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"
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"
posted by denny at 1:19 PM
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