Oh Canada!

Well, we finally had our first concert of the year...with our new singer...in Canada. It was a lot of fun but a really quick trip. We left Saturday morning and got back Sunday evening. Good times, though.

Our direct flight to Toronto was quite bearable. Although it was a small plane, we toughed it out for the two-hour flight. Going through customs was a new experience for me. Of course, I'd been through customs several times before, but this was the first time I had this particular conversation in customs.

Customs Agent (CA): "What's your business here in Canada?"
Me: "Performing a concert tonight."
CA: "What do you do?"
Me: "I sing."
CA: "Should I know you?"
Me: "Probably not."
CA: "I had this same conversation with someone else recently. I asked the guy, 'Michael Bubble...should I know you?' and he said 'It's Buble (pronounced boo - blay) and I'm with the blah blah record label.' I still had no clue that I was supposed to know who he was."
Me: "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha..."
CA: "Hahahahahahahahahahahaha... Have a good show!"

Pure magic.

Mike, our promoter, met us after customs and drove us about 45 minutes to eat at a Mongolian grill in Waterloo, appropriately named "JB's Mongolian Grill." The food was really very good. After lunch, we drove a couple more blocks and arrived at the University of Waterloo campus. Our venue was a fairly small, intimate theatre that seated roughly 700 people. As we pulled up to the stage door, we saw the "sold out" signs and knew it was going to be a good night.

We did our set up and sound check, ran through some songs with JJ, the new guy, and chilled in the green room until devo time. Just before we started devo, one of our good friends from Camp Casowasco in upstate New York, Donnie Schussler, surprised us in the green room. He ended up spending devo time with us and praying for us before we got dressed and ready to rock.

And rock we did! It was a really fun concert. One of the most fun concerts I've been a part of in a long time. The only concert I've been a part of in a long time. It had been three months minus one day since our last concert. It felt great to be on stage again.

JJ did a great job. He knew his stuff and sang his face off. Nobody really knew it was his first concert until we said something about it...at the end of the concert! Good times.

After the concert was "meet 'n greet" which was an experience in itself. There were lots of people from foreign lands like Brazil and Africa. We even got to hear an African quartet sing a song for us. Beautiful!

We went to our housing site, the home of Dave and Patty Knutson (sp?) where we ate homemade chicken fetuccini alfredo and drank hot apple cider. Did I mention the temperature was below freezing the entire time we were there and snow and ice was all over the place? Yeah, that happened. So after we had eaten and warmed up a bit, it was time for bed. I don't know about the rest of the guys, but I slept great. We woke up Sunday morning to fresh biscuits and gravy, bacon, fruit, coffee, and juice. By the way, Patty is originally from Alabama. After breakfast, they took us to the Waterloo Church of Christ where we shared the Lord's Supper with that family and then headed back to Toronto to the airport...on icy roads most of the way.

Did you know there's a small patch of land in the Toronto airport that is "American soil?" We went through customs there, instead of Cincinatti where we changed flights, which was awesome because we only had an hour scheduled between flights and customs can take a while sometimes. It was very nice! We made it back to the great Nash Vegas safely. Now, we take the next step...whatever that is!

Peace, Love, and Chocolate