms of fresh powder. Couldn’t quite get up for first runs as we had to tidy the cabin before we left, but we certainly got a fair share of freshies on sunday. It’s the first time I’ve ridden a whole days worth of fresh powder, and although it was a little tough going at times (it’s a good idea to stay upright as falling over makes for a very tough dig effort to free yourself from the powder!), it was amazing! The confidence was up 100% from saturday and I spent the day riding fresh powder in the trees, perfecting a few grabs, 180’s off little natural lips, and a few jumps off the kickers in the park.

Oh yeah, I was riding a new board too which is going realy well after de-tuning the tips on sunday (that’s probably why saturday felt so tough!) and i’ve borrowed Jamie’s burton bindings with toe caps, so we shold be all good to go for Grouse this week and Whistler this weekend.

Spent today, monday, walking around the city. Checked out Stanley park for a bit, ran a few errands, and found the Larrivee guitar factory (some of the best hand made guitars in the world) which I’ll hopefully get to on wednesday as they do tours! Couldn’t get to the Granville markets today as they were closed for cleaning, so that’ll be for wednesday/thursday as well. Got reasonably familiar with the bus system today, although I’ll have to get better at it as I spent about $10 on various busses trying to figure out where I was going! Off to a NHL game tomorrow night: the Canucks vs. the Dallas Stars which I’m really looking forward to.

Right, time to get dinner ready.

Currently listening to: NHL hockey on the telly

Pretty cold, but not as bad as thought. Got off the plane still in my jandals, but made a quick change into some more practical shoes once I hit the outside.

Off to Mt. Baker tonight to catch up with Jamie and ride some USA powder for the weekend. Hopefully won’t have to wait too long at the border.

Currently listening to: the silence of vancouver…. this place is so quiet!