Following up the meme theme from Flygirl, here is a list of my 5 favourite places in time to be...
1. Boring perhaps but sometimes the best place to be is the here and now, where you get to savour the trivial and (not always) mundane things in everyday life. For me this would be things like: sunday walks around the neighbourhood, tuning into the breakfasters on RRR every morning on my drive to work, pissing myself silly to the simpsons or futurama, sampling some mighty fine cooking c/o sis, enjoying fierce political debates with work mates complete with everyone's own conspiracy theory & the almost-religious habit of checking the age online website first thing in the morning.
2. Spring 2004, when the calgary flames came within a sliver of a hair's width of winning the NHL's biggest prize, the stanley cup, was a crazy and fun time to be in calgary. A time where most residents (meeself included, i have the t-shirt to prove it) jumped on the bandwagon and claimed to be the biggest flames fans evaah! Fans littered the streets after a win such that one street was named the Red Mile because of the sea of fans in team colours that would congregate there after a win. You had strangers high fiving one another, people yelling 'Go Flames!' like their lives depended on it, merch sales going through the roof, us piking out of work a few times to watch a game, many a frantic (though naturally fruitless) effort to score tickets online, nearly every frickin' car having a flames flag attached to their windows...i tell you those were crazy times, too bad the eventual loss in the final decider brought all that insanity to an anticlimactic end.
3. Goat's Eye Mountain, Sunshine Village Canada, gives you an amazing view of the nearby and formidable Delirium Dive, a vertical drop/run for adventurous alpine pundits (read: lunatics) out there, who don't get to scale the run unless they're equipped with a shovel, pick and headlamp first (avalanches y'see). Goat's Eye rates as one of my favourite places in the world to just sit and relax in and where you can admire a clear vista the world's most insane double black diamond runs. A thermos of irish coffee and a deck chair would just about complete the scene for me.
4. Vic Market is one of my favourite places full stop and I have a firmer appreciation of this place now that i know that not every city is blessed to have a cornucopia of gustatory delights at their disposal. The colour, the food, the fresh fruit & veg (notice the price on those bananas), the aromas, the dwarf bunnies (not to eat of course)? I'm constantly amazed at how lucky Melbourne is to have one of these wonderful places to buy tasty things from!
5. Canada Day 2004 spent with sis was a great day. We started the day by casually walking over to the city to Prince's Island park where a crowd of locals usually congregate on their national day. After treating ourselves to a nice home-packed lunch, and sampling some of the local produce on sale there (luscious Bing cherries, fragrant yellow peaches, kettle corn), we strolled over to Eau Claire Market. The 20-mins-previous sunshine had suddenly switched to the blackest-sky-ever-seen-thunderstorm and sent the crowd scurrying for shelter. Sis and I found ourselves riding out the storm with a crowd of others up on the market's upstairs (sheltered) balcony area. As soon as the storm passed, people filed outside and resumed the festivities. We decided to watch the nearby jazz band play music and had a good chuckle at the antics of a well imbibed (though nattily attired) gentleman attempting to jam with the band using his leg as a guitar. Watching Greece beat the Czech Rep in the Euro Cup semi over dinner added to the surreal nature of the day as we wondered how the heck they managed to qualify for the finals. On a whim we then made our way over to Canada Olympic Park to watch the annual fireworks display. After claiming a primo spot on a hill, we sat down to enjoy the entertainment on offer: a nice bit of country & western music and line dancing. While the fireworks were pretty nice to watch, it was refreshingly quirky to hear the crowd, upon seeing a maple leaf-shaped pyrotechnic thingy shoot into the sky (sounds weird i know), spontaneously start to sing 'O, Canada!' (in fact that sounds kinda weird too). A free shuttle ride that ferried the crowds back home and dropped us off practically right outside our door completed the grand day out for us! Long winded stories of the you-had-to-be-there kind I'm afraid but if you want to get another dose of this meme make sure you peruse the writings of:
Cassiopeia Gegenbauer,
Vernoona,
Flygirl,
Taichi Fox and
Sartorial Splendour.
