May 2008 - mr. evans goes to europe

I had limited time from the start, unfortunately, but I knew if I postponed this trip to sometime more convenient, it would conveniently never happen.  On April 29th I entered Los Angeles International Airport and did not breathe open air again until reaching Toronto's Pearson International.  Not Europe yet, but I reckoned I was passing over Canada one way or the other so I might as well stop by and visit some friends.

Myia met me at the airport and we took buses and trolleys to her Spadina Avenue apartment.  She and her partner Mike live in this incredible upstairs apartment on a major thoroughfare in a neighborhood I somehow remember being Chinatown and Kensington Market at the same time.  In fact, I just discovered you can see a photo taken from just a few doors down from theirs on Wikipedia.  We gathered up all sorts of old friends from the Vancouver days and cooked and dined and drank.  Mike played for us a rare album, a 70's rock opera based on the War of the Worlds.  I got drenched in the heaviest rain I'd ever even imagined, beneath a daytime sky blacker than I'd thought possible.  I stayed some at Myia and Mike's, some at Sarah and Marta's, and then Myia and I caught a train (moments after my soaking) to Montreal.

Mr. Foxman met us in Montreal.  Adam and I stayed at a hostel the first few nights, while Myia stayed at a friend's.  We bought wine and cheese and bread and hiked the Mont Royale, from which the city derives its name, but not before killing a couple of hours in the playground at the base of the hill.  Myia's friends Etienne and Virpi were incredible part-time tour-guides.  They took us to an avant-garde art show as well as the greatest and most fancy vegan Thai restaurant on this earth.  Remember the world famous appetizer!

Time ran out for us there all too soon.  Foxman found a plane to his next stop - Colorado, I believe - and I found a bus to Burlington, Vermont from where I would hop to New York City's JFK Airport and then to Dublin, Eire.  Then began a trip much too dense to attend to in this much detail.  Just know I rambled:

• from Dublin, where I discovered a man can live at least a day on Guiness alone,
• to Killarney, where I played guitar with Poppa Goodtimes on the roof of a pub,
• to Belfast, where I took a day trip with a pretty German girl,
• to Edinburgh, where I nearly got stuck on an island in the middle of the Firth of Forth,
• to London, where Colin, a 36 year-old gutter punk lectured me about those who were tools of society and those who weren't,
• to Paris, where I drank at least two bottles of wine a day and sneaked on and off the Metro,
• to Amsterdam, where I stayed with Sarah and Marta in their acquaintance's canal-adjacent apartment,
• to Berlin, where I visited with two new friends a concentration camp just north of the city,
• to Nürnberg, where I cemented my addiction to wurst, lager, and sauerkraut, 
• to Düsseldorf, where I had one great night playing the Wii with the beautiful Catherine LeBlanc,
• to Los Angeles, where I seem to inevitably end up despite myself, at times.
  

I would like to have stayed longer in Europe had it not been for the big event - Lara Carina Spade was to marry Samantha Lemke on the 06-07-08.