11 July

Waking up disorientated … I swear my bed is moving. Then I remember – I’m on a train, and trains tend to move.

It’s 5am … I lift the curtain, to find sunrise presenting itself in and around the scenery we’re speeding through.

I have to wait another few hours for a hot meal to start the day – Mom’s scambled eggs – out of the freezer and into the frying pan.

A contemplation of last night’s visitation, in a stand-up conversation with Julie from Montreal (daughter nearby, nearly bored).

In live scenes broadcast through my cabin window, Canadian countryside – trees, lakes – into Montreal for the changeover, the next train along going to Toronto.

This is business class, with no business but tourism. And a crying baby.

Just for this, a drink is needed, at 11am.

By lunchtime, airline meals are being thrown around. My baked hake, line-caught from a microwave, only this morning; asparagus spring-fresh, sprung from the freezer.

Regardless, it’s tasty stuff, this.

When the train gets slower and the graffiti gets louder, a city beckons.

A hot city, a busy city, a rush hour city – permanently.

I’ll drag my personal effects several blocks if it kills me … which it nearly does in the late-afternoon heat with a wobbly wheel on my pull-along luggage.

Looked on morbidly by the skyscrapers and a concrete pillar, narrowing.

At my hotel, I request a room with a view, because sometimes you might just get what you ask for.

I end up on the 17th floor, with a moderately good view of the streets down below, and the CN Tower a few blocks away. Yes, this’ll do, I figure.

The streets in miniature below, landed with the aid of a set square, by the turquoise swimming pool.

I’m going to Richmond Station to mix it with these people.

A pig – the belly, the fillet, the sausage; various ridiculous sauces, fennel, lettuce.

My dessert is approved by Arthy from Toronto, sat opposite, who has good taste and good looks.

Between us, we manage a few smiles and some banter out of our other random dining companion, Matheus from Germany, as we take evening communion on our communal high table.

Arthy works around the corner and has never been here before. Matheus lives in Germany and yet this is his third visit to this restaurant.

I’d go figure, but I’d sooner be face down in a delicately-constructed dessert pile which can only be deconstructed in long drawn-out actions.

Earl Grey jelly, shortcake, ice cream, sauce, another sauce … concepts I’ve never had to previously involve or associate myself with.

All of my dishes have been personally introduced to me by a different server, just so I can be sure that this is not fast food, more of a once-a-year meal.

As is the bill, a birthday celebration for somebody.

I walk back through city streets, the neon lights of the tower almost guiding me.

The 17th floor of my hotel presents a view of the concrete helter-skelter, now with added flashing lights.

Summer people splash around, down below, at 11pm.