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| - I used to travel a lot to Canada for work. Toronto, save a few corners near Bloor, is my least favorite place in Canada. It's like the Chicago of Canada. The first night of the first time I visited Toronto, I ended up at the Green Room for drinks. The Green Room is responsible for me returning to Toronto. I say responsible, because there's apparently a no drinking and snogging rule in the Green Room -- the ramifications being all but forced out into the shockingly cold snow after three rounds of tequila. Or was it five? And for that chilling service, five stars and a god bless.
Let me back up. I went to college in Hanover, New Hampshire. Our mascot was absurdly named, "The Big Green." Green what? Green nothing. Just big and green. The school is famous for its fraternities. (Animal House was about our school.) Having lived most of my freshman year in the basements of Alpha Theta and Phi Tau, full of sturm und drang and free rum cokes, I'll tell you, the Green Room is the epitome of frat house party in all but actuality.
Wine, women, and a jukebox, if my memory has not failed me. Odd, unmatched couches, tables, and chairs are scattered about without rhyme or reason -- or taste. A song plays by the fireplaces and the pool tables above and below. The place is packed to the gills with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed college kids wet behind the ears. The urge to huddle away from home must be an innate defense mechanism in cold climes. They're draped along the walls or sprawled around the room like patients etherised upon a table, while alcohol fairies flit from patron to patron at a drunkard's pace.
My recommendation: come with company on an absolutely frozen night. Toss a coin and a prayer to the Parking Gods and find respite for your cold seats in a warm, plush couch in the darkest corner of the Green Room. Flag down a waitress and order shots of liquor, and lots of it. I assure you, the rest will be written in history.
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