St Patrick's Day without the pub

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day down south has always been a big holiday for Canadians, even if it tends to be a somewhat one-sided view of Irish culture. People wear green shirts and head out to the pubs to start drinking green beer early in the day.  The festivities often turn into one long day of bar hopping, going from Irish pub to Irish pub.

Doing that in an Arctic community is a little trickier, if not mainly due to the lack of pubs. Our group of friends put together an excellently coordinated St Patrick's Day "pub crawl" that involved us moving from house to house on a strictly timed schedule to celebrate at different venues. We decided to do this on a Saturday, so we could thoroughly enjoy ourselves and have a day to rest before people had to start their week.

But first, we had to figure out the decorations.  The other houses had planned ahead and ordered St Patrick's day decorations ahead of time. Our house did not, so we had to go around the house looking for green things that I could cut up and turn into party decorations.

paper chain made out of card stock that I happened to have

I took some green card stock and CD covers and cut them into clovers

I made more clover wall decors by cutting up a greenish gift bag someone had given me

I cut up a clear green dry cleaning plastic cover to make streamers for the door

I recruited Christine's slave labour to separate the green, orange and white sprinkles with a tweezer

delicious  cookies

We also took the time to explore other aspects of Irish culture that we could incorporate. I made up a playlist of contemporary Irish music to play at the party, including a bunch of Irish indie bands I was excited to discover. You can listen to the playlist (and play it at your own St. Patrick's Day party) here.

Rob and I looked up Irish cuisine, and he ended up baking delicious potato bread served with corned beef.

Sandwiches made with fresh baked potato bread and corned beef

I asked my friend about her Irish roots. Turns out her family's from Northern Ireland and they don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Instead, she told me Northern Ireland does the Orange Day parades, which she explained involved Protestants marching through Catholic communities and throwing oranges at the Catholic homes.  I didn't think it was a good idea to do that in Cambridge Bay.

There was a snow storm on the day of our pub crawl. A relatively minor snow storm for the Arctic, as it wasn't too cold and the wind wasn't too strong, but the snow was piling up in troublesome drifts on the road that made it difficult to trek through.  But we the north don't let such trivialities stop us from living our life.

 Bad weather

"Pub" stop #1 featured the most amazing brunch spread ever. I was reminded of the fancy Sunday brunches at the Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife. It featured a wonderful feast of stews and casseroles that I still fondly remember.

Start your morning right with a cup of coffee with a bit of Bailey's

Our friends hosting the first pub stop are a friendly couple from Newfoundland, and it was really interesting to spend St. Patrick's Day with Newfoundlanders who have their own special relationship with Ireland. While we ate brunch, they showed photos from their trip to Ireland, and as they drank their beer, their Newfoundland dialects grew stronger, and eventually once a good traditional tune came on, they were all dancing. Because, as we know, Newfoundlanders, like the Irish, love to dance. The owners' two big dogs also danced along with us, although maybe they were just trying to get at the bacon.

Cheers!

Dancing to some good traditional tunes

Pub stop number two was at another house on the other end of town, and we were left figure out how we were going to get their in the middle of the snowy winds. I had several suggestions (CAT train, kamotik sleds pulled by skidoos or our friends' dogs), but eventually we just piled up in the back of our friends' pickup truck, Nunavut-style (also, Namibia-style, as this was frequently my mode of transportation in Africa as well as the Arctic).

"These open air convertibles are totally overrated."

We discovered that lipstick is hard to apply when frozen.

We all arrived in one piece at Pub Stop #2, where three big dogs and a yummy bowl of caribou muskox stew ("cari-musk" stew?) awaited us, with a side of bannock and green jello. Despite the fact that we had just finished eating brunch, we dug right in.

This house was in an end of town near the tundra where the snow piles up pretty high, as was evidenced in their windows:

that's a lot of snow

Afterwards we hiked over to Pub Stop #3, where they had just pulled a homemade pizza out of the oven.  There was also more green jello. 

Like all the previous stops, there was also a dog at this house. A big, ferocious dog...

what a cutie

A pensive leprochaun

Pub Stop #4 featured another delicious spread of snacks, including green jello, as well as a gorgeous view of the tundra. There was also another hungry dog.

Pub Stop #5 was our house, recently adorned with DIY St Patrick's Day decorations.

Besides our potato bread corned beef sandwiches and cookies, I also served a drink that I invented consisting of things I happened to have in my cupboard. It's green Hawaiian Punch with vermouth. In honour of my favourite webcomic Girls with Slingshots which sadly just stopped running the day before, I decided to name this toxic drink after one of the characters, McPedro.

The McPedro

We did not serve green jello.  Instead, we served red jello. We did not have a dog.

I did not get any photos of the final Pub Stop #6 because it was late by that point and we had been eating and partying for ten or eleven hours. We didn't stop partying or eating of course, and the dance floor continued.  There was more dogs, and I don't remember if there was more green jello, but I am sure we have had our year's quota of green jello by this point.

My tired feet after treking from "pub" to "pub"

Some people criticize St Patrick's Day as being a crude form of cultural appropriation; a holiday that takes a very rich culture and reduces it to a caricature of drinking green beer. I like to take it as an opportunity to celebrate and learn about a new culture, hearing my Irish-Canadian friends talk about what being Irish means to them, try new foods and learn a bit more about the history.  Most importantly, though, I really liked having a chance to spend some time eating and socializing with my group of friends.  The benefits of being in an remote community means you can plan complicated day-long events like this. I'm not sure if we could get something going like this with friends down south.  In the city, people will always have other plans, other friends, other distractions, and they may be too non-committal to coordinate. But here, we band together against the wild weather and take the time to enjoy ourselves.

My morning after breakfast - ramen noodles and green tea

new years wine

houses in Amherst spaced out like the waitress' teeth
who served us coffee on the way to a useless beach
kids in the parking lot just barely getting by
since the cops found your stash, this whole town's run dry...
-the Diableros, "No One Wants To Drive"

We wanted to start celebrating New Years Eve as early as possible, but the only way we could justify drinking this early in the morning was by booking a wine tour for 8:30AM in Stellenbosch, South Africa’s famous wine country. We had a lovely South African woman of British descent named Fern as our guide who drove us around and explained to us why people do things like swirl the wine around in the glass, raise it to the light, and sniff it, rather than my preference to just chug it down.


wine tour! wine tour! wine tour!

At that point I was starting to come down with a cold and a stuffy nose, which meant I couldn’t really smell or properly taste anything, but I was not going to let that stop me from going on the wine tour. It was still a rip-roaring good time. We went with Eleanora, Cesar, Sarah, and Till.


eleonora inspects the casks

so...much...wine...

The first place we went to was a beautiful sunny champagne farm, where we got to view how champagne is made. Fern opened the bottle with a sabre. I would like to get a sabre so I can get into sabrage.


cesar wields the sabre





The second place was a wine farm called Tokara. By this point I was on my fourth glass of wine so I actually remember very little about this place, except for a vaguely racist piece of artwork on the wall that only I seemed to have noticed.


wait, when did this photo happen?

We stopped for lunch at a cute little place called Le Pommier, which had a petting zoo outside with animals that Cesar bonded with. My main question was whether the animals were for petting and pet-related purposes or for fresh food. We were served a yummy dish of bobajtie, a South African meal that comfortingly reminded me of Rob’s shepherd’s pie, with a glass of wine, of course.



Our next stop was Solms-Delta, located in the little village of Franschhoek. When we arrived, a high school brass band was performing on the lawn, which made me happy because it reminded me of my own concert band days in high school. When I die and go to heaven, I’ll be playing in a big brass band. I particularly like this winery because they gave us like nine drinks, pushing me over the edge into bubbly cheerfulness. The estate featured wines with lovely names like Cape Jazz Shiraz and Lekkerwijn. It also featured the expensive Africana wine, which incidentally was included in the 1001 Wines To Try Before You Die book. We did not get a taste of this, no matter how much we tried to plead with our drunken charm.


Our final stop was Fairview, which in addition to providing many samples of their yummy wines like their Pinotage, also offered samples of their famous cheese. Yesssss.



By the time we got back to our hotel after the tour around 6PM, we were feeling pretty darn tipsy. But it was New Years Eve! There was still much more partying to be done for the evening. It was time to man up.

We dealt with our headaches caused by red wine and hot sun by ordering some Ethiopian take-out food from Addis in Cape. I. Freaking. Love. Ethiopian. Food. We invited folks to gather at our hotel suite for pre-drinks and soon enough we were dipping back into the wine we had bought from the tour that day.

We made our way through the crowds at the Waterfront, past the overpriced restaurants packed full of overdressed tourists. it was as hectic as Canada Day on Parliament Hill, and we could barely move. there was a street party going on around every corner.

We finally found ourselves climbing down a concrete wall on to a remarkably empty dock, overlooking the harbour. It was the perfect Gloria Guns sort of moment, waiting on someone's private dock in my little black cocktail dress with my friends for the midnight countown, with a Powerade bottle full of wine wrapped in a plastic bag, bare feet dangling into the Atlantic Ocean. it was like a scene right out of my high school days, or a line from a Diableros song.



Sarah and Till


incredibly unflattering photo of me on the dock

Midnight snuck up on us without warning. If there was a countdown, we missed it, possibly because of the Powerade bottle. We initiated our own second countdown and cheered with champagne and hugs. Then it was time to go dancing. Somewhere on the streets we found Mathieu and his lady.



Several clubs and bars later, we went back to our hotel with our CBA couples, where Joseph whipped up some food that he had magically found in our fridge. It was no McDonalds, but magnificent nonetheless and we all appreciated it. By the time I stumbled into bed, the sun was already up – we had been drinking wine for nearly twenty-four hours.


here is a picture of me riding a lion for some reason.

halloween hash

My Halloween last year in Ottawa consisted of me taking a break from studying for the bar exam, donning a Tuxedo Mask costume, driving out into a wild snowstorm and spinning out before reaching the end of my street. As I gripped the steering wheel, staring at the wall of snowy white in front of my windshield, rose in my teeth, I thought, “Maybe Halloween isn’t worth getting killed over.” I turned the car around and went back to studying the barrister material for the rest of the night.

I was afraid, in my heart, that at the age of twenty four I had finally celebrated my last Halloween. After all, they don’t really do Halloween here in Namibia – the stores are all displaying Christmas decorations at the moment, and the only Halloween party we found in town seemed to be geared for ten year olds, which was not really my scene.

Instead, I decided to celebrate Halloween in my own special Namibian way: hiking up a mountain in costume. followed by the important Halloween tradition of drinking. To do this, I joined the Namibian chapter of Hashers, who were embarking on a Halloween Hash.

Previous to my arrival in Namibia, the word “hash” to me either referred to drugs, the #, or a breakfast food. Apparently it also refers to social groups all over the world who follow special traditions, rituals, and rules that loosely remind me of Freemasons. One of the Hashers explained the story to me. The first Hash was started by a bunch of bored British soldiers who went on weekly hikes with the objectives of (according to their Constitution):
1. getting rid of their hangover
2. getting some exercise
3. drinking some more

I thought these principles were pretty sweet.

This week, as I alluded, the Hashers were going to do their hike in the hills behind Ludwigsdorf, in full Halloween costume. We looked pretty awesome.






The Hashers were a mix of local Namibians and foreign expats, mostly Americans. They had a series of rituals that I quickly had to familiarize myself with, including following marks on the trail that the Hares had set up beforehand, and being careful not to go off on the fake paths that they’d also set up, just for giggles. At certain points, folks would call out things like “On-on!” and “Checking!” – I still haven’t gotten the hang of when or why these were said.


"Richard Simmons"

I did however understand “Booze stop”.



At a particularly lovely spot of the trail, we sat on top of a cliff by a river bed and Hector (who looked a little crazy with his witch’s hat and cape) pulled out a bottle of homemade sake. Glasses were passed around, toasts were made, and the sake was drunk. Then we moved on.



After a while, climbing up the mountain got really hot so costumes were slowly shed. As we approached the summit though, the view just got better and better.



Once we reached the summit, we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the city. It was quite amazing. In front of us was the city of Windhoek, sprawled out much farther than anyone would ever expect a city of 300,000 to be. Behind us was pure wilderness.



There were more Hash traditions to follow after we descended from the mountain. Back at Karen’s house, we gathered around in a circle and initiated the newcomers, including me. This initiation involved us all introducing ourselves, and then chugging beer out of pisspots (yes, you read that right), and wearing them on our heads once we were done, while everyone sang “DOWN DOWN DOWN” all around us. It kind of felt like grown-up Cub Scouts. A spider jumped into my beer just as I started downing it, but I didn’t let that stop me (“there was an old lady who swallowed a spider…”). After the initiation of the noobs, a woman introducing herself as the Religious Advisor pointed out the “transgressors” of the day – those who had gone off the trail to take a shortcut, those who had answered their cell phones during the hike, those who hadn’t worn a Halloween costume or Hash gear – and those sinners also chugged beer in the middle of the circle while we sang silly songs.

Then came my favourite Halloween tradition – more drinks. Karen served us Halloween candy and Hector heated up the braai to cook the brats, which we enjoyed with a side of pumpkin and great conversation by the swimming pool. It was my most unique Halloween to date, and it certainly beat being snowed in.





Happy Halloween from Windhoek!