Travel Day

August 26, 2008

Montreal to Toronto

Travel Day

It is a beautiful ride from Montreal to Toronto on the train! Our group had one and a half cars reserved for our seating and they pre-boarded us prior to general seating. I was the emergency door operator, in case our attendant was disabled… Pull this lever, yank this cord, push this door, set the platform (after making sure there was no water, fire, or other trains). Once again the attendant started yammering at me in French, and I just smile and let them talk until they take a breath and then ‘Non parley-vous Frances.’ right back at them. I will admit I’ve started smirking a tad while doing it. (I’m tired, the novelty of hearing French has worn off, I’m afraid. Although I will say that I am actually starting to understand a bit of it, not to mention Merci rolls off my tongue at the drop of hat).

It is fantastic to be back in Toronto!! I haven’t been in this city in many years, and it is a delight to the senses to be here once more. I just wish we were going to be staying for longer than four days. The vibe is different here than in Montreal. The city is a bit grubbier; the homeless are a lot more aggressive than they were in Montreal or even in NYC. There are a lot of homeless here, or at least I see more of them here. Of course, we are staying in downtown east, in a very touristy area (just 2 blocks from the Eaton Centre) so perhaps they all congregate here, but damn are there a lot of them.

Toronto: home of The Worlds Biggest Bookstore. This is no joke, and I spent 2 hours wandering about inside. D, they have added a dvd section since I was here last. I didn’t buy anything today though. Half of my luggage is locked up in Montreal and I only packed for 4 days and two shows here in Toronto. Luggage restrictions on the train, you see. All good. I was not looking forward to dragging my entire baggage train along with me. I still have no idea when we are going to see our busses, but that is another story for another day. No purchases were made there, as I had gotten a new book that morning, and really don’t have the room to be traveling a library on top of everything else.

The crew is staying at a sweet Suite hotel. I have a mini kitchen and two widescreen HD tv’s in my suite. Again, I wish we were staying longer, or had more time to play but tonight is the only time we have free here in Toronto. Two shows in two days and then back to Montreal for another 2 or 3 shows. I suppose I should really look at my intinerary. It doesn’t matter though… I just know that I’ll be landing back in NYC on the 9^th, and that’s really all I need to know before then. “Be where they tell me be and I’ll be with the group and everything else is pageantry.”

New Venue and New Local Crew tomorrow. We will see how they roll in Toronto. We’ve got an early call tomorrow, so I’m in for the evening. I just can’t gear up to go out. I wandered about for a couple of hours upon arrival, treating myself to Burger King (yah, I won’t eat McDonalds that often, but a whopper with onion rings? I’m down!). It was a treat too. I had two helpings of onion rings, one with bbq sauce dip. Hmmmm I’m sure to be regretting that in an hour or so, but it was so good (the first time).

I’ve got 100 channels of tv but I’m not watching anything. I made a mad dash to TWO bookstores this morning in Montreal before leaving for the depot. The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks was released today. The first store had to send their copies back (I’m told) due to misprinting. Evidently half the text was illegible. Melissa was very helpful though and called a competitors store 3 blocks away to check if they had it in stock, and then I went racing over there to purchase the book and then a mad dash back to the hotel to check out and make it to the train. The good news is I had something interesting to read on the train! The bad news is I lost my latte somewhere in transit, my first and only coffee today. As a result I slept most of the ride here, but that is also OK. I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night and it’s good to catch up. I’m already feeling tired and forecast an early evening tonight.

Which is all for the best, having to be ready to work at 8am tomorrow. I have a coffeepot in my room and cremer, so I’m ready to roll in the morning.

I’ll post this when I get around to it, I have no free internet at this site so I don’t know when I’ll get online to post. It’s been liberating to be mobile free the last 2 weeks. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to call me mid week next week, when I’m back in the States.

February is booking up, at least the 3^rd set of Montreal shows is. BRRRRR I’m cold just thinking about it… We will see if I still love Montreal at 30 below 0…. Hehehe

It’s jammy time (that’s PJ’s) and then I’m going to curl up with a ginger ale and my book, and relax until I drift off to sleep and it’s time to Rock-n-Roll again!

Love and Light to you all!