How Rachel and I risked our lives ice skating on Lake Louise
Banff, Canada | North-America
Banff is the cozy little town you expect to see in a romantic Christmas movie. As you walk down Banff Ave you would want a handsome man to bump into you, like in any romantic movie. Banff being a national park with wildlife has a lot of places to explore and activities to undertake. The wooden look of the buildings makes it seem like you are in a little winter town and the shiny snow and ice on the roofs make the town look even more magical.
Rachel is my Canadian cousin, together we visited Banff. And of course, we had to see the iconic Lake Louise for ourselves. But it was harder to get there than we thought. Okay, it was partly our own mistake, but we learned from it. So, I wrote you a blog on how to avoid common (blonde girl) mistakes when you visit Lake Louise in the winter.
1. Don’t get off at the wrong bus stop
The bus going to Lake Louise comes around every 40 minutes. We got off at the wrong bus stop in the middle of nowhere. By car it would have only been a 10-minute drive to the lake from that point. However, sadly you can’t get an Uber to the national park. Walking from the bus stop would be an hour according to google maps since we would be walking up a mountain. This could only happen to two blond girls traveling alone for the first time. So, we did what anyone would do, we asked two guys we did not know for a ride, praying they weren’t creeps.
2. Check the weather
We arrived safely, they were the friendliest guys we ever met and they drove us as close to the entrance of the lake as they could get. There are no words to describe the beauty of the lake. I had seen pictures on Pinterest, but I didn’t understand how pretty it was until I saw it myself. The lake is huge and the mountains are high. The water is supposed to be really blue, but we didn’t check the weather and arrived at a frozen lake Louise in the middle of a snowstorm. Because we wanted to make the most out of the situation, we decided to still ice skate on the lake. We skated all the way to the other side of the lake where we found a dog wearing boots and playing on the ice.
3. Make sure you have money
As a reward for our adventurous yet dangerous day, we thought it would be a great idea to get a drink at the famous Fairmount hotel. The hotel costs 1000 dollars a night because of its famous view of Lake Louise. Being broke students, we got overpriced cocktails at the Fairmont Hotel for 53 Canadian dollars. It was worth the experience.
Sadly, I still hadn’t had the romantic Christmas movie I wanted, however ending the day with Rachel at the Fairmont hotel made me realize not all Christmas movies need to be romantic, they can be about adventurous friendships too.