Australia Day in Mecca

Since I received some constructive criticism about Seattle I thought I should state that I was possibly a little unfair to the city. The problem is that as a tourist in many respects you seek out tourist traps and things to do but as a citizen those things are either ignored or detested. I can quite easily see how someone might love living in Seattle. They probably know all the great places to hang out and there are almost certainly a lot more things to do outside the city centre that we never even attempted. Unfortunately all that was wasted on me when I'm only there for the weekend without a car.

So Seattle was a very nice non-commercialized city that had some beautiful buildings and some truly exceptional attractions in the downtown area. I would definitely recommend it as somewhere to visit but perhaps with either more planning of things to do (I should have put more effort into this myself so I'm not pointing fingers) or even with a local to show you around. One thing I've noted to people since the trip is that Seattle reminds me a lot of sunny old Brisbane in that it's a fantastic place to live (I imagine) but not necessarily the most exciting place to visit unless you know what you're doing.

Anywho I went up to Whistler for Australia day. I've decided that Whistler should be referred to as Mecca and will continue to refer to it as such until it catches on. This will probably annoy people but what else is new? I woke up at 4:30am to get to the taxi meeting point at Totem. I'm yet to be fully convinced that 4:30am is actually a feasible hour of the day to be doing anything other than eating a kebab or rolling into a gutter. Anywho the trip up went without a hitch and we got dumped at Whistler Village at about 9am. After a quick stop to the UBC lodge to drop off bags and get our patriotic gear on, we headed back into the Village to join what was always going to be a large queue.


We first went to the lodge to get dressed up. In this picture are Lauren, Bibby and Vanessa. My effort was clearly the most thought out of the bunch.

The queue was an experience all of it's own. Six hundred plus Australian's aren't going to be quiet while waiting for alcohol. This made the impromptu cricket and touch footy games all the more entertaining. Seeing as everyone else was drinking in line we decided to join the cool kids and bought a few hip flasks to tide us over into the party.

Steve Irwin made a surprise appearance and entertained everyone in the queue with this wackey antics.

When we finally made it in the experience was pretty special. Lots of Australian music being played and everyone going nuts on the pies and VB (at the low low price of 6.25 a can!).

Mike and Vanessa are Aussies but this Kevin guy doesn't know what he's getting himself into. Just as well he can drink.

The party continued to go strong well into the night but we were all a little tired from the early rise and from a solid 4 or 5 hours of drinking and dancing.

Lauren fires up the flagging spirits of the crowd.

We headed back to the lodge for some quiet drinks and ended up playing trivial pursuit and watching videos until late. All up the day was a great adventure and a heap of fun. All of the people in the Longhorn party just wanted to reclaim a bit of national pride while so far away from home and I think we succeeded.

Nick - "You have a deep appreciated of the arts and music"

The Seattle Trip

I've had a lot of difficulty characterising my experience in Seattle to people. I think this stems from the fact that not enough happened while we were there to give an overall good or bad impression. The city was relatively clean and well planned but by the same token it didn't really have that much charm (other than Pioneer Square). We started the trip by seeing an NBA game. The Sonics were playing the Minessota Timberwolves and while the home team ultimately lost they put up a good fight towards the end. There was a great atmosphere in the stadium and this is what made it the highlight of my trip. That said I probably could have had the same experience in any American city with a basketball franchise so I can't really say that Seattle felt that special.

The day after the game we went out adventuring to the Pike Place Markets where there was a lot of interesting bits and pieces . It's a great little part of town and I would recommend it to anyone visiting. The first ever Starbucks is located accross the road from the markets but unfortunately nothing had been done to make the place an interesting or worthwhile experience (Just like their coffee!). We then headed over to Sky Needle with the intention of actually going up, once we got their the bad weather put us off and instead we hit the fun park located next door.

On the recommendation of some other exchange students staying at the hostel we then went to the Seattle Music Museum. It was a very interesting experience with some great exhibits focused on locals like Jimi Hendrix but not enough on groupls like Nirvana. There was a lot of very enjoyable interactive exhibits that went through the basics of guitar, drumming, keyboard and even DJing.

On Saturday night we headed out to an Italian restaurant for a hearty meal. The bill ended up being much larger than we expected but due to the alcohol consumed it really shouldn't have been a surprise. I think in the future none of us will ever drink without seeing the prices again. After the restaurant we meandered back to the hostel and smuggled in some alcohol (sorry HI but the rules suck). The night lasted a bit longer than it probably should've and only a few of us dedicated souls made the 8am breakfast.

This group of seasoned travellers then made it's way out in search of the legendary russian submarine that was meant to be down on the water only a few blocks away. When we finally found it we were dismayed to discover that it is inaccessible to everything except long distance shots. I'm sure the tourist bureau of Seattle wouldn't be impressed. It was then up to Pioneer Square which is the oldest district in town.

The rest of the day was spent waking up hung-over people and doing some shopping. The bus ride home wasn't as eventful as the one into America largely due to the very friendly people at Canadian Customs.

When I say that the Seattle trip was just ok I'm not fully expressing the great time that I had. The group that went down were all great fun to be around and I think we're all keen to head out again. I just felt that the same group probably could've had as good a time anywhere and that Seattle didn't offer too much to the trip as an experience.

Nick - "Your dearest wish will come true."

Pictures to follow. If anyone wants the complete set of pics then hop on MSN. My nickname is nick_denham AT hotmail.com

The NBA game.


Cheeeeerleaders


Novelty foam hands are the new black.


I think this was a spy balloon sent by the CIA. Or it could just be good marketing.


I never did go up the giant space phallic symbol.


We were all a little tired on friday night. Most of these people are not 21.


We visited the Pike place markets and all that I got was this lousy photo.


The original Starbucks was no better than every other Starbucks I've been to.


Craig finds his ancestral home.


Hellooooooo. I didn't steal this street sign but I probably should have. There's no way like the
Denny way right?


Apparently this is a quaint American custom called driving to work.


This attraction was called the American Electoral process.


American gun culture strikes again. When we crossed the border these were all peaceful people.


Monorail, Monorail, Monorail!


This was the only photo I was allowed to take of the Seattle Music Museum it's a sculpture of guitars that actually plays music with a number of the guitars having computers controlling them.


We got drunk but that's only half of the story.


We were then serenaded.


Some romantic dancing took place.


But then we decided that more alcohol would cure that dancing crap.


We aren't meant to be drinking in the hostel...shhhhh.


There were far...


far too many people in the room.


A few of us managed to get up in time for the free breakfast in the morning. Then we decided to go out and see some more of Seattle's old district.


Morning crew discovers Russian Submarine...news at 11.


This is part of the Pioneer Square district. The hobos were skillfully edited out of the picture.


Somone forgot to do the gardening.


Phil felt overwhelmed by the size of the building.


We weren't quite sure why this building was built with the first 5 floors missing. Maybe they had a shoddy contractor, probably mafioso.


Monday Night was the debriefing at Nura's house and then off to the Gallery for a nightcap or four.

Thursday Night Party Night.

Thursday Night was the celebration of Jenna and Tash's birthday's. We all went to Gastown and ran the hobo gauntlet into the pub.

Claire and Nav both made an appearance.

As did Aoife, Aurelie, Sarah and Joost.

I met Camilla who was one of the faces that I've kept seeing around but never gotten to talk to.

Vanessa, Lauren, Mike, Milosh and My were there. My is living in Totem with Mike and Nic from Perth, I don't know how she tolerates it.

There was a pretty big turnout for the party,

Which made it such a pity that the pub closed at midnight. What's with that Vancouver?

The following people were drunk enough to get photographed with me. Aoife,

Sarah,

Bridgette,

and Dinka.

After the pub closed we all started to head off to another club. Once I saw the line there I ditched and decided that sleeping for my 9am class wasn't such a silly idea after all.

Jorge, Sarah and I all got the same bus.

Nav, Jess and Claire were all there.

So were Carlos, Andreas and Daniel. They taught me proper mexican insulting etiquette.

When I finally got back to residence I had every intention of going to sleep. On the way I was abducted by the following Mexicans to take part in their barbaric drinking games. Angel,

Ale,

Sandra,

Gaby,

and Andres. When I finally got home at 4am I was pretty wrecked. Thankfully I only have to cross an International border and get through American immigration and customs. So I won't need to focus much on anything. I'm spending the weekend in Seattle and catching an NBA game. It should be good fun hopefully the hostel beds are comfortable.