Travelling last week, I was both pressed for time and net-connection challenged, which is why the blog faltered unexpectedly. Howcumzit every bargain Quality Inn had free and faultless hi-speed, while an upmarket downtown hotel (I was billing someone else this trip) charges outrageous rates for the kind of wonky connection that makes you despair of even reading your email?
But in Vancouver the halibut was succulent and the rhododendrons were spectacular. The transit system is good too. When the new subway along Cambie Street is done, Vancouver will be much better provided with rapid transit than Toronto, where we have spent 50 years agreeing that subways are too expensive. (True, it's Canada paying for much of Vancouver's new lines, not something Toronto should hope for!)
The dank old main library at UBC has been reborn as the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (and universities say they are underfunded!). When a visitor wants to use the services of the "learning centre," they ask you to fill in a form for a daypass, which seems very civilized. UofT Library would charge $200 for that kind of access if they let you in at all.
On the way home to Toronto, I sat across the narrow economy-class aisle from one of Canada's leading political commentators. He's seriously smart, but I was meanly pleased to see him struggling with the Globe & Mail sudoku that I had already completed.
