Marcus, Niko and I had one last day in Paris, and I think it’s safe to say we made the most of it. We met up with the Bruxelles guys and wandered around Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where such famous people as Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, and Gertrude Stein are buried. We visited Chopin, Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison (we’re in rock bands, it’s sort of a requirement, I guess).

As we meandered around the cemetery, we faced the slow dawning realization that we were going to have to say goodbye to Bruxelles very soon… this was it, the end of the three weeks, no getting away from it. We lingered for a while chatting with Thomas, Jimmy, Raphael, Kevin and Arnaud, then demanded Canadian-style hugs as well as the usual French-style kiss-on-each-cheek thing.

Before we started the tour, I had wondered how the different languages would play out, how we’d manage to communicate. The guys and their friends all have varying levels of English and our own French was fairly hit & miss. But it was fascinating to me how we’d all manage to bridge the gap. We found that if we weren’t sure about a French word, we could often say the English word with a French inflection and it would be pretty close. And many English words have been ported into French as well. We did get stuck from time to time, but usually we figured it out - if need be, with the help of an iPhone translator app.

(Of course we compared swear words in each others’ languages and learned some creative new expressions. And also learned some important things NOT to say - for example, while you can say “she’s good” in English to mean “she’s doing well” or “she is good at what she does", saying “elle est bon” in French is about as crude as catcalling at a woman and saying “I’d hit that"!)

After we said our goodbyes, we hopped on the Metro to meet up with our friend Sylvie near the Arc de Triomphe, and joined the hordes of people on the famous Avenue des Champs-Elysées, watching in disbelief as tourists lined up around the block to visit the Gucci store or whatever. We went for tea at a nearby cafe, and avoided ordering the €22 cheeseburger (?!). We got out of there and Sylvie showed us around some nice areas away from the touristy parts of Paris. We eventually picked a random reasonably-priced French restaurant in the 13th district for a great dinner & chat. I had one of the most amazing meals of the trip, a pintade aux choux (guinea fowl with cabbage) with incredible flavours, accompanied by a glass of Bordeaux. A fantastic final meal in France.

It turns out we’re actually quite lucky we left France when we did. Our flight left early Monday morning, and the country was due for a general strike - and possible petrol shortage - on Tuesday. We had no problems, but noticed long, long lines of cars waiting to tank up at the stations on the way out. A few days later we heard the roads to the airport were being blocked, so who knows what would have happened. Still… another few days of croissants and cheese wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. I’d have gone back for another pintade, I know that for sure.

And that’s it, we’re back, returning to reality in Canada, realizing that life goes on after the tour. Hard to believe it’s done - most of a year’s planning went into this, and it very nearly didn’t happen at all - but we did it! And we’ve got some fantastic new friends, memories, inspiration, ideas and plans to show for it.

Our next show will be our tour return party, on Friday, November 19 at the Railway Club in Vancouver, along with The Gentle Infidels, Stride Elementary, and David Blair. We hope you’ll come celebrate with us!

Huge thanks to everyone in France who put us up at their place, fed us, interpreted our broken French, pointed us in the right direction, loaned us things, came to a show, told their friends about us, and shared their lives with us.

Huge thanks to everyone in Canada who encouraged and supported us, gave us leads and suggestions, contributed to our tour kickoff, came to shows and told their friends.

See you soon!