[Conclusion of a two-part blog that begins HERE.]

At a money booth in Windsor station we convert U.S. dollars to Canadian currency, after which we buy round-trip tickets to Toronto. In the waiting area, we settle into seats, five abreast, until our train arrives. Junior seizes the chance to resume his sermon, prompting the DCEs to open books that they pretend to read.  More politely Big Steeple pretends to listen, his spirits having been lifted by the senior discount.

My own attention is absorbed by my new Canadian bills, which are exotic and eminently more colorful than their drab American counterparts.  I wonder at the faces on them.  I recognize Queen Elizabeth II, but who are these old frowny white guys? What did they do to land on money? The mystery thrills me.  The bills seem to speak: “Gerald! You have made it. You are in a foreign country!”

Our train arrives.  The public address calls for the elderly and parents with young children to board first.  DCE Giggles teases Big Steeple, “Go ahead, get on, old man! You took the discount! Get on the train!” Big Steeple declines.

The seats on the train are set in pairs on either side of a center aisle. My travel mates slip quickly into a cluster of seats together as I stand gawking in the aisle. “Gomer Pyle goes to Canada,” is what I think of myself. “Gaaaah-lay!”  Indecision nails me to the floor as other passengers scurry past to take the diminishing vacant seats. Still I don’t move. My strain of procrastination is less about lazy than it is about indecision. I’ve found that if you procrastinate long enough, you’ll never have to decide. Default will decide for you.

So it is now.  Just one seat is left, about five rows ahead of me on the aisle. I note the back of the head of the passenger in the window seat–silver hair stylishly coiffed beneath a blue pillbox hat. I sit next to her. We do that pleasant-smile-with-a-nod-of-the-head thing. No words spoken. She wears silver-rimmed glasses, wears them eruditely and is dressed professionally, a business suit that matches her hat. I figure she’s in her late fifties. She’s what my grandfather would’ve called a handsome woman. She’s reading the editorial page of the Toronto Star. I steal glances as I pull a book from my briefcase. She’s grimacing, presumably at what she’s reading. I remain silent.

The train starts gently forward. Several rows back of me Junior is preaching, “See? Notice the smooth start. No jerking like Amtrak. CN is one of the finest….”  I tune him out.  The train escapes the station canopy, and I see through the windows that night is falling beyond a veil of thickly falling snow—great white globs of snow dropping fast like stones. I pull a book from my briefcase, but, by damn, I’m in Canada, in a train, in the snow! My excitement won’t let me focus.

Soon, there comes down the aisle a young woman, blonde and uniformed in an apron. She’s pushing a silver cart in stops and starts. I see miniatures of liquor, small bottles of wine and, jutting from a mountain of ice, a big bunch of beer-bottle long necks. God, I desperately want one—or more—of those.

When the cart reaches our aisle, my seatmate buys a Merlot. The young woman hands her the bottle and a glass, then turns to me, “And you, sir?”

Suddenly, a crazy idea pops into my head: treat the four Presbyterian icons to beers! Honestly, this has nothing to do with grace or generosity. The truth is, I’m just seized with an un-Presbyterian impulse to blow a barge-load of this fancy Canadian money, because doing so will make me feel all the more like a foreign traveler!

“I’d like a Molson,” I say. Then I rise slightly, point to the iconic foursome, and say, “And I’d like to buy each of them a beer, too.”  The server smiles, “That’s very generous. Fourteen dollars, please.” From my top pocket I pluck the folded stack of Canadian bills and fish out a twenty. I pass the bill to her. She takes from her apron a Canadian five and one and hands them to me.

Suddenly I panic. How much should I tip her? Earlier Junior had delivered a sermon on how gratuities in Canada will need to be smaller because Canadians often regard American big-tipping as a pompous show of opulence.  Dear God, what do I do!?

Perceiving my panic, my seatmate leans my way and whispers, “Giver her the one.”

“I hand give the bill to the young woman who thanks me, puts it in a jar, opens the beer, hands it to me, and asks, “Would you like a glass?”  I decline. She pushes the cart on.

My seatmate has put down her paper as she pours wine into her glass. I heave a sigh of relief.  She grins.

“So, you’re an American,” she says. It’s not a question. It’s a declaration. I might’ve thought it an accusation, except that she’s smiling amiably as she swirls her wine.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answer.

“Ah!  And you’re from the South?” She takes this as an unexpected treat.

“Yes, ma’am.  From Alabama originally.  But I live in Indiana now.  I gather you’re Canadian?”

She chuckles and nods. She tells me she lives in a city called Hamilton, about 70 kilometers from Toronto.  She’s a lawyer, her husband’s a judge. She had been in Windsor for the day on business and is now headed home. She asks my occupation. When I tell her, she grins slyly and says, “Then I’d better be on my Ps and Qs, ay?

“No, ma’am,” I say, “please just be yourself.”

She smiles and says, “And you be yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The ice is now broken. The beer is working; its buzz melts my inhibitions. So I pull again from my pocket the stack of Canadian bills. “I recognize Queen Elizabeth,” I tell my seatmate, “but these guys are well….” I grin, “…foreign to me.” 

She chuckles, and points to the five-dollar bill. “Let’s start with this furious looking old man.” She tells me that he is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canada’s prime minister at the turn of the century. “Despite his pinched face here,” she says, “he’s probably our most beloved PM.” I learn that he was the first francophone prime minister and did more than any to reconcile the French-speaking provinces with the English-speaking ones. He stood for liberty and individual rights. “A bit like your Thomas Jefferson,” she adds.

We move to faces on the other bills. Sir John A. Macdonald, served as PM in the mid-19^th century and made Canada stronger and more independent but resigned under a cloud of scandal.  Mackenzie King, the PM who led Canada through World War II and oversaw industrial growth.

I sense that I’m in the presence of a very good teacher, one who peppers her lessons with wit and frequently asks for her student’s impressions, and earnestly listens when he responds. I begin to feel as if we’ve known each other for a while. She’s merrily impressed when I tell her that this is my very first trip out of the States.

“On behalf of Canadians everywhere,” she says with a little bow of the head, “May I say we are honored to be your first foreign land.” When I mention I’ll be staying at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, she beams and tells me this is where she and her husband honeymooned thirty-five years ago. “Would you like some advice on where to go and what to see in Toronto?” she asks.

“Absolutely!” I pull a notepad from my briefcase and jot notes as she describes restaurants, bistros (“Ask for Tony at the bar”), music venues, historic sites, how to navigate the underground, how to find the international art of West Bloor Street.

Much too soon comes the announcement that we’re arriving at Hamilton station. She gathers her things, and readies herself to leave.

“Thank you so much for teaching me,” I say.

“My pleasure!”

“I really want to travel the world,” I tell her, “and I hope everywhere I go I’ll find someone as kind and knowledgeable as you.”

She smiles, starts to speak, pauses for a moment, and then says, “I can tell you this: if you travel humbly, if you ask sincere questions like ‘Whose picture is on this bill?’ if you listen sincerely to those who answer your questions, you’re very likely to find someone kind and knowledgeable to teach you, no matter where you go.” Then she raises an index finger, and imparts to me a proverb that I will guard in my heart.

“Travel humbly, not pridefully,” she says, “and you will find the world a wonderful place.”

The train slows to a stop. Hamilton is announced. She rises. I stand to let her into the aisle. She smiles, shakes my hand, wishes me well in Toronto and in all my future travels and disappears down the aisle. I move to the window and take her seat. Snowfall has ceased. Gazing out across the laden, fallow fields, I’m interrupted by a kind voice, “Another beer, sir?”

I give her a five and tell her to keep the change.  She’s not offended. “Why, thank you sir. That’s very generous!”

I sip the beer slowly and look again across Canadian fields. I do not yet know to what extent I will travel. I do not know that I will visit Mexico, England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Israel, and Lebanon. I do not know that I will live for two years in Africa—Burkina Faso and then Congo. But I do know that wherever I go, I will do my best to go humbly, not pridefully. I’ll do my best to muster the courage to ask people about their country, their culture, their lives. And I will listen when they answer.

The train slows to a stop at Toronto station. I gather my things, stand and wait until the four Presbyterian icons pass me so I can slip into my place as last and least.  As the DCEs pass, they thank me for the drinks. Big Steeple simply nods. Junior smiles dismissively and says, “You didn’t get to hear my history of railroads and my commentary on I Corinthians 13. Your loss!” He struts down the aisle.

I say a little prayer:

“Thank you, Lord. Thank you.”