Day 19: Australia Day Highlights

I promised I would write about Australia day in my previous post, but because I don’t fully remember how I spent my first Australia day, I’ll give a rundown of the highlights that stuck in my mind:

1. Australia makes it so easy to buy alcohol; they practically give it to you. The pub near Surf Camp had, I kid you not, a drive-through window. Only in America is alcoholism considered a disease apparently.

2. The Surf Camp instructors were not about to let their jobs get in the way of their Australia Day celebration. One instructor even encouraged students to partake in the celebration by bringing out Snorkie, a common plastic snorkel that he had creatively taped a funnel to the top of. Somewhere, buried deep in the bowels of facebook, there are pictures of me chugging beer out of a snorkel. I hope these pictures never see the light of day.

3. Because it was a celebration, there were plenty of games to be played. I learned several new drinking games from all over Europe and Australia, but my proudest moment of the night was when I taught 50 complete strangers the joys of Beer Pong. Earlier in the day, one of the chefs had produced a pack of ping-pong balls from his bag. Later that night I somehow managed to remember this fact, and quickly put together a ramshackle set-up. With the help of, no joke, my own surf instructor, I defended America’s beer pong honor against the British.

4. At some point in the night the party moved down to the beach, and since bonfires were not allowed, the next logical course of action was obviously to go skinny-dipping. Once again, the instructors were not shy about celebrating, and in fact led the plunge into the ocean.

If only there were more camps like this in the States.