Landing in Heathrow I took the tube to
Mark’s work which is in downtown London (inside the square mile business district) and dropped off my belongings. It was 10
am London time and I had been awake for 20 hours. I had to last another 7 hours be- fore Mark could take me to his place after he finished work. I spent the day wonder- ing through the streets trying not to pass out. When we got back to Mark’s place in Clapham Common I slept for a grand total of 2 hours and then he woke me up so we could go to the pub for some beers. I have very little memory of that night. London provided me with a good
starting point to just hang out and get my bearings before I had to start being on my own.
Later in the week I was able to play indoors at an American school where my friend Shelley’s teammate Melissa worked as a teacher. Later that night I made the pilgrimage through the rain to see Abbey Road studios where the Beatles recorded all their albums. As a recording engineer that’s like our Mecca. Later that week I found myself on a
train going north up to Edinburgh, Scot- land to visit my good high school friend Pete Miller. My favourite shot in my U.K. movie is the shot taken from the train win- dow at dusk looking out on the Scottish countryside. It was the first time I had had a chance to calmly reflect and think about what lay ahead. I gazed out that window for over 5 hours. That was to be the start of a very long process of my brain untangling itself from the previous 5 years. I spent the week with Pete and his
better half “Fi” in the little town of Lauder. Population - 1100, number of pubs - 4.
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That night I would realize why I don’t live with 7 other guys at home. 2 snored and one other guy had a hacking cough. It was almost comical. The next day I did an 8 hour walk-
ing tour around Paris to see the sites and break in my trekking shoes. If you ever start feeling conceded about anything creative you’ve ever done just spend 10 minutes in Paris and you will soon be humbled. In short it’s the most beautiful city in the world. The Paris movie I made is one of my favourites and it often brings a tear to my eye even today.
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Every pub we went into we were greeted with “Peter this must be your friend from Canada”. I took the bus into Edinburgh ev- eryday to wander through the streets, and go to tourist sites like Edinburgh Castle, The National Gallery, and several grave- yards. On the weekend I went to Edinburgh University where I found a game to play in versus Team Fusion the school’s Open team. We only lost by a couple points and we were playing Coed. After the game a bunch of us went for a beer. 30 minutes later I realized I had to catch my bus or wait another 3 hours for the next one. It was then I realized a very important les- son. I thought it’s a heck of a long way to travel to Scotland just so you can get the early bus home. I was doing this trip to do exactly what I was doing at the pub. Expe- rience new situations and to meet and get to know new people from different cultures blah,blah,blah. As it turned out I barely caught the next bus. Probably because I was drunk. Later I flew from Edinburgh to Paris.
For the first time in my life I got off a plane with nowhere to go. That felt pretty cool.
I then took a train to Rimini, Italy.
Home of the famed Paganello Beach Ulti- mate Tournament. Not only is it the big-
gest tournament in Europe every year (96 teams from 24 countries) but it also fea- tures a world class freestyle event. Check out the Paganello movie if you’ve never seen freestyle you’ll be amazed by what they can do. 7 days of 5 on 5 Beach Ulti- mate and parties with countless friends, nuff said. Also playing at Paganello was my
friend Duro who had moved to Toronto the year before from Bratislava, Slovakia. His girlfriend (soon to be wife) Eva who lived in Prague, Czech Republic was playing with us and she was kind enough to arrange a ride for me to Prague and she also of- fered me her apartment to stay in which she shared with her roommate Lanka who was playing at the tournament as well. We arrived in Prague at 2:30am and Poppy dropped me off at Eva’s and Lanka’s apart- ment. I had beaten Lanka home so I had to go into each of their bedrooms and see which one had a picture of Duro on their night table to figure out which bedroom was Eva’s. I then crashed for about 10 hours.
I spent the week exploring Prague. What a city of music, it is so beautiful. Ev-
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