Do you come from a land down under?

around here, the last week of January is typically a big fat “meh.” It’s cold and gritty outside, daylight hours are still in short supply, the Christmas-holiday spending is still being accounted for and the cars are all crusted up with salt and grime. It’s arguably the most depressing time of the year. On the other side of the world, however, it’s quite the opposite. January in Australia is the middle of summer, the funnest, sunniest time of the year, with the Australia Day national holiday falling on Jan. 26.

Australia Day commemorates the landing of the first fleet of British ships on Australian shores (the intention was to create a penal colony there and the ships were full of convicts). These days, it’s an occasion when (mostly) law-abiding Aussie citizens gather for barbecues and picnics, fireworks displays and the like. Here in Calgary, you’ll find Australia Day festivities this Friday, Jan. 26 at Side Street Pub in Kensington, hosted by the Calgary Kangaroos and Calgary Kookaburras Australian Football Clubs.

Aussie-rules football, or “footy” as it’s known, is a full-contact game played without all t he pesky padding you see in the North American version. There’s a small scene here of men (the Kangaroos) and women (the Kookaburras) who play regularly among themselves, and occasionally come together to play other cities such as Edmonton and Kelowna. Even if you’re not part of the local Aussie expat or footy communities, you can still brighten up your January by joining in the Australia Day celebrations at Side Street. The evening will include food and drink specials, including $3.50 Burt Reynolds shots (spiced rum and butter-ripple schnapps), as well as a live audio stream of the Triple J Hottest 100, an annual radio countdown of songs as determined by a listener poll. The Hottest 100 will actually be broadcast on Jan. 27 in Australia, but due to the time difference which sets Calgary almost an entire day behind the major east-coast Australian cities, the Hottest 100 will be heard here during the Australia Day festivities on Jan. 26. If that sounds at all confusing, order up another round of Burt Reynolds and it should start to make more sense.