Back in Kan"fuckin"sai

Well, my wife and I just got back from touring Canada for 2 weeks. We finally had our wedding ceremony and reception in Vancouver on July 15th, then we got up the next day and flew to Toronto airport, took a shuttle bus to Niagara Falls and stayed there for 2 nights. Then we headed to PEI for a couple days, then my hometown New Brunswick, then Banff for a couple of days, which was the highlight of the trip for me.

The ceremony and reception went pretty well I think, set aside a few minor snags. We only had a day in Vancouver before the wedding day, so we were pretty pooped. It would have been nice to spend at least another few days in Vancouver to hang out with my friends, but... By the way, what the fuck is up with all those painted bears in Vancouver? Who's idea was that? It's really tasteless.

Even though I'm going to personally email all of you who attended, I just want to thank everyone for coming and making it such a great day. Also, thanks for the present money, gifts, etc. It was awesome to see you all and I'm sorry I couldn't have spent more time there to hang out and catch up. Hopefully I'll make another trip this winter. Special thanks to Ben Wilson who helped coordinate the speeches and the music, etc. And BIG thanks to Olaf Strainer for passing down the Attik Noise 3 book to me. I've been bugging the shit out of him for the last 10 years to sell it to me, now he finally just gives it to me.

I'll post some more wedding pictures when I get them. The photographer is still organizing all of them on DVD. I also took well over 1000 pictures on the trip. Lotsa good shots, some of which will either end up somewhere on the blog or my next photo page.

The best shots I got were in Banff. It was my first time there, and all I can say is that it doesn't matter where you point your camera or if you're a shitty photographer, you can't really take a bad shot. From every angle is just awesome scenery. I enjoyed being home too, and PEI was great (but really humid) but I didn't dig Niagara Falls very much. It's just one big tourist trap after another. Everything is overly expensive, there are too many stupid American tourists, it's noisy as hell, and it's almost impossible to get a damn taxi unless you're getting from the hotel. The best part of Niagara Falls was the famous MAID OF THE MIST ride where you get really close to the falls and get soaked.

We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel and the last night we stayed, I was just pounding back a few beers, and suddenly I heard some stupid old Japanese woman pounding on one of the other doors outside for about 20 minutes yelling to let her in. Why didn't she get the hint after a minute that nobody was in the room. Next door, another family was staying there with these little bratty loud kids, so I didn't sleep much that night.

Even though Banff itself rocked, one MAJOR disappointment was Banff Springs Hotel and their shitty service. For a 5 star major hotel, they sucked. As soon as we got to the hotel, the bellboy just took our fucking bags, didn't give us a tag, so I had to go back to where they keep the bags and identify them. Then, we got room keys that didn't work, and we waited almost an hour for them to bring us new keys, and by that time it was already 9:00 o'clock, we were all tired and just wanted to go out and eat. Great looking hotel though and an awesome view.

Anyway, we covered a lot of ground in 2 weeks, too much actually. But like i said, it was fun, we had out moments of tension and arguing, but it went pretty well for the most part. I'll post more pictures later...