cutting through ugliness

A couple days ago, we started making our way east. Toronto was the US. Never mind what the Canadians say, Ontario is just another state, and Toronto could be anywhere. Tall buildings, lots of traffic and few people in the streets – even with the best peameal bacon sandwiches that's nothing to get excited about. We were happy to leave.

Halfway between Toronto and Montreal, though not exactly on the border dividing the anglophone Ontario from the francophone Quebec, is Kingston. We spent a night there because the town was massively advertised in the Rough Guide and a labmate of ours had promised to meet us for dinner. She had gone to college at Queen's University and was happy to visit friends and ex-colleagues after four years of London. We had read about eclectic, historic architecture and cruises to a thousand islands, and were eager to check things out.

Kingston is a college town. There's one main drag that's full of bars and restaurants, but all is deserted in summer. The students have gone home and hicks rule the town. The only people at the university that are around are the internationals that don't have enough money to fly home or those with a job over the summer. This is not the kind you would find in a bar. And regarding the highly praised architecture, we didn't really see what all the fuzz was about. There were a few buildings, and that was about it.

From Kingston we went to Montreal. The only thing that impeded our progress was the city of Cornwall. One of my travel mates was born in Cornwall, England, and was adamant about seeing the region's namesake in Canada. It wasn't worth the stop. Remington's pub gave us a good lunch and the bridge from the US was certainly worth a look (and I'll be very excited crossing it when I return from Lake Placid, New York, to Canada in a week and a bit), but besides that, there was nothing. Just like Soda Springs, Idaho, Cornwall, Ontario, is a place where you wonder how it survives. There is nothing there and no reason for anyone to live there. The drive along the St. Lawrence river was lovely, but where is economic viability?

About an hour after Cornwall, we entered the gravity field of Montreal. For all Quebec is praised, for all Quebec prides itself in its difference, the approach was more disappointing that I could put in words. The wide highway cut though seas of car dealerships and fast-food franchises. Mile upon mile of straight traveling. All around only hastily erected office buildings and warehouses that one doesn't want to grace with ones glance. On several occasions I felt compelled to roll down the window and scream, Ugly! at what I saw.

There was the interchange were we got lost because the maze of lanes that was visible to the left and right was just too frightening to keep one's eyes open. A tangle of concrete spaghetti hovered in multiple levels over some post-industrial wasteland, and we were in the midst of it. The design might have been swish at some remote point in the past, the lines might have looked dynamic, but after decade of relentless use, all appeal had fallen from the vast structure. Concrete was crumbling, rebar showed, and the surface of the road was much like a piste across the Siberian tundra. I was glad I didn't have to drive and closed my eyes.

My peace didn't last long. We lost our way and had to navigate urban traffic for a while. Thrown from one extreme into another, I was now very upset that I couldn't drive myself because a madhouse had opened all around us. Left, right, straight and stop – traffic moved in all ways at one and according to no discernible rules. Sadly for me and luckily for our designated driver, our detour into the wild lasted only a few minutes and ended when we got back to our highway as if guided by some higher force or an excellent navigator.

The chance to scream, Ugly!, presented itself once more when we crossed the St. Lawrence river. This waterway must have a glorious past. Evidence is visible everywhere, beginning with the mile-long riveted-steel bridges crossing it. Huge disused and slowly decaying cement factories, flour silos, decommissioned ocean vessels, and grimy docks all testify to a noisy past.

To the driver, the beauty of the city is almost completely hidden. We would find out about the Plateau Mont Royal, about the Parc Olympique, about Vieux Montreal and the countless charms of a beautiful and incredibly inviting city only later. When we approached our hotel, all we saw was yet more ugliness. In a neighborhood that wouldn't look out of place in the banlieues of Paris, with slim apartment blocks rising towards the sun and blocking it most of the day, was our shelter for two nights. The Sandman Hotel is just another high rise and wouldn't deserve a second look, were it not for the Metro stop that's only two minutes away. We returned to sleep in our room and spend the rest of our time, all of our waking hours if you care to count, exploring a lovely city that deserves its own post.