Hello everyone, let's just say it's been a very long time since I've updated this travel blog. According to the blog, I've only arrived to Canada to catch the Olympic Games. Since I stopped writing in the blog, I bussed and hitchhiked my way to Vancouver to enjoy the games. As we all know the games finished almost two years ago, Canada won the hockey grand final and the Olympics.

Eventually, I found a programming job at a small company in Vancouver, spending the weekends traveling the surrounding areas with a myriad of friends in the country.

One day, one of my best friends, Marc from Quebec approaches me and asks me if I want to go to Mexico.  I figure why not, and that's how I ended up leaving Canada. Marc and I buy a large van and drive most of North America over a period of six months.

After the North American trip, I make my way over to Germany and travel from there overland to Russia.

Where I've been in the past two years, chronologically.

So you're probably wondering, what does that mean for this site and blog? Well in truth, I like writing, I've just had a million excuses to not do it, but that doesn't change my passion for it, so I'm going to find the time to address the past two years worth of stories and adventures, and believe me, there have been a lot of them.

I have put together a little present for everyone though, a little photography collection that I put online a couple of months ago from Kiev, a small collection of my favourite photos (Kruchkoff.com).

Between now and when I start publishing again, I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Russia and hope you're all having the best time wherever it is that you may be and whoever you're spending the time with.

Thanks for being so great, here's a photo of me in a little village in Belarus taken a couple of weeks ago,

Ivan "Adventure Ivan" Kruchkoff

A good friend from Australia is in Calgary on a work and travel visa working at the local ski hill - Canada Olympic Park (COP) and I'm headed to Calgary to visit him. I get into town at noon and give him a call. He tells me to get to the hill by 2:30pm as he has a surprise for me.

At 2:15pm, I'm at the hill to greet him.

Me: Hey Josh.

Josh: Welcome to Canada, here's a ski jacket and pants. Lets get you a snowboard and some boots. We're headed to Lake Louise in half an hour.

That same day, we hop in the car and head out of Calgary, into the Canadian Rocky Mountains to the small town of Banff, a lively town focused on the activities of the local mountains. That same night, the Olympic torch relay is passing through Banff. My first day in Canada, I'm in a ski hill and I see the torch relay in Banff.

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics has three main mascots, Miga, Quatchi and Sumi.

The following day, we head out to Lake Louise for a day of snowboarding. Along the road from Banff to Lake Louise, we see a truck that went off the road, a sobering reminder to drive carefully along the roads in Canada.

We arrive at Lake Louise to find there's a special Olympic price for lift passes, and that the resort has gone all out to welcome the torch.

A big kicker has been setup at the bottom of the hill so every visitor can watch the show. Before the arrival of the torch, there are a lot of skiers and snowboarders doing tricks off the kicker. When the Olympic torch arrives, it's passed to the owner of the Lake Louise resort who rides up to the base of the kicker in a snow cat. The final part of the show involves everyone doing tricks over the Olympic torch.

Disaster strikes when one of the younger guys goes for a big spin and loses one of his skis mid air. He bails hard in front of a crowd of several hundred and knocks himself unconscious. At first, everyone is too stunned to do anything, and the show goes on, with successive jumpers seeing him at the last minute and barely avoiding hitting him. After twenty minutes, he is taken away by ambulance to the hospital.

I enquire around and find out the skier was a 16 year old kid who has great hopes of one day competing for Canada in the Olympics. The fall looked bad but he only lost a couple of teeth and cracked two of his ribs, a very lucky break indeed.

After the torch leaves, we stick around for some photos and then proceed to hit the hill for some snowboarding. It's my first time on the snow in nearly two years and I only have twelve days of riding under my belt, so my friends, all of whom spend their lives working on ski hills and snowboarding, decide to give me a nice warm up run. We take a chairlift up, start heading down a black run, then head under the ropes and proceed to find a way down an almost vertical cliff.

I nearly bail several times, yet somehow manage to make it down to join them at the chairlift. Since we're now warmed up, they decide we should try something a little harder. I'm a little nervous.

We take the chairlift up, and this time head out the back to where there is a lot of fresh powder and a lot of trees, two very new experiences for me. They notice that I'm a little nervous so they decide to give me a couple of tips.

Josh: For riding fresh powder, you want to put all of your weight on your back foot.

Me: Ok.

Josh: The secret to trees is to avoid looking at them, as you tend to go where your looking.

Me: Ok.

Josh: Got that?

Me: Sure.

With that, we take off. They go well ahead of me as I start down, my weight on the back foot. I keep repeating to myself, don't look at the trees, don't look at the trees, but the trees get thicker and thicker and closer together requiring a bit of maneuvering. After a near miss with one tree, I see a huge one in front of me and think, wow that's a huge tree. In the time it took to think it, THWACK, I've hit it and fallen on my back.

The next half an hour is spent digging myself out, hitting trees and swearing. By the time I hit the bottom, my friends have taken off so I spend the rest of the time riding on my own, doing runs that are a little more saner.

All in all, the day turns out to be the great introduction to Canada possible, seeing the Olympic torch twice and snowboarding down one of Canada's greatest ski resorts on a fresh powder day. I could get used to this.