Canadia:

After an overnight bus journey we cross the border at 9:30AM. Canadian immigration ask us to get off the bus and while they examine our passports and work visas three of the officers inspect the bus. They are always only looking for two things:

1. To see what kind of fancy bus we’re on.
2. To check for any drugs.

The only question I am asked when the three officers get off is. “What movie were you guys all watching?” (Coming back into the US once from Canada about 8 US INS officers got on the bus. Of course, it takes 8 people to inspect a bus. The only way we can get 8 people on our bus is by having people either sit down and watch TV or get into their bunks, so I’m fucked if I know how 8 immigration all fit…)

The guy stamping the passports is friendly and chatty (The Canadian borders have some of the most genteel immigration officers I’ve encountered) and he tells me about what it’s like at the border when the New York Yankees play in Toronto and all the Yankee’s fans cross over. “There’s always a few bad ones,” he says. “But it took me a while to realize that they’re not all trying to be rude. Most Americans say ‘Okay’ when they really mean ‘thank You’. You can’t get mad at them, they don’t know any better.”


After two late nights (which counts as after 3AM in my book) I am in a coma as soon as we leave Toronto. I wake at 7AM as we pull into the Montreal hotel feeling rested and full of beans.

Montreal is a glass of cool water after a few months in the US. The City feels like a town on the French / Swiss border. I love hearing French spoken, I love the variety of cuisines here, I love the clean air and the scenery—even for an isolated Northern City it feels good and actually not quite as creepy as places just as remote in the USA. Maybe it’s something to do with the specific character of the City; namely that it has some.


I spend a lazy afternoon eating lunch at an amazing French Café, wandering around the different neighbourhoods, and eventually running (it’s a very loose description) to the top of Mont Royal. Running along the wooded track felt amazing and even gulping for air wasn’t too bad because the air felt so clean. The view over Quebec and the St Lawrence River from the Mont was spectacular; the isolation of the city apparent in the flat flat landscape surrounding it—the three dark mountains on the Southeastern horizon and aside. There was nothing to see until the sky in every direction I looked.

At the top of the Mont is a cross. It’s about sixty feet high and at night it lights-up. It reminds me of the one in Rio De Janiero. Because it’s among the trees alongside the track it has a kind of spooky presence and somewhere in my reptile-Catholic brain I get a spooky thrill from it. Crosses in forests are pretty eerie. I run down the hill at sunset, amusing myself with a Hammer Horror narrative about escaping the forest before sunset. Later I feast (there is no other word for it) on legendary Portuguese food from a place called Ferreira on Peel Street. I eat for a solid hour. I feel like I’m on vacation. I feel stuffed. I get paid for this, at least today I do.

But the vacation doesn’t last for long – the next day we drive to Ottawa and resume to our tour of strip-malls and concrete stadiums.