A night at the 'DUNDER' Bar ( 30 days until I leave for Canada)

How do you end up at 24 hour pancake house at 3am, with your future Canadian house mate Alex, who you only meet for the first time 9 hours ago? 
You’re now both sharing garlic bread and a bowl of wedges, while laughing hysterically together over this 'Key & Peele' skit.

 This is how…if I can remember.

Friday night 6.30pm, pre-departure drinks were happening in the city at The Down Under Bar, or locally know as ‘The Dunder', for all the Brisbane based kids heading to Canada this November, through The Working Holiday Club.

Jake Gibbs from TWHC organizes these shindigs in each city for 2 main reasons.

1. To meet and greet with future co-workers and potential flats mates,who are heading to the same resort as you.

2. To the have the best Friday night drinks you never expected to have with a bunch of strangers. Strangers? No way! Check out your Facebook and Snapchat friend requests!

Before heading into THE DUNDER, I already knew 2 guys who would be there, my future Canadian room mates , Alex and Peter, who I meet months ago on our THWC Grouse Mountain Facebook group page, but never in person.

So I was crossing my fingers, toes and eyes that they weren’t a bunch of nutters, who looked nothing like their profile pictures, so excited to finally meet my awesome new friends and  I couldn’t wait to see if our online chemistry had as much spark in real life as it did in our Facebook chats.

First I meet Alex, who will be working on the Grouse Skyride lift. I catch him walking outside past the bar concentrating on his phone, I call out to him. Yep , he looked exactly like his profile pic (good start). His was even suited up, like in his profile pic, and out-dressed me. *note to self, buy nicer clothes*.

I go in for the hug, I think I scared him a wee bit, so I quickly shake his hand and introduce myself. 

Nice save Amanda.

Inside we find Jake, we introduce ourselves, get our free drink card and apologized for giving him grief on Facebook for choosing The Down Under Bar.

If you’re not familiar with the place, it’s probably the dirtiest, messiest, stickiest bar in Brisbane.
It’s crawling with European backpackers and you have to be doing something extremely stupid before security kicks you out. Like setting yourself on fire.

This place was pretty loose and we liked it! 

So, sorry Jake we ever doubted you.

Jake from TWHC and Alex.

Jake then introduced us to Kimberly, who will be working in Guest Services on Grouse Mountain. We got along famously, instantly became bff and fbf, and made her our newest roommate. Poor girl.

Then we finally meet Peter, Grouses newest Lifty. He was taller then what I expected him to be from his photos; I went in for the hug. I think I caught Peter off guard too when he said, 
“oh we’re hugging?”. 
Look I’m just a hugy kinda gal, plus I was on my second Canadian Club.

From that point we all became instant friends, (hmm, I see you're using the ‘F’ word so early in the relationship, risky move Amanda). The four of us just talked about how pumped we were for Canada and discussed anything we were worried about; like housing, having enough cash or coming across any Canadian drop bears.
(I've heard if you get chased buy one, you should run down a hill to slow them down. They're a real thing, right?)

The rest of the night was pretty much just awesome. We traded our drink cards for one of those wanker, hipster, jam jar cocktails; I showed Kimberly how to pull off the ‘scuba suit dance’ and Alex was doing his best pulling girls. 
Meanwhile Pete was standing back wondering what the hell he got himself into.  
This place was going off!

Now after a few hours and few extra Canadian Clubs under my belt, things got little bit random...

I go missing for about an hour. Where was I ? We will never know....so mysterious.

I received about 7 Facebook notifications:

Alex Stark wrote on your wall: “Dude are you still alive?”

Alannah Muir and Peter Mote Like this.

Alannah Muir* commented: Wild night guys? J

Alex Stark commented : Yeeeaaa dude.

Alannah Muir commented: Good stuff!

*Future Grouse co-worker ,who was clearly face-flirting with Alex.

Kimberly West Sent you a Message: “Yo Lady face where r u? There is a Nelly song on and I need a crumping partner.”

My phone dies. Fuck.

I magically reappear, ta-dah!

 I find Alex outside the bar giving evidence to police, after witnessing some poor bugger getting a black eye. Pete and Kimberly had already taken a taxi home and I had toilet paper stuck to my shoe.

 Hmm? A clue to where I went missing maybe?

Thrilled that I'm not dead, Alex gives me his jacket like a gentleman and walks me to my car.

Yes. I drove in. What a dick.

Walk to the car park building, take the lift, get off at the level I parked at.

No car and the car park looked nothing like where I left it. WTF?

We walked FOREVERRRRRRRRRR around the city.

We take a pit stop toilet break at the Hilton Hotel foyer.

Have an Oprah styled, deep and meaningful conversation on the hotels fancy art deco lounges.

Had a 'lightbulb moment'... I took us to the wrong car park.

Alex no likes me.

I apologized immensely then came up with the brilliant idea of going to the 24 Hour Pancake Manor for a midnight snack. Genius!

Alex likes me again!

Which brings us back the Pancake Manor at 3am, bonding over this Youtube clip and laughing like nutters together.

I think Alex and I  are going get along just fine.

Until next time dude.

Amanda x

Discover your WORKING HOLIDAY CLUB adventure here!