Here's Why

You can't get there from here

I’ve been staying with Andrew and Kim in Mississauga this week, while Emma helps Kelly with babysitting in Buffalo. Buffalo, the place where the drama comes to you.

My mission yesterday was to meet my Toronto friend PeterW at Union station, navigating on my own. I failed.

After an afternoon spent checking and rechecking the websites for helpful informaion, I gave up and phoned the GO people. They directed me to the exact bus stop, and what to ask the driver. I caught the bus, and asked the driver for a GO train so I could get to Union station. He took me to Cooksville GO station.

I left the bus, to find the ticket office was only open between 7am and 8:25am. The ticket machine was still being built. I asked a guy waiting in the parking area, and he told me to hop on a train “same as in Europe”. I went in and found that there was only a one-way platform, and no signs or maps or schedules. The tracks for the other way were unavailable from the platform. So when a train turned up, I got on board. It went the wrong way, so I got off at the next stop. I was pleased to find that this platform had two sides. It was possible, in theory to catch a train to Union, downtown. Time passed.

I was later to discover that the train doesn’t actually travel downtown to Union station after 8:25AM.

I phoned PeterW to cancel, he couldn’t help me with the GO trains or buses. I called Andrew, who suggested I look for buses on the main roads, and phone back if I had trouble.

I walked 4 blocks, went to check a road name on the $10 Palmpilot, and discovered it missing. I retraced my steps and was very lucky to find it where I’d left it, next to the public phone. I returned it to a zippered pocket with relief, and then took my leave of the last public phone I saw for SEVEN KILOMETRES.

I saw a bus pass by with “Sorry for the inconvenience: Out of service” animated on a sign, but no actual bus stops. There weren’t any places for a taxi to stop for me either. I rested at a MacDonalds and got food, but there were no public phones. It was pretty weird to be crossing highways in the dark which didn’t always have “walk” signs, trying to be mindful of the different traffic rules in Canada while also trying to keep my balance. But hey, if this had happened a year ago, I wouldn’t have made it the seven kilometres to the next phone, and rescue by Andrew.

Did I mention it was a smog alert day?

Hooray for the performance-decreasing steroids that kept me vertical, its a shame I can’t stay on them long-term without getting osteoporosis.

About the author: Ian Woolf lives in Sydney, has a degree in Applied Physics, worked as a solar astronomer, software engineer, systems programmer, webmaster, Cisco CCNA tutor, Computational Theory lecturer, and subject coordinator; while changing his career to professional writing and broadcasting. Listen to Ian on the Discovery science show on radio 2SER 107.3Fm Mondays at 9am in Sydney or streaming audio on www.2ser.com, or listen to the Discovery sound archives.