The Amazing Magic of The Disappearing Copey...
(I'm so far behind in this blogging, like about a month behind. Yeah, i was in canberra in early february. For serious. So i might fast forward through any thing that wasn't either footbag stuff, or happened with footbag players, or was a big Australian event, or moment... or was just straight up really really funny. And it's a good thing i made that last exception, because this story, dear reader, is a very very funny one!)
Woke up yet again to sweltering heat. The forecast on the morning news was for 41 degrees in canberra. What a shit day not be any where near the beach. I was quickly growing tired of the paddle pool as the mosquito larvae were slowly taking it over.
After eating some quick brekkie, we made our way into town in the commodore. We arrived around noon, but most of the streets around city walk had been closed off, which meant we had to hoof it from a ways out to get to the festival. In acctual fact it wasn't that far. Probably less than 500 meters, but in that heat it felt alot longer.
We walked along the many many stalls in city walk, having a look at what was on offer for food and drink. These were our observations:
Central and eastern europe: Sausage inna bun, Beer.
Eastern and southern europe: Pasta/ Payallea, Beer.
Asia and Pacific Rim countries: Stir fried veggies with chichen, your choice of rice or noodles, beer.
Africa: Curried Chicken, Beer.
South America: Empanadas, Beer
Middle east: Falafels or lamb wraps, Beer.
India and surrounds: Veggie curry, peach juice.
Regardless of what coutry in the specific region, they all had exactly the same fare. for exaple we'll look at japan, korea, vietnam, china, thailand, and nepal. Stir fry at all of them. The exception being the opportunity to also have sushi at the japanese place. And to make it even more monotonous, there were about a dozen indian places, falafel huts, and chinese joints.
Thankfully, there was beer, so every one was happy.
Nathan: "what's in that one"
Indian food guy: "Lentils, chic peas and rice"
Nathan: "okay, how bout that one?"
Indian Food guy: "Lentils and chickpeas. You should try it with rice."
Nathan: Looks at me ".......okay." walks away
We wandered to the center of it all where there were some cultural demonstrations happening. We watched some old white australia guys giving knug-fu demonstrations ( wtf?) which were fairly entertaining. A guy punched the bottom out of a wine bottle, but i laughed and explained to copey that it was a party trick a bunch of friends do at home, just simple physics. Every one in the crowd applauded.
Next an old dude spent alot of time warming himself up for another wonderful display of physics. Long concrete slabs were perched one atop the other, with little spacers at the very end of each so that it was a couple centimeters above the next one. Essentially, all you need to do is push down on the center of the top one and it will crack, placing the weight into the center of the next one, and tada, they all break through the middle. Old guy spends alot of time just getting ready for the trick. And by warming up i mean screaming. He screamed at them bricks good!
"If i were those bricks and he was screaming at me like that i would break too" said Copey after it was all done.
We bumped into A couple of Cope's friends, Hodgey and Laura. We chatted a bit under the shade of a tree (which still didn't stop the sweating) and then made our rounds of the european beer tents. Coopey and i decided the Czech republic was a must considering worlds in prague was where we met.
It must have been about 1pm, and after a bit of klorean food (or vietnamese, or chinese, or loatian, like it mattered, all the same shit any way)we decided to play a little footbag.
Worst.
Idea.
Ever.
We lasted all of 30 minutes. In that time i downed 2L of water and still was sweating so much i was dizzy and dehydrated by the end of it. Got a few good long runs in, which was probably the worst idea as single tricks would have consumed less energy.
We sat on a bench for about another 30 minutes to get our energy back. Sweating continued, so we called it a day and decided to head back to the car and the cool waters of the paddle pool.
The 500 meters now felt like 500km, as the heat was so stifiling that it was hard to really get a breath in. We dazedly walked around in the parking lot looking for the commodore, but for the life of us couldn't remember where we parked.
By this point sweat was coming off me like a water fall, but all i was doing was walking leisurely to the car, which we eventually found, only to open the door to an oven.
We cranked the aircon after letting the steam billow out of it, and sat there enjoying the barely cool air blowing from the vents. We had to sit there too. The steering wheel was burning Copey's hands.
We were going to go to the Socceroo's game at 4pm, meeting Dan after work outside the AIS but due to the bonkers heat the game was pushed back to 6pm. We instead went back to Copey's Castle for a dip in the paddle pool and a few beers. I downed about another 2L of water as well to combat the dehydration.
After we were all adequately cooled off we decided to play some Botchi in copey's garden. I'm not sure if the garden has ever been attended to, so the grass was very thick, pitted all over the place, and slanted steeply to one side, making a straight and accurate shot a special feat.
Copey claimed to have played only once or twice before, but he was a shark! The first 4 or 5 bowls, copey racked up 2 points each. In the end it was copey 45, dan 10, andrew 9. Rough.
We showered and decided to head back to the MC festival for the evening, as well as to hit up Moose Heads bar (which has a gigantic sign out front that is pretty much identical to the Manitoba Moose logo, just minus the hockey stick and helmet) at my request.
We met up with Hodgey and laura again, as well as some of their friends, one who was raucously drunk and making outrageous and outlandish statements. At one point she asked Dan if he was gay, or something to that effect, to which he replied "no". She then went on a tiff, calling him a homophobe and saying he just insulted her gay friends and this, that, and the other thing, and then went to get pictures with one of the guys running an indian food stall and forgot all about it. We just kinda looked at each other with a communal "ooooooohhhhhhh-kaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy....."
We followed the drunk girl over to cube, a gay dance club where she tried to get us to come in with her, mostly by telling us we were homophobes if we didn't. She then proceeded to tell us all about how she brings her boy friend here all the time and how much he loves to go there, and how he even goes there by him self when she can't make it out...
Thank god she was shitfaced and payed no attention to the piss taking nathan gave her about that one, and the howling laughter of hodgey, laura, dan and my self.
We left her to dance then night away at cube and made our way to Moose heads, which had a line up around the block, so we opted to go else where.
Dan is not a fan of dance music, which is what was going to be at the bar we decided on going to (lougne, the loft, the library, can't remember but i'm sure it was something similar) and opted to head home.
We made our way in and chilled in the up stairs lounge. I went to order a beer when nathan told the bar lady to put that beer down and get me a real drink. Vodka was the choice, as scotch on the rocks seemed a little too golf club cigar lounge for the occasion.
After a few drinks we made our way down to the dance floor area. nathan was obviously feeling it. I can finally tell when he's drunk, but damn does that boy hide it well.
He continually was bugging Laura to find hot girls for us to hit on and to act as our wing chick. He struck out about 6 times in the course of 15 minutes. He then tried to act as my wing man which was an even worse idea, as he started making up the dumbest lies. It was entertaing though, and i spent the whole night lauighing when the girls would ask if i really worked as a grizzly bear wrestler in a travelling road show back in canada and i was here in Australalia to box kangaroos.
As Copey continued to strike out, Hodgey, Laura and i made our way to the dance floor and rocked out for a bit. every so often i would look up to see if copey was still hanging out by the couches, because he had made comments about wanting to leave (the bar was dead since none of the girls were buying his bullshit).
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Nope.
I figured he may have just gone to the toilets and decided i would wait 5 minutes.
5 turned into 10, which turned into 15.
I decided to check the bathrooms: no. The Bathrooms in the lounge: no. Made 2 passes of the dsance floor area: no. made 2 passes of the lounge: no.
Shit.
Grabbed my phone and tried to call. No answer. I thought that maybe, against all the odds, copey had picked up and was heading home so i sent him a txt.
"where are you?"
Now i had lost hodgey and laura and i was a bit worried, because now i realized i didn't know copey's address...
*beep beep*
Copey's response "I'm at Bar 32."
...uhhh....
"WTF? where is that?"
i looked for laura and hodgey because now i had no idea where i was, where i was supposed to be, or where i was supposed to be. I again did m,y passes of the bathrooms, lounge and dance floor... Nothing.
*beep beep"
Copey's respons: "Just follow your nose!"
oh fuck...
*beep beep*
oh thank god, i though. he was just kidding, these must be the directions...
Copey's msg: "Come to bar 32!"
I was in deep shit at this point, so made my way to the door to try to find someone sober enough to maybe give me accurate directions. Thankfully i ran into Hodgey and laura who were just stepping back into the club. They had also noted copey's absence and decided to go looking.
"This is classic copey, he'll follow girls all over the damn city when he get's a couple drinks in him." said laura
They knew where th bar was, so off we went. We found him sitting in a corner nursing a drink and looking for prey.
"Oh, hey. You made it!" he said when we finally walked up to him.
When we were going to get a drink he stopped us and said "Naah, forget it, this place is dead any way, let's go to the moose."
We got to the moose and made our way in. I was last in line, and every one else made their way ninand the bouncer looked at my liscene and said "can't let you in"
"what, why not?"
"I need to see a passport"
"what? why?"
"It's the law,". this was the first i had heard of this.
"Well, you saw my drivers liscence. I'm from Canada. I should pretty much be allowed in on principle. You don't even have moose in australia!" i said jokingly.
I then got the death stare and was forcefully told to get out of the line. I tried to call copey again, but no luck. Laura eventually came looking for me and after i told her the deal she grabbed every one and we called it a night. Hodgey and laura were within walking distance of their place and hoofed it, and copey and i stood in the taxi lineup.
I talked hockey with some aussie girl behind me while copey sway and talked about the giants.
"Copey, that's football"
"Yeah, well if they played hockey they'd still be awesome."
We got the cab and copey gave the directions, but the cabby seemed to be having a bit of trouble with them. In all my drives back to copey's place i distinctly recall turning at a car dealership, and when we flew past it i asked copey if were were going the right way.
"yeah we're getting close now"
i figured he knew, so i just let the cabbie keep going. Eventually there were no more streetlights.
"Okay," says the cabbie "which way from here?"
Copey wakes us and has a look around...
"Fucked if i know," I started laughing, but was also a bit concerned, "Head back and we'll figure it out."
Copey eventually got his bearings and gave him directions to get us back, and it turned out i was right about the car dealership. After our stupidly long (and extra expensive) cab ride, we wound up at the right house at about 5am and crawled onto bed (can't say into because at 36 degrees covers and sheets were not an option) and dropped off to sleep, dead to the world.
(I'm so far behind in this blogging, like about a month behind. Yeah, i was in canberra in early february. For serious. So i might fast forward through any thing that wasn't either footbag stuff, or happened with footbag players, or was a big Australian event, or moment... or was just straight up really really funny. And it's a good thing i made that last exception, because this story, dear reader, is a very very funny one!)
Woke up yet again to sweltering heat. The forecast on the morning news was for 41 degrees in canberra. What a shit day not be any where near the beach. I was quickly growing tired of the paddle pool as the mosquito larvae were slowly taking it over.
After eating some quick brekkie, we made our way into town in the commodore. We arrived around noon, but most of the streets around city walk had been closed off, which meant we had to hoof it from a ways out to get to the festival. In acctual fact it wasn't that far. Probably less than 500 meters, but in that heat it felt alot longer.
We walked along the many many stalls in city walk, having a look at what was on offer for food and drink. These were our observations:
Central and eastern europe: Sausage inna bun, Beer.
Eastern and southern europe: Pasta/ Payallea, Beer.
Asia and Pacific Rim countries: Stir fried veggies with chichen, your choice of rice or noodles, beer.
Africa: Curried Chicken, Beer.
South America: Empanadas, Beer
Middle east: Falafels or lamb wraps, Beer.
India and surrounds: Veggie curry, peach juice.
Regardless of what coutry in the specific region, they all had exactly the same fare. for exaple we'll look at japan, korea, vietnam, china, thailand, and nepal. Stir fry at all of them. The exception being the opportunity to also have sushi at the japanese place. And to make it even more monotonous, there were about a dozen indian places, falafel huts, and chinese joints.
Thankfully, there was beer, so every one was happy.
Nathan: "what's in that one"
Indian food guy: "Lentils, chic peas and rice"
Nathan: "okay, how bout that one?"
Indian Food guy: "Lentils and chickpeas. You should try it with rice."
Nathan: Looks at me ".......okay." walks away
We wandered to the center of it all where there were some cultural demonstrations happening. We watched some old white australia guys giving knug-fu demonstrations ( wtf?) which were fairly entertaining. A guy punched the bottom out of a wine bottle, but i laughed and explained to copey that it was a party trick a bunch of friends do at home, just simple physics. Every one in the crowd applauded.
Next an old dude spent alot of time warming himself up for another wonderful display of physics. Long concrete slabs were perched one atop the other, with little spacers at the very end of each so that it was a couple centimeters above the next one. Essentially, all you need to do is push down on the center of the top one and it will crack, placing the weight into the center of the next one, and tada, they all break through the middle. Old guy spends alot of time just getting ready for the trick. And by warming up i mean screaming. He screamed at them bricks good!
"If i were those bricks and he was screaming at me like that i would break too" said Copey after it was all done.
We bumped into A couple of Cope's friends, Hodgey and Laura. We chatted a bit under the shade of a tree (which still didn't stop the sweating) and then made our rounds of the european beer tents. Coopey and i decided the Czech republic was a must considering worlds in prague was where we met.
It must have been about 1pm, and after a bit of klorean food (or vietnamese, or chinese, or loatian, like it mattered, all the same shit any way)we decided to play a little footbag.
Worst.
Idea.
Ever.
We lasted all of 30 minutes. In that time i downed 2L of water and still was sweating so much i was dizzy and dehydrated by the end of it. Got a few good long runs in, which was probably the worst idea as single tricks would have consumed less energy.
We sat on a bench for about another 30 minutes to get our energy back. Sweating continued, so we called it a day and decided to head back to the car and the cool waters of the paddle pool.
The 500 meters now felt like 500km, as the heat was so stifiling that it was hard to really get a breath in. We dazedly walked around in the parking lot looking for the commodore, but for the life of us couldn't remember where we parked.
By this point sweat was coming off me like a water fall, but all i was doing was walking leisurely to the car, which we eventually found, only to open the door to an oven.
We cranked the aircon after letting the steam billow out of it, and sat there enjoying the barely cool air blowing from the vents. We had to sit there too. The steering wheel was burning Copey's hands.
We were going to go to the Socceroo's game at 4pm, meeting Dan after work outside the AIS but due to the bonkers heat the game was pushed back to 6pm. We instead went back to Copey's Castle for a dip in the paddle pool and a few beers. I downed about another 2L of water as well to combat the dehydration.
After we were all adequately cooled off we decided to play some Botchi in copey's garden. I'm not sure if the garden has ever been attended to, so the grass was very thick, pitted all over the place, and slanted steeply to one side, making a straight and accurate shot a special feat.
Copey claimed to have played only once or twice before, but he was a shark! The first 4 or 5 bowls, copey racked up 2 points each. In the end it was copey 45, dan 10, andrew 9. Rough.
We showered and decided to head back to the MC festival for the evening, as well as to hit up Moose Heads bar (which has a gigantic sign out front that is pretty much identical to the Manitoba Moose logo, just minus the hockey stick and helmet) at my request.
We met up with Hodgey and laura again, as well as some of their friends, one who was raucously drunk and making outrageous and outlandish statements. At one point she asked Dan if he was gay, or something to that effect, to which he replied "no". She then went on a tiff, calling him a homophobe and saying he just insulted her gay friends and this, that, and the other thing, and then went to get pictures with one of the guys running an indian food stall and forgot all about it. We just kinda looked at each other with a communal "ooooooohhhhhhh-kaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy....."
We followed the drunk girl over to cube, a gay dance club where she tried to get us to come in with her, mostly by telling us we were homophobes if we didn't. She then proceeded to tell us all about how she brings her boy friend here all the time and how much he loves to go there, and how he even goes there by him self when she can't make it out...
Thank god she was shitfaced and payed no attention to the piss taking nathan gave her about that one, and the howling laughter of hodgey, laura, dan and my self.
We left her to dance then night away at cube and made our way to Moose heads, which had a line up around the block, so we opted to go else where.
Dan is not a fan of dance music, which is what was going to be at the bar we decided on going to (lougne, the loft, the library, can't remember but i'm sure it was something similar) and opted to head home.
We made our way in and chilled in the up stairs lounge. I went to order a beer when nathan told the bar lady to put that beer down and get me a real drink. Vodka was the choice, as scotch on the rocks seemed a little too golf club cigar lounge for the occasion.
After a few drinks we made our way down to the dance floor area. nathan was obviously feeling it. I can finally tell when he's drunk, but damn does that boy hide it well.
He continually was bugging Laura to find hot girls for us to hit on and to act as our wing chick. He struck out about 6 times in the course of 15 minutes. He then tried to act as my wing man which was an even worse idea, as he started making up the dumbest lies. It was entertaing though, and i spent the whole night lauighing when the girls would ask if i really worked as a grizzly bear wrestler in a travelling road show back in canada and i was here in Australalia to box kangaroos.
As Copey continued to strike out, Hodgey, Laura and i made our way to the dance floor and rocked out for a bit. every so often i would look up to see if copey was still hanging out by the couches, because he had made comments about wanting to leave (the bar was dead since none of the girls were buying his bullshit).
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Nope.
I figured he may have just gone to the toilets and decided i would wait 5 minutes.
5 turned into 10, which turned into 15.
I decided to check the bathrooms: no. The Bathrooms in the lounge: no. Made 2 passes of the dsance floor area: no. made 2 passes of the lounge: no.
Shit.
Grabbed my phone and tried to call. No answer. I thought that maybe, against all the odds, copey had picked up and was heading home so i sent him a txt.
"where are you?"
Now i had lost hodgey and laura and i was a bit worried, because now i realized i didn't know copey's address...
*beep beep*
Copey's response "I'm at Bar 32."
...uhhh....
"WTF? where is that?"
i looked for laura and hodgey because now i had no idea where i was, where i was supposed to be, or where i was supposed to be. I again did m,y passes of the bathrooms, lounge and dance floor... Nothing.
*beep beep"
Copey's respons: "Just follow your nose!"
oh fuck...
*beep beep*
oh thank god, i though. he was just kidding, these must be the directions...
Copey's msg: "Come to bar 32!"
I was in deep shit at this point, so made my way to the door to try to find someone sober enough to maybe give me accurate directions. Thankfully i ran into Hodgey and laura who were just stepping back into the club. They had also noted copey's absence and decided to go looking.
"This is classic copey, he'll follow girls all over the damn city when he get's a couple drinks in him." said laura
They knew where th bar was, so off we went. We found him sitting in a corner nursing a drink and looking for prey.
"Oh, hey. You made it!" he said when we finally walked up to him.
When we were going to get a drink he stopped us and said "Naah, forget it, this place is dead any way, let's go to the moose."
We got to the moose and made our way in. I was last in line, and every one else made their way ninand the bouncer looked at my liscene and said "can't let you in"
"what, why not?"
"I need to see a passport"
"what? why?"
"It's the law,". this was the first i had heard of this.
"Well, you saw my drivers liscence. I'm from Canada. I should pretty much be allowed in on principle. You don't even have moose in australia!" i said jokingly.
I then got the death stare and was forcefully told to get out of the line. I tried to call copey again, but no luck. Laura eventually came looking for me and after i told her the deal she grabbed every one and we called it a night. Hodgey and laura were within walking distance of their place and hoofed it, and copey and i stood in the taxi lineup.
I talked hockey with some aussie girl behind me while copey sway and talked about the giants.
"Copey, that's football"
"Yeah, well if they played hockey they'd still be awesome."
We got the cab and copey gave the directions, but the cabby seemed to be having a bit of trouble with them. In all my drives back to copey's place i distinctly recall turning at a car dealership, and when we flew past it i asked copey if were were going the right way.
"yeah we're getting close now"
i figured he knew, so i just let the cabbie keep going. Eventually there were no more streetlights.
"Okay," says the cabbie "which way from here?"
Copey wakes us and has a look around...
"Fucked if i know," I started laughing, but was also a bit concerned, "Head back and we'll figure it out."
Copey eventually got his bearings and gave him directions to get us back, and it turned out i was right about the car dealership. After our stupidly long (and extra expensive) cab ride, we wound up at the right house at about 5am and crawled onto bed (can't say into because at 36 degrees covers and sheets were not an option) and dropped off to sleep, dead to the world.
