Wednesday, July 2, 2008

What did YOU do on Canada Day?

Mine was fairly uneventful.

It started off with my boutique getting trampled by many traveling families and their children. My entire day at work was almost finished by a tempting salmon barbeque and skateboarding competition just across the street. Who would have thought that I might be enticed by skateboarding? Tofino does weird things to you....

Later that evening while at home I made the most delicious and bizarrely conceptualized meal I've made in a long time. This meal consisted of milky, buttery mashed potatoes with parmesan cheese, homemade cilantro and basil salsa, ground beef with sauteed mushrooms and onions, and cheddar cheese. The ingredients were layered in a roasting pan and then baked for ten minutes or so. The feast was so big, we'll easily be eating for the next three days.

After making dinner, I was so tired I just wanted to crash into bed and never get out. Andre came over around 10, presumedly to cause some trouble with beers and Todd. They ran off to the First Street Dock. I figured I could just sit on our front porch (which conveniently looks over the Clayoquot Sound,) and watch the fireworks. Hesitation set in. I scurried into some real pants (as opposed to sweatpants) and rushed down to the dock. At this point, disappointment set in. The fireworks SUCKED. They were few and far between, and came in singles, instead of EXCITING GROUPS OF FLASHING LIGHTS!!! The crowd though, they ate it up!

It felt like the whole town was down there at the dock on First Street, right by the Sea Shanty. People hollered. They hooted. They raised their arms and pumped their fists at the night sky. They even made the metal sign with their hands in the air, while shouting "WHAWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" This all was a bit much for me, as I was already half asleep at this point. Todd, Andre and I decided to start heading back for home before the crowd. The way home is on a slight incline from the dock, and as we got farther away, I looked back and realized just how many people were down there. I really believe it was just about the whole town, plus a bunch of tourists, of course. It was at this point when the fireworks died down and you could hear a fairly small group start in on the National Anthem....
We all laughed, and as we laughed, the chanting grew louder.....and louder......until you could hear it coming from the entire length of the waterfront, not just the dock. It was loud. Booming. And it seemed to be coming from all directions. The drunks standing outside of the only bar in the town belted out the word "pee" instead of "see" and "thee".
The three of us agreed that we had never been to a Canada Day fireworks display where it was finished with a town-wide anthem singing to finish them off.....

So what did you guys do on Canada Day?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

awww that sounds so cute, and memorable. :)

a bunch of us went to chocolate lake, and sunbathed/swam for a few hours. it was really nice and relaxing even though the beach was packed, and we almost all got sunburned.
then we went to becky & adam's for a BBQ. i made this quinoa & potato salad with vegan avocado dressing! yum!
zane and i drank two growlers, and then we all headed to the bridge to watch the fireworks, but were a bit too slow perhaps and ended up watching them on an over pass by nscad. not quite as nice. and i REALLY HAD TO PEE and was super cranky because i couldn't find a bathroom, and unlike zane, could not just pee in an alley, and had to wait untill we got home. no fun :( and finally the gang came to our house, and we sat around in our backyard in candlelight.
i liked your story better!

Sarah said...

these are great stories! as no one in quebec cares to acknowledge canada days existence, I have none. I didn't see one flag, a firework, or hell even a firecracker!!! Stupid Quebec..

black ribbons said...

That meal sounds delicious! My Canada day.. I worked for my mum typing up things into a table that took much longer than I expected (7 hours!) and watched August Rush. That about sums it up. Obviously I didn't celebrate it in any kind of style.

Thanks for the comment on my blog! Imagine away Lindsay, hehe. I can be crazy and entertaining, I'm more crazy than entertaining. :) That first photo is of my best friend Melissa - she's very easy to take great photos of. I've finally updated my blog with the photos of Kings of Leon - though they are not the best.

robinacraftmoney said...

see alexis's response and mine is the same, although i bailed on the fireworks cause i wasn't drinking so the tiring swim/sun caught up with me. Also, I saw the bedford days fireworks like a week ago, so it wasn't a big firework loss.

BUT!

Alexis failed to mention the sexy ladies at the beach who set up camp right in front of us: 3 sexy over-tanned blonde ladies with too much skin and too little beer-logo bikini to cover them. (one budweiser, one corona, and one canadian)they were posing with muscle men for pics.
YOU WOULD'VE LOVED THEM

Unknown said...

DEAR ALEXIS
Do you have a recipe for that potato salad? I would love to make some!

ALSO, I LOVE ME SOME SEXY LADIES. Why didn't you take pictures?