Around the World in 90 Days

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of my working holiday in Colorado.  In fact, this month (March), exactly 10 years ago was when I finished up my “job” at the ski resort of Copper Mountain, and headed back home to the real world, to start a real job.

So it was fitting to be celebrating the anniversary with a day’s skiing at Copper Mountain on Tuesday.  We (Andy, myself, and my mom – whose schedule to the States overlapped with ours) left early that morning to make the 2 hour drive from Denver to the Mountains.  Our ride was a huge Ford 4×4 (or “truck” as the Yanks will say).  It was a stunning cloudless day, with evened-out snow on the ski slopes – a nice change from snowy Canada!  During the day, I relived the memories of when I was a bright-eyed bushy-tailed 22 year old working at the resort’s Guest Services desk.  It was a fabulous care-free, fun period of my life.  Looking back made me also reflect on the decade that has passed.  While so much has happened (some things better than others), it all seems to have gone by so quickly.  But I am happy with where I am right now in my life – and happy with where I am literally too!

Yesterday (Wednesday) was just spent in Denver itself – lazing around the house (my parents have a beautiful second home here); doing a bit of shopping (Andy got his Macbook Air and iPhone 4 – the iPad 2s were sold out last week already); and ended off the day with a rack of ribs each at the Hickory Smokehouse restaurant (it doesn’t get more American than that).

It was great to experience a few days of “home life” in Denver before continuing onwards with our nomadic existence.  (Thanks Mom for doing our laundry!)

We are currently on our way to the Caribbean!  But before we can board our luxury cruise, we have the small matter of a Half Ironman triathlon to get through.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now we are not so sure…  Having not trained in two weeks, and being a few Peanut Butter Cups down, things aren’t looking promising.  But the idea is to just go out and enjoy the day of the race (Saturday), and soak up the beautiful setting of San Juan, Puerto Rico.  At least we have the cruise ship waiting for us at the finishing line.  We’ll keep you posted on how it goes – if we make it!

This morning we had to say goodbye to the beautiful country of Canada. If this were a normal holiday, we would be heading back home now. But for us it’s 10 days down, 80 to go! Whilst we are moving on to the next exciting chapters of our trip, the stark reality hit me that the first part went by so quickly. Slow down please!

Our week in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada was wonderful. The downside was that we didn’t see the sun after day 2. The upside was that we had more fresh snow than we could handle!

I thought that I’d list some interesting observations during our time there. Call it, my “Top 10 list”:

1. WASHROOMS: While we say “Bathrooms” or “Toilets”, and the Americans say “Restrooms”, Canadians say “Washrooms”.

2. METRIC SYSTEM: No miles, and Degrees Fahrenheit for the Canadians. They use kilometers and Degrees Celsius just like us.

3. HAIRSTYLES: All the young boys have Justin Bieber / Zac Efron hairstyles (mop of hair, all combed forward). Watch out SA teachers, it’s coming!

4. WINTER FASHION: All the woman (under 45) wear boots over skinny jeans or black tights. High boots, low boots. Skinny girls, and not so skinny girls.

5. LOW SALT, (HIGH SUGAR): The new thing that food producers are advertising, is how they’ve reduced the sodium in their products. But their food generally remains overly sweet. They should try reducing the sugar levels too!

6. LOW STAFF LEVELS: Labour is expensive, so in many cases, “you do it yourself”. Even though our condominium got cleaned at the end of our week there, we were asked to take our own trash out to the dumpster. At the airport, we checked ourselves in via machine, and then had to go and drop our own bags off. We are spoiled in SA!

7. SHELTERED: Like most Americans, Canadians don’t seem to do much international traveling. One lady we met was flabbergasted that there were direct flights ALL the way from London to Vancouver. She asked if they even served meals on such LONG flights.

8. CONSIDERATE: Canadians are very polite and considerate. Buses that were not in operation would indicate on their electronic board “This bus is not in service….sorry.”

9. TV ADS: The number of commercial breaks during any one show is ludicrous. It seems that there are more ad breaks than there is actual viewing time. (This is true to the US too.)

10. PRICE ANOMALIES: Andy has already alluded to this, but the discrepancies in prices still baffle me. My margarita cocktail (enjoyed after our last ski run yesterday) cost a whopping $13. While, down the road, I could pick up an entry level Burger King burger for $1!

All part of discovering a world other than your own. Farewell Canada!

Tomorrow we are taking a drive up into the Colorado Rockies…

So, today we thought we’d sum up some of our experience on the mountain with … two video clips taken yesterday.  The first clip was taken in the ski lift going up the mountain.  The second was taken on one of our favourite runs, going down the mountain (the first ski run of the day).

A $3.95 Starbucks latte

In case you were wondering, I am really enjoying the skiing here at Whistler. Using some of the local lingo to describe going down the snow covered slopes of Whistler and Blackcomb, I believe the term would be “that run was sick!”

During this process as we invariably took a break to have a coffee (okay for me it would be a hot chocolate), I was reminded of a book I read some time ago called “the latte factor”. I think this was triggered by the price Denise paid for her latte up on the mountain ($5.50 including soya milk and tax). One minor annoyance here in Canada is sales tax always gets added on top of the quoted price. I am old enough to remember when this was the case in South Africa when we had GST (before VAT).  I must say our current system is much better.

The latte factor tries to estimate the additional amount of money one could retire with if you gave up your daily latte and instead invested that money. Let’s make some assumptions:

1. You bought one latte every day of your working life (a little over dramatic but it illustrates the point better). Some people have more than one in a work day so perhaps not that unrealistic for some.
2. You buy from Starbucks (currently $3.95 per cup).
3. You invested your money on the JSE with a long term average return of 12%.
4. All calculations are in today’s value (no inflation or discount factor to simplify things).

This means 365 lattes or at a cost of $1,441.75 (R9,977) per year. Let’s say you did this for 40 years of your life. If each year you instead added this exact amount to your investment compounded at an annual growth rate of 12% you would end up with an additional $1,105,954.06 (R7,321,416) in your pocket (in today’s value of money). And let’s not even start to talk about the cost of buying cigarettes! This example might illustrate the power of compound interest better than the cost of coffee addiction but still, no one can deny that is a massive saving.

Some people would argue it is not just about the coffee but the whole Starbucks experience. I am however not sure how standing in those queues and fighting for your morning coffee fix can be worth over $1 million. No wonder Starbucks is valued at around $24 billion.

Possible next business in South Africa – a drive through coffee franchise.

What we woke up to this morning...

So much snow lying around!

Why oh why did I wish for more powder?  Careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it!  Despite a misty, snowy outlook, we decided to hit the slopes again today.  The powdery snow layer was so think that it came up to just below our knees as we skied – a skier’s dream!

As the morning went along, the snow got chopped up by the skiers all trying to get a piece of the powder.  This made for tiring skiing!  Also the temperature edged above zero degrees, resulting in the snow flakes melting as they landed on us.  By lunch time we decided to call it a day, and exchange our wet ski clothes for the comforts of our warm and dry condo.  (A tough call considering we are paying $80 a day for the ski pass.)

But there is nothing wrong with vegging on the couch with some good ol’ cable TV.  We are on holiday after all!

Tomorrow’s itinerary: snowmobiling!

We have just finished our third day’s skiing at – what some would say – the best ski resort in North America.  Whistler, British Columbia.  And it is not hard to see why: over 8,100 ski-able acres, spanning one vertical mile; more than 200 trails serviced by 37 lifts.  A skier’s paradise. A paradise that leaves us bushed at the end of every day! And we have four more ski days left – if we can make it.

While we are nicely settled in now, we came from a shaky start on Sunday.  Firstly, we missed our bus from Vancouver to Whistler.  (A misunderstanding of the departure time. Lesson 1 = confirm when in doubt!)    Then later in the day I lost Andy on the mountain for about half an hour while he was having technical difficulties with his ski.  (Lesson 2 = agree on a contingency plan should you lose someone in your party.)  Then, when we finally checked into our condominium at the end of a long first day, we had to immediately ask for a transfer.  A maintenance fault made the place so noisy, we wouldn’t have been able to sleep a wink.  This meant that we had to replace our ski-in ski-out place to one which is 10 minutes by bus out of town.  (Lesson 3 = learn to re-adjust your expectations.  Evidently our new condo is much nicer, even though we had to compromise on the location.)

But things have been great since then.  From glorious sunny days with spectacular vistas from the mountain, to snow flurries which made for great powder skiing (what north america skiing is known for).  This morning we got up a little earlier to enjoy a breakfast buffet at one of the restaurants on the mountain, and then were able to be amongst the first skiers to hit the powder coated corduroy.  (Corduroy is the term referring to the condition of the snow when it has been groomed/combed by a snow plow over night.)

Bodies are sore; muscles are tired.  But we are loving every minute!

Below are some pics I’ve taken so far:

Our backdrop while skiing

The roofs have to be strong here

The beautiful village of Whistler

Peak to Peak Gondola

Us on the ski lift

Andy takes a tumble

One Dollar Bill

When I was born in 1975 one South African rand was worth more than a dollar (one dollar would only buy you about R0.68). Now one dollar will buy you R6.88. Even more bizarre is about a decade ago, one dollar would have bought you about double the current amount in rands.

So what is it that determines an exchange rate? An economist might tell you it has to do with the long term differentials of interest rates and inflation between two countries or something like that. I am not sure how long “long term” is supposed to be but in practice things really seem to be out of whack.

A Vancouver lunch costing over $50

For example here in America a basic lunch for two at a medium level restaurant will easily set you back at least $50 (once you add a drink each and the tip). In South Africa the same meal would be closer to the equivalent of $20.

I bought a new pair of ski googels with all the features (anti-fog, anti-scratch, UV protection etc.) and it came in at under $50.  Likewise, if you want a new top of the range DVD player (say a Philips DVP5960, which comes with HDMI and usb ports), in America it will cost you in the region of $50.

Bollé ski googels bought for sub $50

A new pair of ski googles is akin to buying a new pair of sun glasses in SA. I know I wouldn’t think twice about grabbing a bite out to eat for lunch but the decision to buy a new pair of sun glasses or DVD player involves a lot more thought. However, based on cost only, in America these two decision should demand about the same amount of thought.

Stuff is just so much cheaper over here in America. And certain other things, like eating out, back home is so much cheaper. All I can say is at the prevailing exchange rates, the value of a dollar is definitely different depending on the country you are in and what you are spending it on.

Surely there must be an arbitrage opportunity here?

With Vancouver known as the rainy city, it was no surprise that we arrived to a cold and rainy afternoon.  But this setting is the reason that Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are in town at the moment to film Twilight: Breaking Dawn.  (I still find it funny that some friends think I bear resemblance to Kristen.)  So, we will be sure to look out for any camera crews!

After checking into our hotel in Downtown Vancouver, we attempted to fight off the onslaught of jet lag (Vancouver is 10 hours behind SA) by braving the cold and taking a walk down the bustling sidewalks.  The rain didn’t seem to bother the locals – it was Friday night after all.  We came across an authentic Mexican Restaurant “Don Guacamole’s” where strawberry margaritas, burritos, and enchiladas were in order.

Luckily no rain is forecast for today (Saturday).  So, we’ll be doing some exploring today, before heading into the mountains tomorrow.

Macs in Airport Lounge

This is pretty cool. Only Macs available in the airport lounge at Heathrow. And they all have a Skype handset thingy. I called my brother and it was crystal clear.

I have decided to do the switch and am in the market for a Macbook Air. Duty free Dixons here at the Heathrow airport has the model I want for £1,010 but the Apple online store has them advertised at $1,299 so I think I will wait until Denver (for about a $350 saving). Maybe slightly less because of the 3.62% sales tax I assume I am going to have to pay but it will still be cheaper (and it just seems wrong to buy a Mac in the UK).

Leaving OR Tambo

Welcome to our first official post on the blog!  (The others were just warm-ups.)  So, we are finally on our adventure!! Living the dream! The world is our oyster! …  Okay, we are in transit in Terminal 3 at Heathrow.  In a holding pen so to speak, as we don’t have permission to step so much as a foot outside the building.  (We didn’t bother getting UK visas for the few hours between our connecting flights.)  So, not that exciting.  But we are excited for what lies ahead!  Our next stop: Vancouver!

The best part of transit: Starbucks!

To-do-list in transit:

1. Breakfast with Andy’s brother (Attempt failed: apparently inbound and outbound passengers can’t mix!)

2. Starbucks (Tall Soya Latte)

3. Shower (That feels better!)

4. Watch Bachelorette download (I’m an addict.)

5. Blog post

Catching some shut eye in the Star Alliance lounge

Anyway, thanks for all your well wishes, and bon voyage messages.  We’re not sure how much free wifi we’ll get along the way, but we’ll post when can.

Till the next blog!

Denise & Andy