Supriya and I continued on our bikes to what was supposed to be St. Jacob's village. It was good as we stumbled into stuff. For some time, we were seeing these antediluvian cars on the way, and we were like "We just wanted to see the countryside, din't want to go to the past." On taking a left turn, we were suddenly at a car fair where people were exhibiting odd and antique cars. Some of them were exactly like the ones that are there in the Tintin books -vintage cars and trucks with round corners and a happy expression. Cars in which doors and bonnets were hinged the opposite way round. Some were ultra-modern. Some had zero ground clearance. Some were flat and long like the cars used in old Hindi movies.
After that we took a wrong turn and instead of a village, we saw posh condos all around. There we met the saviours of Planet Earth, but they considered the two of us to be aliens.
Finally before returning, we spent some time at a sequestered spot by the creek near Columbia Lake.
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Day 2 was along the dandelion covered Laurel Trail. A short note on dandelions here: The first week we were here, the meadows were green. The next week, it gradually became yellow with flowers. Thinking this to be just the beginning, I waited for the yellow to grow, but all of a sudden, during the third week, the meadows became white, with small spherical spiked flowers. When Keerthi discovered that the yellow flowers transform to the white dandelion snow, everything fell into place. A transformation as amazing as a caterpillar to a butterfly.
These trains are museum pieces now
Anyway back to the trail along the tracks without any train, Vishnu and I reached Kitchener. We enjoyed some Caribbean food and music before heading back. Near the Perimeter Institute there was a Clay and Glass gallery. I went in without too many expectations and am not a great interpreter of artworks, but I found the works of Jules Oakes absolutely fabulous. One of his pieces called Sparrow Swounds was in fact in 4D, - it involved a flock of 120 glass sparrows suspended from the ceiling. Over the course of the exhibition, 23 of them will smash to the floor and form piles beneath the remaining flock. A recording of the hymn, 'God Sees the Little Sparrows Fall', precedes each fall, sung by an opera.
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Day 3 was a Monday. The sun was out after ages, and I couldn't just stay put in my room after returning from the University. I took off by myself, cycled at top speed to Erbsville, took a right turn and biked along extremely sparsely populated regions. Small forested regions. Huge expanses of farms, with some stables. Found an abandoned barn in the middle of nowhere, perfect setting for a horror movie.
I continued till finally I saw some people. The middle-aged lady was wearing the traditional peasant's dress. She couldn't give me a road direction and referred me to the head of the family. As I walked ahead along the side road past some farm machinery, a well, and a barn, I approached a house, with a yard and three children loitering around. The kids and the man were all wearing full sleeved shirts and trousers with suspenders. The kids had red cheeks and they looked at me with a somewhat bewildered expression. They had a rustic feel about them. It seemed like a slum scene from a Charlie Chaplin movie. There was someone sitting on a rocking chair. From the dress, it was probably a she but I couldn't guess the age. She had a particularly unpleasant expression and she sat still the whole time while I chatted up the man. I introduced myself as "a traveller from India". For the first time I called myself a traveller and it kind of sounded cool. After 2-3 minutes, I took off from there. As I was returning, a flock of geese flying across the orange setting sun formed a memorable picture...
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