The original lineup was JP Morgan, Kenny McDermott, Brandon Hall, Karen Hoffer, Katie Dill, and I. Karen dropped out. (Citing things like a lack of planning, apparently not having a place to stay would have been a problem for her.) Katie then dropped out, not wanting to be the only girl. Rob Judson joined up, as did Dave Eck and Sam Corbett at the last minute. That fills up the Space Van. Additional preparations included getting maps from AAA and some specialty mix CDs that JP and I cooked up. Just like last summer, a power inverter, TV, and Super Nintendo were set up for the entertainment of the people in the back seats. We also had the cooler filled with soda, Trivial Pursuit cards (Elvis), a Sharpie and several grocery bags (Good for writing on).
Again, just like last summer, the van had problems with its front brakes. It was ready *just* in time for us to take it to Canada. If something had been messed up there, we would have had to take two cars and it would just suck. Crisis thusly averted, our departure time was still delayed by nearly an hour, getting us out of Williamsport for good around 2PM. We got Sam in Corning and met Neil and Dave at Aniello's for some tasty chicken wing pizza. It's like two weeks later as I'm writing this, and I could really, really go for some chicken wing pizza right now. I'm frequently tempted to drive to Corning just so I can get some chicken wing pizza. Back on the road, we took 17 to Elmira, 13 past Ithaca and into Cortland (I hate 13), 81 into Canada (there's a great crossing here, as you go over Thousand Islands), and then 401 pretty much all the way to Montreal. I think it was around 11PM. Andrew Rassi had supplied me with the names of some streets where we could find the nightlife of the city. After a few false starts at really getting into the city (Ok, yes, it's my fault we spent five minutes in that suburb), we found one of these streets and found...nothing going on.
Pretty much our first order of business, though, was to find a hotel. Brandon got out of the van on some street and asked some local girls where we'd be able to find some. (He's really good at things like that.) So we sort of found our way to a part of the city with a few hotels. No rooms at the first place we tried. The lady there called up the street and gave us the name of a place that did have some rooms. (We were trying to rent a double room, for four people, and sneak the other three in.) Second hotel, had rooms, they were expensive. This lady told us the name of a cheaper place up the street. We couldn't find that place, so we came back. She said "Actually, it's not very nice there." She instead called a few places and found a room in Hotel Les Governors, right on St. Catherine's. She said there was a lot going on there. Still, it was about a hundred dollars a night. So we went down to St. Catherine's and were fairly blown away. There were just so many people out on the streets. It's after midnight at this point, we're mostly from Williamsport, this is a pretty unusual occurance. We tried a hotel there. I said, "Do you have any double rooms available for tonight?" The guy at the desk responded, "Sure, but there's no lights, running water, or electricity." I stare at him, I start to think he's telling a joke, and then I realize that he's serious. Most of the hotel had seemed unusually dark when we approached it. Tried another place, maybe a block from there. Looked ok, rooms were a bit cheaper, location was awesome, they could only give us a room for Friday night. Almost took it, decided it would be a hassle. Finally ended up at this Hotel Les Governors place, turns out it's really nice. It's sort of a ways down St. Catherine's from most of the action, not too far.
We checked in, the room had a queen-sized bed and a cot. Got all seven people up to the room, moving sort of in shifts. Got the cooler up there. Around this time someone opened the curtains and we saw what there is to see out the window. Our view was right down St. Catherine's, right over downtown Montreal, and from something like the 26th floor. It was now nearing 2AM. We changed fairly quickly. (1 big hot sun, almost 0 clouds, 7 guys, 9 hour drive, 1 van, 0 AC - I'm sure you can do the math) Right about now was one of the multiple times that Brandon was taking video on the trip and got Rob on tape while Rob wasn't wearing pants. We went out, walked perhaps two miles down the street, saw much of what there is to see (as things were winding down). Didn't do much besides stop in a nice little pub for a drink. Saw some more of the street. Still a fair amount going on. It became apparent to us that there was a big comedy festival going on this weekend. Basically ended up retiring to the room around 4AM.
The sleeping arrangements took a few minutes to figure out. Two people took the bed. One person took the cot. Rob took two chairs and an ottoman and made himself a very nice bed. There were two decent-sized spots on the floor that weren't in the way of the bathroom, and two people took those. I was left with an ok but smallish spot on the floor. There was some conversation about this. There was some conversation about the fact that the TV cabinet had a nice flat surface on top of it. Rob ended up saying, "Dylan, I'd be happier if you slept on top of the TV." Who am I to let Rob down? So, using a towel for a pillow, I climed up there with my sleeping bag. Oh, and we decided the next night would be waaay too rough with all the liquor we'd gotten at Duty Free. (Like four bottles plus a case, sheesh, don't ask me, I wasn't the one buying it. Bad math, I say.)
(Yes, this is unfinished. Apologies all around.)
