Saturday, November 29, 2008

Wet and Cold

November 28, 2008
1:45 pm

Today I have learned anew the meaning of damp chill. At 93% humidity and 8 degrees the air is bone-chilling. As I cross the channel between Van and N Van the water eddies and swirls, and shapes rise out of the fog, resolving into ships, buoys and the hulking skeletons of the shipyard cranes. In the mist they look like sad, orange giraffes. On a day like today most things along this industrial waterfront look vaguely haunted.




As the ferry coasts by, I see the foreign names from distant lands across the sterns of the huge cargo ships. It makes this city seem more exotic than it is, like a flash of red lace beneath a dowdy skirt.

It's very picturesque. I wonder if the enormous piles of fluorescent sulphur that line the mouth of the Fraser River get soggy... I wonder if they smell less in the damp.

I am not looking forward to walking Chomsky.