Kingston

I hoped to reach Kingston. Toronto would have been nice but it was just too far. Besides I remembered Kingston as a mellow place. I bought a breakfast from the hostel and set out to tour the town before driving off. There was a nice harbourfront plaza, with some gulls hanging around for food. I think that gulls, with pigeons and sparrows, may be the few birds left when all the other species have become extinct. Near the City Hall were sign boards about the history of the town. It seemed the harbourfront had gone through various stages, including one incarnation with a boardwalk.

Trois Rivières had some urban decay but was undergoing renewal. The difference between urban decay in Europe and US is that in Europe urban renewal tends to maintain the spirit of a neighbourhood while in the US, the spirit is generally destroyed and interesting architecture replaced by ugly, modern buildings. My friend J told me the tale of the late great Penn Station in New York. But that is another story.

It was sunny, in contrast to the overcast weather I had been having the past few days. I really didn't wish for the sun because hot weather just made me sleepy, which was a disadvantage for driving. Along the McDonald-Cartier highway I saw a flock of Canadian geese in a pond, probably resting before going south. I saw lots of popup trailers. I thought those gadgets were amusing. I half expected to push a button and have a whole house spring out of the contraption.

I reached Kingston well ahead of hostel opening time and killed some time looking around the neighbourhood. The hostel was located right in the middle of collegetown for Queens University. The last time I was here I met an albino cat with pink and blue eyes at the laundrette. I wondered if that cat was still around. It was the start of a new academic year and students were busy moving into the houses. Many of the houses had seen better days. Backyards were littered with old appliances and beer bottles. A bohemian neighbourhood. I met a cat resting in a doorway but it was not the one I remembered. I played with it for a while and when the owner came out to look, I exchanged some pleasantries with him.

Kingston hostel was very popular and was booked out for the evening. The warden, a nice elderly lady, was very nice about it and even asked me to read the confusing reservation letter from a Frenchman to see if I could make more sense of it than she could. It seems the writer wanted a bed for Saturday but had written Sunday's date. When nobody turned up by 6 pm, she let me have his bed with a clear conscience. The warden was one of those elderly people who enjoyed having company and young people to fuss over. While I sat there waiting she handled requests ranging from money changing to calling a cab.

While sitting there waiting, I struck up a conversation with three French travellers, a boy and two girls. The girls, N and M, spoke good English, but with a marked Manchester accent because they had worked there for a year. P's English was poorer but better than my French. He was very talkative and was constantly trying to tell me one thing or another. He talked about music, hobbies and sport. Yes he saw Au Revoir Les Enfants, but felt that the war memories shouldn't be dug up, for the sake of European unity and 1992. The girls teased P all the time, but he was quite good-natured about that. N was slender while M was plump. Both girls were short. P was tall and beefy and exuded good-nature. We found an terrace restaurant called the Firehouse, overlooking the channel, for dinner. I ordered some wings and quite good they were too.

Kingston was a strange town. When you enter from the east you drive through very working class neighbourhoods. But there were fancy retirement condos and communities to the west. My colleague, who studied at Kingston, told me there was a Canadian forces base and a maximum security prison near Kingston.

Later that evening, I accompanied a group of English girls to the Toucan club, which advertised live blues music. The blues singer sounded more like an Irish folk singer but the beer was good. The girls had come to the US for a girl scout training camp and were on their way home. L was taking legal studies in university and hoped to be a barrister some day. There was a German girl and an Irish girl too in the group. The French turned up for a short while later. We got back just in time to beat the midnight curfew.