Official Lotusphere Australia Day Party was held tonight at JellyRolls piano bar here at the Disney Boardwalk (Epcot Resort area) at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
All Australians attending the conference are automatically invited (IBMers, business partners and customers alike), and we extend the invite to a select few US executives too (we even had the General Manager of Lotus Software, Ambuj Goyal, out partying with us, which was great to see).
It’s become a tradition to have a party to celebrate Australia day at this point of the conference, and we get the guys up on stage to play a few songs … tonight it was Waltzing Matilda, I Still Call Australia Home, and then Khe Sanh – we even distributed printouts of the words so everyone could join in.
Was interesting hearing a bar full of Americans (with probably about 20-30 Australians) singing Waltzing Matilda at full volume.
And of course, whenever someone mentioned “Australia”, or “Aussies”, we responded with the Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-Oi-Oi-Oi chant.
(Yes, we know it was only the 25th here, but we figured it had already turned the 26th back home, so it was a good time to celebrate).
Was a good night, but I think some of the Americans found it all a bit bewildering. The bar staff also had trouble keeping up with the demand for more beer – they seem to drink a bit slower here for some reason.
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