Australia day in Banff.

Alright guys, so the others couldn't be bothered posting about our Australia day shennanigans so you've got me again, but this time I thought I should stick to the usual formula, instead of doing another written account. I apologise for the length but we had a MASSIVE day. Australia day is bigger in Banff than it is anywhere in Oz apparently.

Josh was up drinking VB and eating a parma at the crack of 11am, which began his day of drinking.

Jin thought a brew in the shower was quite a patriotic way to start the day.

Josh and Golds soon hooked into the nearest version of beer pong they could achieve, where balls were replaced with bottle caps and just thrown at the opposition's cups. Golden put up a brave fight, and despite an attempt at cheating by not scolling his beer, he soon felt under the weather.

He was near munting-point by 1pm

Jin and I looked on with great exuberance. Heathy had gone to work by now... we catch up with him later...

Over at the HI hostel, the bar had opened at 11am, and Josh and Golds joined in on some snow-cricket after some Bundy and cola whilst Jin and I went to town to hit Maccas before beginning our epic pub crawl.

A complete list of pubs and bars we made it to appears below in chronological order:
HI bar
Tommy's
Earl's
Ye Olde Irishe Pube
Rose and Crown
Bruno's
The Paddock
Magpie and Stump
Mel's
Hoodoos
We had begun drinking at home, and luckily I think we all took it pretty slowly at first, increasing in frequency as the night went on.


Handsome Heathy we met as he got off work at Earl's, where he had recently demolished 3 pints. We went on to have some souv and chips (in honour of all you greek aussies [kyle]) and to help Heathy digest his 3 pints. Golden and Heathy disappeared for an hour or so to get changed and meet up at some chick's house. Heathy was a bit tipsy as he'd just had 3 pints.

Josh, Jin and Golden had written a list of challenges which they taped onto the back of their shirts. I'm not sure how many were completed, but it also included a list of pubs to visit, and here Josh is shows crossing off the Rose and Crown from Jin's shirt.

We departed Rose and Crown and headed for Bruno's where we played some pool. Golden and Heathy reappeared around this time, with Golds sporting a new Australian Flag tattoo on his arm. Josh noticed it at some point and asked him where he got it, and pointing at his own arm to indicate the position of the tattoo. Golden, puzzled, looked around over his shoulder (in the opposite direction to where Josh was standing and pointing). Josh then repeated his answer several times, with the same result, before we realised Golden is actually retarded (and in later years would be told he has an IQ of 46).

Here we are (spoken in imitation of Golden) on the way to The Paddock, where we were meeting up with Jae, our new Korean friend, whom we hope will soon replace Jin. As we were walking, Golden received a call from the chick who he'd dropped in earlier that night. They wanted to know where we were so they could catch up with us, but they are MASSIVE drainers so we asked Golds to lie to them about where we were. He didn't and this photo was taken as he was cowering and stumbling away from my vicious barrage of roundhouse punches. The back of my hair also looks kouta.

When the draining chicks caught up with us at the Paddock, Jin and I hid and found Josh and Golds also hiding whilst playing some awesome table-top curling game. It actually looks very similar to lawn-bowls, also.

Our next stop was the Magpie and Stump, where they were serving some Aussie stubbies alongside meat pies. The pies were ok, but didn't really shout 'Australia' as they fell apart when cut, thus demanding a knife and fork, as well as being filled with different veggies, which no self-respecting bloke should have to deal with when drinking VB or when at the footy.

The theme was continued with footy highlights on TV, including commentaries by Rexall Huntingtontower (his full name).

One of Josh and Golden's challenges was to beat some whinging Pom in a scolling comp. Josh beat him even though the Pommy bloke was whinging so hard he spilt half his beer down his front, whilst Golden was defeated in straight sets.
I took some strange pleasure in flicking peanuts at Josh (as you can probably tell).

We then somehow stumbled to Mel's for some cheap-ass highballs, which helped us in our decision to dance retardly for five seconds.


Golden's list of challenges began to fall off his back, due to Josh's shoddy tape job. However when Jin and I obliged him in patting it back on, (with our muddy-booted feet) he seemed somewhat unhappy for some reason. (You can see some decent boot-prints if you click to enlarge.)

Then on to our last stop on the pub-crawl; Hoodoos. Hoodoos is more of a dance club for those that are unfamiliar, and so more drinking plus dancing was had by all. We were joined by folk from work, including our boss (who bought us a round of tequila) and Julie from Earl's, who 'happened' to be there too.

Here I am sweatily posed with Josh and 'Gregggggay' or Greg, who worked with us for some time before getting fired under hilarious pretenses. A full anecdote shall be released eventually, as it really is abso-freaking-lutely hilarious.

This is Christian, one of our Marcellin-boy roommates from YWCA, whom Josh finds invisible. Luckily someone pointed him out making out with this random chick, and Josh was able to get this beautiful shot off.When we finally all arrived home we psyched ourselves into going and trying to sneak into a nearby-resort's outdoor spa.

Handsome is pictured above in his swim gear on the way to the spa. Unfortunately, as soon as I had thrown my towel into the spa enclosure, Heathy called out to signal that a security guard had shown up, so we were forced to make a strategic retreat into the woods before I had a chance to recover the towel.

Homo Neanderthalensis-australis.

Happy Australia Day guys!

Cam