What I Did For My Birthday

Yesterday I turned twenty-four. I was woken up by my flatmates singing Happy Birthday.
They burst into my room with pancakes covered in maple syrup, coffee and a big gold box. Inside that box was an Australian flag towel, bikini and beer cozy. I have tested out the bikini in the saltwater pool below our apartment, but I opted to leave the towel at home in case I was mistaken for an overly patriotic citizen and recruited to work on a sheep station or worse, attend an entire cricket match. Tomorrow I will test out the towel with a regular bikini.

Later on in the evening we celebrated by going to the Steyne hotel to have some beer. (Yes, it is pronounced "stain." And no one seems to find it funny, but these are the same people who have named a beach "North Steyne", so there you go. Mr. Steyne must've been a popular guy.) Along with our beer, we had some meat. Actually not just some, but quite a lot. When self-professed carnivores need to pause because they are getting the meat sweats, well, you know there was a lot of meat. I myself opted for the beef burger, which was more of a three-pounds-of-beef burger, served with onion, tomato, cheese, lettuce and sliced beets. Yes, they put beets on burgers here. Not sure about that one either.

To entertain us while we stumbled through all that flesh, we competed in the bar trivia contest. This consisted of trying to answer many questions about random celebrities, name songs based on random snippets, and identify people in photos that we may or may not know. Even for someone who watches a lot of American television, I thought the match was a bit skewed towards North America. Anyway, our table came third and so we won twenty dollars in bar vouchers. Which, like a good Canadian, I made us spend on Canadian Club.

My friend Kelsey also gave me a towel, a big beautiful thick beach towel, which she said was to discourage me from using hers. She's a smart cookie that one, because she has the Rolls Royces of beach towels, and they are awfully tempting. And just so I don't roast myself while testing out new towels and cossies (Aussie for bathing suit) she gave me a sweet fuschia slap bracelet watch. Friends and roommates beware! You just might get slapped! The late 80s are back!

The tip of the evening had to be the cake, though. Again, the lovely Kiwis, fond of an inside joke, gave me a chocolate cake with white icing that read "How's the Serenity?" For those of you who have not seen The Castle, let me enlighten you.
The movie is about a typical Australian family, a bit on the hick side of life, who are trying to save their house from being torn down to make room for another runway at the Melbourne airport. The father of the family is well-meaning, but a bit lost. He likes to take his family up to his little get-away he calls Bonny Dune, which of course, is quite a dump. While sitting on the porch one night with his family, who are being defeaned by the zzzzzt of the bug-zapper, he turns and asks them, "How's the serenity?" in all seriousness. Apparently The Castle is to Australians as Bob and Doug are to Canadians, so it was all quite fitting.

And that was my birthday in Oz.