The second week started badly. We all awoke from various points on Dom's floor feeling like death and wishing that head transplants were available from the outpatient's dept. Jon was on the white telephone for a little while but most of the day was spent on the Playstation – a trend that was to continue through most of the week. In the evening we went to see Star Wars on the Imax screen, which was really amazing.

The jet lag is finally beginning to go and I can now sleep happily till 8am without any problems. I'm not sure whether that is just from the time difference or just adjusting to not working. The lifestyle here is very different to London and, from what I can gather, most other cities. Not just for the obvious reasons and the fact that we are on holiday, but more generally. Vancouver has a true west coast mentality – very laid back and totally unstressful. There is no hectic hustle and bustle as in London, and we actually had to stop ourselves from walking from place to place at 100 miles an hour. Actually waiting for the white man at a pelican crossing and not walking out in front of the traffic is a complete novelty!!

Back in Whistler, we set about cooking some proper food, having spent the best part of $700 on groceries on route through Squamish. It was a relief as Macdonalds and Quizno's Subs had been the staple diet for the majority of time in Vancouver. Our landlady, Dawn, came round for dinner on Wednesday evening and we had a Risotto and several bottles of wine. Any concerns we had regarding Dawn from communications had while we were in England were immediately dispelled. She was delightful and we felt a lot happier about things.

Man United beat FC Basle on Tuesday. Nice

Although Blackcomb mountain opened last weekend and Whistler is due to open this weekend, there is almost no snow. Locals say that is hasn't been this warm for decades which is about as depressing as is possible. We have already completed Desert Storm and James Bond on the Playstation but there is a limit to how much 3 people can play in a single day – if it doesn't snow soon, we may go mad.

We went snowboarding with Tara on Friday. She was practising for a course that she had on the weekend. The snow was almost non-existent and the one or two runs that were open were basically ice sheets with a dusting of artificial snow on the top.

Friday night was Matt's 30th Birthday and we all went to a hip-hop night at Tommy Africas. I went home fairly early as i). I was knackered and ii). I hate hip-hop. However, I missed out on a stormer judging from the photos of the walk home :).

Have now developed an unbelievable boil on my face, which is beginning to look like a second nose. Just in time for a party this Saturday, which has been organised by one of our Whistler mates, Mike. Ingrid, Nasya and Lindsay have come up from Vancouver to go to the party and it should be a fairly messy affair.