A lot to cram into this one so I will try to be brief. Our weekend started out with a wild drive to Dan's cottage in Ontario. A good 6 hours of shinanigans fueled mostly by Simon. Funnily enough he was in another car but still managed to be a nutcase.
When we arrived at the cottage it was a mere 2 hours before the heavy drinking started, music, football and of course plenty of beer pong. How refreshing it was to play real beer pong instead of Beirut. Bring on the paddles. And of course where there are paddles there is Simon's ass. The first of many damaged goods in the house. Including my back as part of Simon's revenge.
The next day we all got into a solid session of football. I am absolutely elated that my knee survived it without so much as a hiccup. Awesome. After we built up a serious sweat we hit the lake; ouch that was cold. Seriously. I have never seen a group of grown men scream so much. "My Balls!!!" "Ahhhhhh, ahhhh!"
Night two was much the same as the first. Except a very powerful new drinking game was invented. X-Bus. If you've ever played ride the bus then just add extreme to it and bingo. The next day we made a pretty late start. But is anyone surprised? After a lot of driving around, getting permits, supplies etc etc We finally got the canoes in the water around 2pm.
At the permit office they had mannequins set up promoting correct paddling technique- kneeling on pads rather than sitting. I took note and carried on. Everyone else sat in their seats and paddled away, while I stood tall on my knees- back to that in a bit. Alex and my canoe - known as the C-Bomb - was the definite powerhouse. Albeit a pretty wobbly powerhouse as I haven't had a lot of experience in the stern; we covered at least twice the distance of everyone else and still remained up front. After about 3 hours of paddling we picked our camp site and set up the tent, the fire and the vodka.
Mass drinking ensued. We got through 2/3 of our supplies in one night. Saks was the first to fall in the lake and pretty much everyone else followed suit eventually.
Later that night Saks and Sie were discovered back to back in the middle of the woods out cold. No one knew why. I woke up wet, naked, no sleeping bag and ridiculously cold. No one knows why. To give a rough idea of how cold it was, my wet clothes draped over some trees by a mysterious helper were frozen in the morning. That cold. Sie was worse for wear and doused the tent with a few rounds of churned up wieners. Those with any sense at all moved outside, whereas those of us too drunk/cold to know where we were stayed put and cuddled. The next day we all got up and I suddenly realised I couldn't walk. Turns out while much more powerful, the kneeling thing has it's drawbacks. Here I sit almost 4 days later and still my quads lock up from time to time. That sore.
We decided to give ourselves a change of scenery and moved campsite to a much better place. The next night was more of a relaxed atmosphere but Richie and I still managed to put a solid dent in the last 1/3 of our alcohol supplies. Who has their priorities straight? That day we had some issues with our food supplies; being too wasted to take care of them they were ravaged by wild animals. Most likely seagulls. Too hungry to care; the food was eaten. Along with that comes a story about puke bags and ketchup sachets but I'll save that for another day.
Tired, dirty and sore we made our way back on day 3. Last one in was to buy the first round of steaks. The powerhouse was once again way in front, having some technique that came with practice Al and I managed to maintain a straight line for most of the trek. But the appropriately named Cheeky Boat struck with a sneak attack at the last second while our defenses were down.
The shame.
We parted ways and Sie and I hit KFC with a vengeance. 18 pieces of chicken, the mother of all fries, 2 coleslaw and a mountain dew hit us hard. We didn't make it all the way through but by god we tried. We then quickly passed out.
This weekend's catch phrases: C-Bomb, X-Bus, diarrhea mouth, Jenna
Sometimes people can surprise you in the most unexpected ways. I guess that's what makes it so surprising...
This afternoon when we met up again, a little girl in the group came up to me and said "Thank you for yesterday James, Merry Christmas." - she then handed me a little card and a chocolate coin. It was the sweetest thing I have seen in years, and for someone so far away from friends and family on Christmas day, it really cheered me up.
