Happy Can-a-da Day, Eh!
There was nowhere near as much hype for Canada Day as there was for Australia Day, even Canadians fight tooth and nail to get Australia day off work but no-one seemed to have known about Canada Day until the Dudley Do Right Mountie paraded around on his horse through the village with a We Love Canada sign. We went to a house party hosted by an Australian, our Aussie beer drinking culture makes up for most nationalities in this town. A party with BYO beer pong table which many a feet have been battered and bruised being on the brunt of the trusty Wallmart purchase. The one Canadian guy at the party was draped in a Canadian Flag that was tied around as a cape, trying to get the crowd to sing along to the Canadian National anthem. As the party and village alike are mainly Australian (regarded as the squirrels of Canada, over-populated with the ability to give post-partum depression by wrecking havoc on everything), we've all stood there drawing blanks, some getting as far into the anthem as "Oh, Canada! Oh, Canada!"There are a great many experiences that reinforce our identity as Australians, as one Aussie considerately started the chant of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie Oi, Oi, Oi!" Australians define their own cultural identity by stereotyping themselves- what does one expect from the ancestry of convicts. Although, I'm sure it wasn't appreciated but not likely to turn into a New Jersey Housewives-style blowout like it would if the tables were turned. There then is always one classy lady at these parties that will duck tape the Canadian flag around her as a boob tube.We must admit there was a slight disappointment that the national flag tattooed foreheads weren't the rage like Australia Day.
As you do when you've just discovered your parents liquor cabinet, we raided our house, pouring in the dribs and drabs of what was left of our alcohol stash- nothing good comes of a bit of this and a bit of that. This concoction was then poured into a plastic cup as a traveller, although Julia persisted to tell me that the only other plastic cup in our household was a kids purple drink bottle. As she got dibs on the plastic cup, I came to the party with a fruit box that the straw couldn't quite reach the last 5cms of the bottle which became quite the conversation starter....yeah, I get it, it's a kids cup- observant!
After the exhaustion of being BMX bandits, we were dead to the world sleeping when the fire alarm starts blaring through the hotel and sirens going off outside at 2:00am. Julia wakes after the sirens have been going on for 20 mins then wakes me as she wasn't sure whether we start bolting for the lobby. We were in the hall in our mismatched pyjamas asking the fire warden whether we should be worried. We'd like to think we have a finely honed bullshit detector but this Canadian was not making sense, whoever designated this guy as fire warden had no idea. Surely you have one responsibility- evacuate your area. We stood there staring at him in the hall, in our pyjamas not knowing whether to run, take cover or go back to sleep. I opted for going back to sleep, as I figure if it were serious enough there would be people running through the halls screaming hysteria. This has not put us in great preparation for having our wits about us for our South America trip, we need to learn the art of light sleeping.
It's rained most days this summer, although we've had a couple of nice days where we've taken our blow-up boat down to Lost Lake. We went down with our friend Jess where we'd envisaged the three of us floating around the lake in our boat sunbaking, as the two kids on the packet of the boat seemed to have had more than enough room. Once we blew up the boat, all our visions were crushed as the boat had a max capacity of 95kg.
Our remaining days in Whistler is near. 7 weeks left!
Love
Lydia and Julia x
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