Montreal, Part One

I arrived at Penn Station early.  My travel anxiety seems to grow ever more intense the older I get, which continues to baffle me. Once I’m in motion, I’m fine, but that irrational fear of missing a bus or a train or a plane throws my stomach into chaos.  The one thing that seems to calm me is Dramamine which either knocks me out in minutes or makes me float along in a haze.  Too soon for that.

I found a ticket kiosk and scanned my print-out to pick up my tickets.  No reservation.  I used my credit card to check in.  No reservation.  Stomach in knots, I got in line.  I had waited too long for a real vacation and was not getting left behind in New York.  When I reached the front of the line and the bell dinged for me to go, the man behind me said “Go ahead brother” as if he were allowing me to go ahead of him.  I say “behind” when really he hovered just off to the side of me the entire time, as if recognizing the line were somehow beneath him.  This is not the first time I’ve noticed this, though.  The concept of a single file line seems to be difficult for certain people in NYC.  I’ve often wondered if it’s some sort of middle finger to the man.  I just find it poor manners.

The sales rep disappeared for a good fifteen minutes before she returned and said they straightened things out.  “What was wrong?”  “Your ticket was already marked as picked up.”  I spent the rest of the train ride afraid I’d run into my doppelgänger.

When I checked in with Canadian Customs I overheard them discussing our gate which had yet to show on the board.  They whispered to us that we’d be at Gate 7, so I thanked the delay with my tickets in allowing me the perfect timing to be third in line at the gate.  We waited.  A woman approached the gate official asking for help with her train.  “You need to check the board.”  The woman left.  Returned and asked again.  “M’am you have to check the board.”  “Why can’t you just tell me?!” the woman whined, stamping her stilletoed heel and bursting into tears.  “M’am I can’t see the board from here.” The nearby police officer’s rotweiler starting barking at her.  “Lady, are you going to stand there and cry and miss your train, or are you going to check the board?” he asked, trying to calm down his dog.  “Where are you going?  You need to go to Gate 12.”  The dog barking the entire time.

I popped that Dramamine as soon as we got on the train and passed out for a few hours.  But when I woke, and after a snack from the snack car, I found fall outside my window:

All this work I brought with me, books and comic books to read, a movie to watch, and I just sat transfixed:

I already felt the tension of recent weeks releasing as the bright yellows and oranges and reds played against the blue sky.

Somewhere around Albany they opened the “Great Dome” car, a special edition during the fall foliage season so passengers can get a better view of the colorful landscape.

I hung out in the dome car during part of the 50-mile trek along Lake Champlain.

The route goes up the Hudson Valley through wine country and through the Adirondack Mountains.  I think many of my dome car photos are from the Ticonderoga vicinity.

It’s a long train ride (almost 11 hours!) but I didn’t notice it.  Since I slept for those first few hours and had ample leg room and a reclining seat, I was quite comfortable.  The longest hold up was at the border as Customs officials made their way through the train.  There was an old Indian man in a heavy long coat and a scarf wrapped around his head who got up to get something from his luggage and the Customs guy said “M’am, please return to your seat.”  They gave him a hard time for a while.  And the Goth gay kid next to him who spent too much money on clothes in the States and had to pay taxes in the office off the train.  Though I kind of loved the old Indian guy and the Goth gay kid by the end of the trip as they sat huddled over a laptop watching clips of Bollywood dance sequences.  The longest hang-up was a couple from Staten Island on the other side of the aisle who had issues with their passports.  I suspect they were either expired, or in that few month period before they expire when Americans are not allowed to travel.  “What would you do if we told you you had to exit the train with us and we’d put you on a car back to New York?” the one official asked.  The husband bristled and got all indignant.  The wife hissed at him that he was causing a scene in front of all these strangers.  They eventually left and we moved on without them, and it significantly distracted the Customs official who checked my passport, much to my relief.  I always get so nervous with Customs officials, nervous that they’ll see I’m nervous and suspect me of being guilty of something even though I haven’t done anything.

My friend Michael Ernest Sweet met me at the airport and we cabbed back to my hotel, the Armor Manoir Sherbrooke, which was right across the street from his apartment.

A nice man with no left hand checked me in and I deposited my luggage in my room.  The hotel is two old mansions stitched together, and my hallway was long and tall and narrow, all wood-paneling.  The whole place felt like something out of a movie set.

I particularly loved this crazy corner closet with three hangers inside.

Michael and I had a light dinner at his place, caught up on the past few months, and plotted out my adventures for the next day before I turned in for the night.

Coming up…Saint Laurent and the Plateau, Toi & Moi, Clubbing.