Thoughts from a Bilingual Train

As is traditional, I’m abroad and thus have been formulating a “thoughts from a train” post in my head for the last few days. This time it’s a VIA Rail train from Toronto to Ottawa, with a further connection to Montréal. I’m in business class (classe d’affaires), because it wasn’t that much more expensive and I’m just fancy like that.

This trip is in two distinct blocks in two countries: the wedding trip to the Brown County State Park in Indiana, and the subsequent Canadian holiday. The wedding was great, once I’d relaxed and recovered from the stress of travel and plans not quite working out as they’d been formulated. Everyone was, by and large, very kind and thrilled that I’d made the journey - in spite of the fact I hadn’t come nearly as far as the groom’s family who had come over from Bengal with a suitcase full of wedding favours. It was also interesting to see how the structure of the wedding ceremony was familiar to that in England, but with omissions and additions both to allow for Indian cultural nods (without it taking five days) and as a result of almost 250 years of cultural drift. It was also nice to meet people again that I had on my last trip to the US, and to get to know more people with similar but very different experiences.

Air Canada threw a massive spanner into the travel arrangements by cancelling my direct flight from Indianapolis to Toronto. This meant an overall 12 hour delay, an extra flight to New York LaGuardia airport and an extra airline in my itinerary. It also had the most ridiculous comedy of errors at LaGuardia where the onwards flight was delayed, then delayed more, then delayed even more, then less delayed. We queued up to board, half went through, and then came back and we had to wait again. The reasons given: bad weather in Toronto, not borne out by any weather agency, and a mislaid flight attendant. Apparently this was entirely a miscommunication. Tangentially, flying United Airlines is ruined by a well-ingrained earworm, even if my itinerary had nothing to do with that in the song.

I flew United Airlines
On my way to Nebraska
The plane departed Halifax
Connecting in Chicago’s O’Hare.

While on the ground the passenger
Said from the seat behind me,
“My God, they’re throwing guitars out there!”

“United Breaks Guitars” by Dave Carroll

I like Toronto. I still don’t think I could live there - it’s too busy and loud for my liking, but to visit it has things going for it. I still haven’t been up the CN tower because after the day’s flying the day before I couldn’t face the queuing. Instead I walked around, along the harbourfront, onto a ferry, and over to the islands. I walked 22000 steps.

On the islands, there is “Hanlan’s Point”. It’s the home of central Canada’s LGBTQ2S+ rights movement - the location of the first Toronto Pride, a summer community village forcibly cleared in the 1980s and now a huge clothing optional beach with the full support of the local council. The islands are an oasis of (relative) calm reachable from the high-rise chaos of downtown - or at least it would be if Billy Bishop Airport weren’t right next to it.

Yesterday was the reason for the trip back - finally going to Niagara Falls. It was largely as I expected:

Falls

Incredible, you can’t prepare for how the mist makes especially the Canadian side actively hard to see. Also great was the white water walk, which is along a stretch of rapids that eventually form to a whirlpool.

Surrounding tourist area

Tourist trap hell. How do you organise a system in which all of your attractions have timed entry and still have queues which take an hour to clear? Even with the current exchange rate, roughly 1.75 CAD to the pound, food was expensive and lacking, as was information about what each of the attractions are.

Yes, I had forgotten my water bottle and the snacks I’d bought to make it easier to last, but after four hours I was ready to leave. I really don’t think I’m cut out for sightseeing. I’ve felt for years that I’m not sure why I want to travel. Is it visiting the human structures - the cities, the railways, seeing how things are done elsewhere - or to see parts of the world where there’s fundamentally something different in the land. I’m always somewhat underwhelmed by both, and I’m concerned that this is a symptom of increasing disassociation.

The plan from here is three days in Montréal, to have The Good Poutine and to see some of the places mentioned in the Temperance Brennan novels (of which there are now 23) because I’m still, for some reason, reading them. Hopefully the trip home will be less dramatic than the intermediate flights.