Canada Day!

Friday July 1st, Laura took off work early, and through the magic of
mobile phones, we met up on the same underground train and headed down
to "The Maple Leaf", the Canadian Pub at Covent Garden.

In the pub, they played the 6-3 Canada-USA 2003 Gold medal hockey game
in a loop, over and over.  It's funny how we Canadians define
ourselves.

Canada Day is a good excuse for Canadian ex-pats to gather and drink
extremely over priced Canadian beer.  I could buy a six pack of
Sleemans for £18.50 (Yup, thats $44.50CAD for a six pack).  Despite
the prices, people were buying rather copious quantities of it and
getting rowdy in a crowded confined space.


Others (myself included) went to the Tescos around the corner and
bought half litre cans of Fosters for £1.05 each.

They closed off the entire street for the festivities and I'd say it
was about 60% Canadians and 40% Brits and Australians.  I think they
just look for good parties, and like clock-work, July 1st is a good
party at Covent Garden, so they come.

Despite my general hesitancy towards overt nationalism, I felt I should do
my patriotic duty, so I sewed a little Canadian flag patch (thanks Kat
& G) on to the front of my t-shirt.  It was a rather shabby sewing
job, but effective.

We went had a great time with a bunch of friends, and met tons of
Canadian and non-Canadians.


Ironically enough, it was the largest Canada Day gathering I've been
to outside of Ottawa.

Here are all the pictures