nawl

Nikita and Lenore got married. There was much merriment.

I stayed up all night before leaving.

Maybe that gave me a quirkier outlook on the airport scenes.

Maybe not.

A bunch of us had planned to fly to Buffalo, rent cars, and carpool to Toronto in order to save money. Except that apparently the wing flaps broke in flight on the plane that all of the Californians were on, and they were stuck in Dulles for hours. So Riana and I drove up on our own.

Toronto is a much nicer city in summer than in winter. Funky ethnic neighborhoods, tasty samosas, vegan brunch overlooking a sun-dappled street, and a significant population of my favorite people in the world flown in especially for the wedding.

The festivities were probably one of the most well-blogged and photographed events I've ever been to.

There was a barbecue with a (rented!) inflatable hot tub that soon enough was overflowing with people.

There was a late-night concert by a group called The Legendary Pink Dots, and we stood right below the stage and the saxophonist/flutist/electronic bagpipe player made fun of my yawns. (I had been up for probably 40 hours outside of a nap in the airport.)

I ended up staying across from "Filmores Hotel", a strip club offering "1981 prices 2006 service" as well as an open wireless network.

The ceremony itself was sweet, a cozy non-religious affair with original vows, video-game music, a brown sari-like bridal gown from Firefly the TV show, home-made bridal party costumes, and best man and bridesmaid speeches that referenced Livejournal. Before I took this picture, I accused Paul of blogging the ceremony. (He was actually doing the music.)

On the drive back to Buffalo, we stopped at Niagara falls, making this the second huge American tourist attraction that I've seen in the past month.

Yup, it's big.

We paid to don silly yellow ponchos and walk through the tunnels they've dug behind the falls.

Apparently the falls used to erode several feet a year, and they've slowed that to inches by diverting up to 90% of the water at night through power plants.

I spent the night in New Jersey, and then I flew to Copenhagen.