the last two days have been a whirlwind of excitement.

I managed to not take a single photo of the cafe we performed at, but the bathroom had a cabinet with a plethora of star wars action figures on display. The manager and all around great guy, Brian took amazing care of us. He fed us, boozed us up, boozed us up some more, and then PAID us! We made a delicious 50 dollars. Wholly exciting and unexpected. Our first take.

Leaving Providence took a little longer than expected. Matt’s brakes were going so we decided to get them looked at. In the interim, we ate an enormous breakfast.

The Sampler (feeds 2) came with 4 eggs, 2 orders of hashbrowns, 2 slices of french toast, 4 pieces of bacon, 4 links of sausage, and 4 slices of toast.

After a 500 dollar repair it was on the road at 1pm for what could be a 8 hour drive to get to Toronto by 9pm to do the kick off show of the festival. The time we made was good. But we knew we were going to be cutting it close. We couldn’t afford any detours or delays.

About 10 miles outside of the Canadian border Matt had a realization that rivaled the forgetting of our console days earlier. “FUUUUUUCCCCKKKK! I forgot my passport….” We spent about 45 minutes at the border trying to get in without “proper identification.” Matt was lucky enough to have been adopted at an early age giving him a different last name for a while and also a different first name. He also had 2 different birth certificates and a driver’s license with another name that didn’t match any of the records of his prior trips to Canada. He does a much better job explaining it because it got us through. After a very thourough car search (READ quick and unobtrusive) we got back on the road. We still might just pull this off.

I celebrated our entrance with a warm beer we found on Matt’s floor in the back seat. With the minutes ticking away we finally apporoached Toronto. We missed the beginning of the show but arranged for a contingency plan. Our teammate for the night, Kurt, would do a scene with a couple of other folks til we got there. When we found the Tavern, we literally got out of the car, I ran downstairs and pissed out the beer that raced straight to my bladder and had been torturing me for the last 10 minutes of the drive, and hit the stage for the 2nd round of scenes. Somehow Matt, myself, and Kurt(The Kurtlantans) won the night’s show.

It was absolutely surreal. I couldn’t stop grinning for hours. Seeing everybody again, having driven and gotten through customs by the skin of our teeth, being here. The night ends like any other.

Today was our first day we slept in. Our sleep was much more relaxed not having to worry about getting up and making it to another city by any certain time. This afternoon we ate lunch and walked around. I think the area we are in is quite fond of puns for store names. We have already seen a handful of them. Like Thymeless (a cafe that I can only gather has no thyme) and these two :