I woke up the next morning, emerging with difficulty from the best sleep I’ve ever had, to a beautiful misty morning on the Canadian plains. Honestly, I slept so well in this train that I spent most of my time thinking of ways I could reproduce the movement and droning noise in my bedroom at home, imagining complicated contraptions and weird shaky pods.
The best way to sleep…
I’m sad I don’t have any picture of the mist on the prairies… It was just so dreamy and mysterious that I completely forgot to immortalize it. Also, we were late for breakfast, and I was very hungry.
I felt pretty good, what with the eye not being stopped by speeding trees anymore, the greatest night of sleep ever, and the breakfast. The venerable White Owl, for her part, felt pretty rotten. Thankfully, the train stopped for a few hours at Winnipeg.
The White Owl was so eager to get out of what she colorfully called this hellish contraption, that she blocked the tiny corridors, and caused some delay in the opening of the doors. Then she ran off into the wild, hooting and skipping lightly around Winnipeg station.
The sun was shining brightly, and it was so amazingly nice to be in the fresh air for a few hours again that we just walked aimlessly in the park close to the station.
There was also the Museum of Human Rights. I hope I’ll come back to Winnipeg and visit it, it looks amazing. The White Owl being of a diametrically opposed opinion, I’ll do a comparison of both points of view and you, dear reader, will chose your own.
The building:
I love this building, but it must be difficult to find appropriate furniture!
Me: Wow! Awesome! Shiny! Like a graceful dance gesture wrapping hope with love! I love it!
WO: Argh hide this thing from me! What a blinding eyesore! I hate it!
The theme:
A reflexion of what are Human Rights, their history, Indigenous perspective, and lots of things about genocide. The museum says, it’s a journey from darkness to light, and that The unique architecture parallels a human rights journey – it requires some effort and has a few twists and turns, but can be very rewarding to complete.
Me:
Well, right now, I’d rather walk in the sun because I’ve been stuck in a train for 2 days, but I hope I’ll come back and make this journey, even though it sounds difficult. I’ll certainly learn important things and come out changed for the better.
WO:
What? There’s a full gallery just on the Holocaust? And other genocides? It’s horrible! What, they must be runner up in the Most Depressing Museum Ever contest!! Well, you’d need to pay me a LOT of money to get in that thing!
See, not exactly the same opinions!
Also, I have to add that I love all Museums (Museums are awesome) and my honorable parent does not share this particular interest of mine. I feel about Museums the same way I feel about Dickens. Let’s do the opinion thing again, this time about museums.
Me:
A MUSEUM!!! YAY!! Let’s go in and see things and learn things! What? You’re not interested in the Museum of Mining Report and Telegraphic Cable? Well, I don’t know anything about those subjects! I’m sure they are really interesting! Look! There’s a shop and you can buy cable samples!! Woohoo!!
WO:
Oh no, Blue Owl, not ANOTHER museum. Are there paintings in this one? I only want to see paintings. No, not this kind of paintings. Only some paintings, then. And this is not a painting, this is a postcard with a picture of a cable.
Before I make a superhuman effort and talk of something else than museums, I have to clarify that my dear mother suffered a lot from this passion of mine, and followed me patiently, for hours, in many and many different museums. With time, she became tired of my undying enthusiasm, and wary of the subterfuges I use to get her in.
Anyway, back to Winnipeg!
Well, howdyoudo Maam, nice city to raise your ducklings isn’t it?
This particular park, which is at the fork between many rivers, is a summer resort for fowls. Geese and goslings, ducks and ducklings, the occasional lost pigeon and drunk dragonfly, all conspire to give this park a very lively feel. Alas, it is but too short, and soon we are back into our tiny tiny train.
Look how far in the distance you can see!!! Awesome!
I loved going through the prairies. It didn’t drive me mad like the forest. You can see far in the distance, the colza was shimmering yellow, reeds were bending in the wind, the weather was changing, rainy in some places, sunny in others – there even was a big bolt of lightning!!
Hiya blurry tree! (and some beautiful colza behind…)
The train rolled past cows and their calves (and that’s always entertaining), bison and their young (it’s quite something to see bison in the Canadian prairies, even if it’s just a farm!), those black birds with the red in the wings (I should look up their name!), some wistful horses, a few arrogant dogs, and ducks. Ducks, ducks, ducks. Honestly, this place must be something like a duck paradise, a duck metropolis, a duck summer festival, all rolled into one big duck rampage, because I never saw so many ducks in my life!
What with one thing and another, I finished knitting my first mitten.
In the evening, we arrived into Saskatchewan, and got down for a few minutes in a town called Melville, where I took this picture of the grain of the future. I was mightily impressed by this grain.
Certainly very exciting when you know anything about seed!
In order to survive in the train, my venerable ancestor has developed a technique where she shoots off the train like a rabbit when it is stopped, disappears in the horizon while the other passengers and I stroll around, then gets back in at the ALL ABOARD, not before.
Oh yes, I didn’t tell you about the ALL ABOARD. I should. It’s pretty cool.
There is one concierge for each car, who is responsible for putting your bed up in the morning, and down in the evening, and of other things. This concierge opens the door of his car, and when he receives the signal saying that everybody should go back in because the train has finished its thing and is ready to go again, he shouts gleefully ALL ABOARD! As if he was a pirate assaulting a merchant ship with a saber in one hand, a rope in the other, and a knife in his teeth. Well, at least he would put the knife between his teeth after screaming ALL ABOARD, and saying AAAaarrh or what, but you see what I’m getting at.
Anyway, it’s much fun!
The sunset was beautiful.
The lady with the stentorian voice is not there anymore. I guess she was murdered this night, but I didn’t hear anything because I was drugged, which would explain my deep sleep. While I was trying to investigate, I realized that the whole staff of the train had been changed at Winnipeg!! The conspiracy is deeper than I thought. This is going to be difficult. I hope I’ll make it alive. I saw a plane like in the Hitchcock movie (you know the one I mean, the one with the plane!) going in circles in a field while the train was passing by… Is it related to the conspiracy? It must be.