Journal: Leaving Vancouver

November 2005

Sunday, 2oth. As it does, Sunday rolls around. I sleep until after 11:00, then call down to say I'm leaving. Quick coffee with quiet Sunday TV. Gray sky over the nondescript high-rise and the backs of other buildings that comprise the view from this room. Nevertheless, it was snug. Dress and pack it up. They are unable to help me book a room at the Howard Johnson's in Toronto, no connection to them--franchise rivalry. The bus service had just resumed on Grandville after Santa's Parade downtown. I ride the bus down to Skytrain and off toward the train station. Little kids in antlers are in evidence. I can see floats and costumed people dispersing on surface streets below.
It's easy to hop off and cross a park to the Pacific Central station looking great, it's neo-classical colonnades softened by the persistent fog. People tells me fog like this is very unusual here, but that it is keeping the temperatures mild.
At the ticket window I must get the actual tickets for VIA the Canadian railway for the next leg of my trip. Amtrak issues the travel pass with VIA, then they only issue tickets for travel in the US. It's all booked but nothing is ever certain until a ticket is in hand. The agent starts the process and will have my tickets for Toronto and for Montreal for me this evening.
Naively, I ask the lady if she is French-Canadian after she speaks a little. She gets almost haughty in her European umbrage. Even tries a lame line about American accents with her co-worker. Of course, here I was getting a ticket for coach for three days so I had no additional costs. It was let's say the opposite of the "hey, big spender" treatment.
The option for privacy was always there and that came with the otherwise expensive dining car meals at no added charge. The booking agent said, "just tell the conductor," to change to a private car and hand over the cost.
Yet I am slightly concerned at what my hotels will end-up costing, and uncertain of the expenses to be incurred in Massachusetts. I was willing to take my chances in coach and catch up on sleep when stationary. With a companion I would really enjoy a private space, but alone it's too isolating to endure for days. I have enough solitude day to day at home.
So, I stay cool and her feathers smooth. I pay a small fee and she holds my big shoulder bag until train time tonight. Off I go for the day.
A request for spare change as I cross the park leads to a lively conversation with a young Canuck. I give him some coins and he says "I'd offer you some pot but you don't look like you smoke it." So I linger for more BC cannabis lore from him with his friend listening and agreeing. He is too talkative for me, and wanders onto US criticism. Now I hear my Skytrain coming.

And it's a short hop to my intended stop on the Skytrain loop. My third visit to Commercial street is so I can hit Sweet Cherubim, the natural foods place, for a meal and for provisions for the railroad.
Once I'm there, a lot of people collect at the #20 bus stop due to slow Sunday service and Santa's Parade. While waiting I strike up an acquaintance with a gal around my age named Phoenix. She is eager to help me get sorted out, even with regards moving to Vancouver when I mention it. She advises me against a bus tour of Stanley Park particularly with the visibility reduced by the fog. The bus comes and we board together. We are both heading for the same stop and some organic food. She suggests alternate ways for me to spend my afternoon but doesn't influence my plans-- there isn't time to do very much.
I order at the cafe and find an amiable middle-aged English guy sits with me. He notices me re-read sign and wonder where my chapati was (it's not included in my deal), so he insists on sharing his with me. Talk of Vancouver as a place to live comes round to the current US war climate again. I give him food for thought when I reply that I would not put past the present administration to green-light a terrorist attack. Phoenix, finished shopping, comes by to say good-bye. Smile and the world smiles back.
Same nice girl at the counter as last time, I notice the delicate pigment of her breasts. Then it's next door for a grub to travel on. Apples, dried cranberries, flat bread, locally-made organic chocolate. Little did I realize even at these prices I might have purchased much more to cover long days in cold weather with only expensive rail car prices and furtive train-stop foraging. The shops have an ambiance familiar to me and a minute later I'm in conversation with another, younger guy. I tell him that I've met a little anti-American feeling in Canada, mainly the guy at the greasy spoon in Gastown. I say, the guy moved to Canada a few years ago and is trying to make me feel unwelcome. My ancestors were in French Canada in the 18th Century. "So?" says my new acquaintance. "So fuck him," I say to what seems a general concurrence. This group already nodded familiarly when they heard I was from the SF Bay area. We live along the same Pacific coast natural food, anti-war, pot-smoking migratory path.







I make up my mind and it's back to Skytrain to ride it all the way down to the waterfront again. This time I bear left at Water street and soon come to the impressive Canada Place complex. It is the immense white building with fin-like turrets that resemble sails on a great ship. A goofy polar bear statue outside speaks to the goofy Canadian charm in general. I walk around to the starboard side to a remote bench to sit and have a smoke. The quiet ambiance is welcome-- I sense the water and land mass out there in the fog. Ferry boats come and go into it from this center. Construction goes on just up the coastline--I think it's for a twin building to augment this one. It's colder out than I'm used to but my outdoor clothes keep it viable.
There is an I-Max theater and other popular magnets inside, but I prefer to stay with the elements a while. I proceed to the best vantage points on the "prow" where I study the city and waterfront and exercise a little. People join me but rarely last long without enough warm gear.
Iuse my map to sit on the wet bench for some time but it is not very long before I retreat inside myself. Screens play industrial shipping scenes to scant attention. I use the nice restroom then go inside a sweet little coffee shop by the view. I put lots of cream and cocoa in the ample coffee I'm served then sit and start this journal. This is my last stop in Vancouver before making my way to the train station so I relax over the breew. a table of mature Hindu gentlemen ask my advice as to what size coffee to get. I show them my huge "regular." I'm a citizen of the world at home wherever I am, including this place for an hour or so.
At 4:30 I leave Canada place for the Skytrain and find myself at the train station again fast. In the dreary shops across the park I find some cheddar cheese for the road. A video crew is filming the red incandescent station sign in the evening fog. I try a photo too then head into the station where the same two gals ticket me and return my bag to me intact. Very sleepy after herb and coffee with heavy cream. I wait on the departure bench concerned that I could be coming down with a cold.
There is a currency exchange window across from me. Two First nation boys come there with US dollars, followed by their Grandma. I suggest that she sit with me and "let the boy wait in line." They concur. I chat with her and learn that they are from Oregon visiting relatives in Canada for the holidays, Thanksgiving included. Before they go I say to the older boy, "I should have said young man." We shake hands and smiles are all around.
Then the time comes for the boarding call and I hurry off with the small crowd that have collected with me, to board the "Canadian". For coach passengers like myself, it's a long haul along side the train in the dusky light all the way to a front car. A sort of race ensues which is odd because most have assigned rooms and don't go very far to reach them. I get an optimal seat with a nice expanse of uninterrupted window. But I almost changed it after a fuss-budget across the aisle looks like he might make me less restful on the long journey. But he settles down and I do too. The big gal takes my ticket and puts a tag over my seat showing I'm in for the whole trip to Toronto. The conductors, there's also a nice blond mustachioed fellow, get fairly well-acquainted with the passengers over the long night traversing vast unseen landscapes. It's an attractive train cabin interior and they arrange for us long-haul types to maintain two seats unchallenged attaching a stub above our seats.
The word was that the "Canadian" leaves Vancouver at night because many passengers become frightened if they can see the precipitous voids dropping away only a few feet from the tracks. You have to take the "Skeena" to Prince Rupert to see this route by daylight. I hope to ride it someday.
And then, after a long slow coast out of the yards, off we went into the vast darkness, one November night in the Rocky mountains of Western Canada.