Installment #5

Good morning all from my nation's capital, the installment, which was intended to only have part of Canada and some of the east coast will be Canada only because of the intensity of my experience and the length with which I stayed. What started as a three day jaunt to Toronto became a week heading further east into Montreal and Quebec City but the story starts somewhere near the US-Canadian border by Detroit, Michigan....

Met two deadhead kids who hopped on the train for an hour to East Lansing, Michigan to catch another Phil Lesh show. They were interesting and fun to talk to because their travelling experiences were more barren and struggling, but they didn't mind. They casually told me of sleeping under a bridge the night before because they missed their bus and when we exchanged items to help remember each other, Bonnie gave me a dead sticker which adorns the journal and Dustin gave me a tablet of iodine pills so I could drink any water except sulfur water. He told me he had used them while hiking forty-five days in the Utah desert, even going fifteen days without seeing a human soul, before leaving a jug of water in the center of the Valley of the Gods. "I've seen most of Mexico, Canada and the lower Forty-Eight States," he said, "and that was in the last year alone, and now I'm ready to settle down, get a house, and a garden." He was twenty years old.

Toronto-- pulled into the beautiful train station a little after midnight and when I walked outside, I could not be ready for the cold. I immediately thought I would never have enough clothes for this and the wind bit and stung through the crevices where seams were not strong enough to maintain my strength. Walked three freezing blocks (it's all right Linda) down a beautiful downtown area, clean and safe and COLD until I found the apartment complex of my relatives' relatives, whatever that means. I only met the wife/mother and she set me up in a comfortable bed on the couch, complete with wire-eating cats and other furlines named Elvis. In the morning I went out to explore and ate at a place called C'est What where I met Adrian and Cicely. I don't know what to say but they caused me to make my first major deviation from "Jason's Plan." and I can't thank them enough. "You septic tank yank," Adrian says, and looked for his sister to help sell me on Montreal, "you can't be this close to Montreal and not see it." The thought was exciting; people were proud of a city and I hadn't really felt that quite yet, people happy to live somewhere or something like that but not making fun of me for not having planned on seeing. Cicely invited to hang out with me a night in Montreal but first at Adrian's insistence I met him for a beer after work at five pm. And another. And another. And another. And another, and all from different countries, countries and breweries that all made of the US and their 'wimpy brewing habits'. Needless to say I was not in the right frame of mind to meet a new family in my life but at least I had the sensibility to pick up some flowers on the way there. What a great family, husband and wife and twelve (going on thirteen year old daughter). They made me feel so comfortable so right away that I can never repay except say thanks again. I fell asleep early that night (big surprise, eh?) The next day I did some exploring, and say Linda's work, the Toronto Star, the city's main newspaper. Overlooking Lake Ontario (did anyone else know that there are islands in the Great Lakes), I asked her if it would be all right if Lauren went to Niagara Falls with me because I wanted to see it but wanted to make Montreal and I thought it would be a good way to get who I now consider my cousin. Linda was all for it and after lunch she dropped me in the Chinatown/Trading post area of Toronto on Spadina Street where I bought a bunch of junk for cheap and then cruised around a corner which was Kensington Market. Dried fruits, and nuts and a plethora of meats and fishes hovered as smells through the thin, wildly colored street. People parked as if an earthquake had shifted their car and stood jagged. Niagara Falls the next day was great, complete with driving a hundred (kilometers an hour you Americans!!!) and then feeling the mist of waterfalls over a hundred yards away. It is the mist that made it all worth it for me because as a writer you strive for learning the little details that help "prove" that you were there, that you know and it's the mist that for me proves I know Niagara Falls. Went to a great bar that night, the Reservoir Lounge to hear a great five piece jazz band playing swing tunes, dug it. The next morning I headed further east.

Montreal -- my first unexpected stop, I was so happy to make it and a little nervous because I was hearing things about Quebec and their lack of English. Everything was dual for awhile, the train attendants explaining everything in French, and then English but I tried my French (Chris, thanks for the phrase book, if nothing else, the laughter my poor French elicited made it all worth it). The hostel was night, the biggest one I have seen but leaps and bounds better than Chicago. There was even a bar down in the basement. Went to a bar called Grumpy's who had some of the funnest, happiest people in there, including a couple from New York, a glass blower and a cigar maker and the traditional roles are switched in terms of who did what. They gave me a cigar I'm gonna try and get back for the new year. I slept shitty that night, no way around it. A guy snored with such vigor that my earplugs merely vibrated the sound of his nose, not eliminated it. I awoke really early and found I had time to go to Quebec. I grabbed all of my things frantically and left without even brushing my teeth, scurrying to the 'gare centrale' to head further east and that's where I went. The train left at 8:20 am and I was there three hours later....

Quebec -- I showered at the hostel and realized I had one to do a lot so here's what happened: met two girls who I quickly separated from because the cute one was mad/frustrated I did not speak French and she certainly did not speak English, and walked half hunched over in the freezing cold to the top of the hill, and towards Old Quebec via around the fort, down the 200 stairs that led to the Boulevard Champlain. Walked along the St. Lawrence River for a half hour and took the ferry across the river to get a good look at the old city, unbelievable. I've never been to Europe and many people said that this was as close to Europe as you get as I found walking through the cobbled and oddly angled streets of the small area. Most people spoke only a little English and I went many hours with barely saying anything. Ate at a small cafe where I had bread and soup for the equivalient of 2.50 American dollars and it was perfect. I finally understood a little the feeling of sitting in a French cafe and watching people walk down the narrow streets to leave the cold, and cool French men who smoked cigarettes over the vat of soup that the girl ladled my meal from. I've never seen a man smoke like he valued good and evil with each inhale but then I left, seeking refuge in the Cathedral du Notre Dame when the wind and "snow" became too much for me to take. I hadn't seen true baroque architecture in awhile and it was humbling, seeing the golden arches (no, not McDonalds) above Jesus and the sixteen stained glass sculptures that hung ominously near the ceiling and the ceiling had sky murals with soft clouds that gave one the impression of looking up into a beautiful day. Finally found people that could speak English and talked too much for two hours before heading to the Casse-Crepe Breton. Had a fabulous crepe made of tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach and I sat at the small bar so I could watch them make my food. Every girl that worked there was cute in a different French way but only one or two knew enough English that we spoke. NOTE: I am fully aware that I did not speak THEIR language, not the other way around, but that is how it comes out sometimes...anyways.....One kept feeding me "red" beers, and not the kind in Montana until I could not drink anymore and she suggested I meet her at a bar at 12:30. I went home and met my hostelmate, a nice chap from Guadalara, Mexico before getting dressed again and braving the cold. I'm from Southern California, ok!!!!! When I got there, they had a two for one special and she showed up fifteen minutes later with a huge pile of clothes in her arms whereby she proceded to tell me she found them in the trash. She thought that maybe a boyfriend and girlfriend had gotten into a fight and one threw the other's clothes in the trash. I didn't inquire how she might have guessed how the clothes got there but regardless I tried on one sweater and that is with me now, my great memory from Quebec City, and the cold walk down the hill with Alejandro as we made a friendship before I left (good luck in Ottawa). Now back to Montreal, my first time east in a month.

Montreal -- walked around the Old Montreal area which did not compare to Quebec City but was still nice and I walked through the two block Chinatown area, buying some preserved plums before meeting Catherine. I asked her to take a picture of me in front of an Army Surplus store that had a female mannequin dressed with some camo's on. In turn she was working on a photography assignment and needed a "model" to help her so we spent a half hour with her getting shots of me with the mannequin touching her in places that if the tall Asian looking mannequin had real blood flowing through her would have been quite offended. We then had a cup of coffee, Catherine and I, not the mannequin. It was my first "cup of coffee" with someone on the trip and it was a nice experience. It was her birthday and I sang to her in the cafe where it echoed awkwardly but a song needs to be finished. Met Cicely a couple hours later after a very cold and "sobering" walk of twenty minutes in the Montreal dark. She took me out to an Indian type restaurant and the food was fantastic, and the soup burned my mouth, made my forehead run and my nose sweat, or was it the other way around? We sat on pillows and lounging angles and had the most charming conversation over litres of Sangria. I hadn't been so happy on the trip. I would have never found out about the place except a local showed; it was imperfect only because it was real. We then went to a jazz bar where a student band of fourteen pieces practiced to about seven or eight patrons. We had amaretto's neat (C, thanks for the culturing) and then walked to a martini bar and sat in plush seats in devlish red lighting talking about past experiences and how they would become our future again but mutated, better and worse because it would be the future. I tried to get sleep earlier that night but a hostelmate came in around midnight and started telling the funniest stories of getting Bulgarian soldiers to get a picture of him on the ground with one of the soldiers having a foot on the back of his head and him handing money up to them, and how a shitty hostel in France had an unfair curfew. People kept getting locked out and the few nights he was there people would throw matresses out the second story window to the meadow behind the hostel where tired travellers waited for their beds to fall from the sky. What a great way to end my week in Canada.

again as always, please pick someone to write on your little list, make friends, the world can be as big as we want. did you read a story yet?

www.geocities.com/jasonconga has some short stories and my old installments so you can see where I've been(thanks Ravi). Let me know what ya think, write in my guestbook, let me hear you. Peace all, be good or be nice at least. au revoir (ok, so I learned a little French, EH?)

Jason