An all nighter, and no it wasn't for studying!

On Friday the 30th of September it was the grand final of the AFL (Australian football league). Due to the fact that I have become friends with many an Aussie here in Canada I was dragged along to a sports bar in downtown Toronto to watch the game. Now normally this wouldn't be worth a blog by itself but as is evident from the title, the game was not being shown at a civil hour. Due to the time difference between Australia and Canada, a game that started at 2 in the afternoon in Australia didn't start till midnight here in Canada. Thus having  arrived at the bar at about 9pm, we needed good seats, the Aussies take their footy very seriously! We waited around for 3 hours for the game to start, killing the time with good conversations, arcade basketball games and of course a round or to of drinks. The game itself, considering I am not really a sports fan, was pretty interesting to watch. If I had to describe it I would say it is almost a cross between our football and rugby. We had a couple of major supporters of the teams actually in the final but mostly the Aussies picked a team which their own teams disliked the least and cheered  those on. I followed Monique's example, and supported Geelong in their fight against Collingwood. This turned out to be the right decision, not only because they won, but also because I later found out that when my grandparents and uncle lived in Australia they had supported the same team as Monique does now, the Hawks!

The game finished about 4 am and it took us until about half 5 to get back to residence at York having taken a while to exit the bar and get everyone into either a bus or taxi. At this point you are probably wondering why we didn't just collapse in our beds, yes not going have loads of sleep but we could avoid the dreaded all nighter. Well, that couldn't happen because at 9am we needed to be down in the lobby ready to get on buses to go to Niagara. Now you're thinking well you could still get about 3 hours sleep get up get ready and go. Well no you see none of us had packed and so sleepy and a few rounds later none of us were in a state to pack alone and not forget something. Thus Lauren, Monique and myself spent the next few hours helping each other to pack our stuff for Niagara and then we finally got ready and headed down stairs to grab coffee and join the cue for the buses. Creating an all nighter that shall not be forgotten any time soon.