SameSun - More Aussies Than You Can Shake a Stick At!

SameSun Hostel on Granville Street will always be a very special place. A strange magnet, which seems to attract more travellers from down under than any other! You spend five nights in the Beaver - SameSun's cheap-as-chips bar - and you suddenly find yourself saying "eh?" at the end of your sentances. It's strange, not in a bad way, just odd. Who'd have thought I'd come to Canada and meet more Aussies and Kiwis than I have done in my whole life???

Most of them seem to come for the snow, though there are the odd ones looking to live here. I had one roommate who was looking forward to seeing real snow, and still managed to complain of the cold! (Just so you know, Vancouver's the mildest city in Canada. That's why there's so many hobos.)

The great thing about SameSun is that you can turn up alone, and by the end of the week you'll have made friends with loads of people. Staff members are familiar faces at the bar, and you only have to spend one night playing poker for them to banter over who's gonna win at the weekly Pub Quiz. And they know all about working on a budget, so drinks are cheap (for Canada), food - though hardly gormet - is REALLY cheap, and at least half the activities are free or under $10. So you have no excuse to sit up in your room, unless your flight's the next day!

Even once I'd left the hostel, I still found myself coming back to socialise. It's a bit sad really, because I'm in Canada, you know? I should be trying to insinuate myself into the local population... oh well. Rachel and I headed back for Australia Day Pub Quiz! Yes, that's right. A pub full of Aussies... celebrating their national pride. He, he, it was a good laugh. Though I was pretty much useless at answering the questions. My best contribution was the team name:

"What's that Skippy? You found the answers down the well?!"

Despite having a Tasmanian, and three Aussies we failed to win the bag of goodies:

As there were a few New Zealand questions, which none of us knew, we all blame the Kiwi for leaving early! =)