Canada Trip, Part One

We were awakened by our friends bursting through our front door singing.  I jumped out of bed naked and called from the second story, "Who is it?"  They said their names.  And then they realized that they weren't supposed to come over to take care of the cat till the next day.  They left and we went back to bed.

The morning and early afternoon we went over the house contract.  We signed off on it on E's phone.  We couldn't get service outside in the parking lot of the Taco Bell so we ended up signing within the walls of the Taco Bell.  We had ordered the usual Taco Bell fare maybe half an hour earlier.

We left for Canada.  The playlist began with "That's the Way it Is" by Celine Dion.  While listening to maybe Joni Mitchell we passed, on the other side of the highway, a truck completely engulfed in flames.  The smoke rising above it could be seen from miles away.  Bad omen?

We tried to get wings in Buffalo but were foiled by crowds of hungry Buffaloians.  Typical!  We went to some cool-looking Buffalo neighborhood to find other food.  As we parked ("North american Scum" by LCD Soundsystem on the Ipod), A called.  She said the seller had accepted the terms of the contract with no amendations.  I went "oh my god."  E went "whoo!"  We walked to a restaurant and had burgers and fries.  Great music was played at the neat Buffalo restaurant, including "See/Saw" by Jay Reatard, "Mystery" by the Wipers, "I'm a Pretender" by the Exploding Hearts, and a great deal of Ty Segall.

We drove across the bridge into Canada.  The customs guy asked us a lot of questions.  It was weird getting grilled, but we passed the test!  Into Niagara, Canadian-side, we went.

We parked the car at the Bed and Breakfast and walked up to the front door.  We tried the pin number on the reservation paper E had printed.  Nothing.  We tried it again.  Still no success.  We tried it on the back door.  We tried waving our arms at the lit-up second story window.  We trying throwing things at the second-story window.  I called the number on the sign outside.  "We're standing outside your house and can't get in," I said.  "We're going to look for other places.  Call us back."  It was close to midnight.

We drove around desperately looking for lodging.  Niagara Falls is a shitshow.  Drunks wander the streets looking for casinos like a hundred yards from the most impressive goddamn cascade of water in North America.  When I got the call back from the Bed and Breakfast at 12:30 my voice was affectless.  I didn't apologize or do anything polite.  I just said, "yeah, we're coming back."  We went back.  Code still wouldn't work.  Until it did.  We crashed.