Wonderful World (Chapter Ten: Hidden Mall)

Here's a picture of the Queen's Mall (looks like summer in this picture--not the time that I went--it was much more gloomy and chilly, but even in the winter all the dining was outside.  But let's start where we left
off--)

So Day Five--I was looking forward to sleeping in, but I was up early, early again.  I had a really good book to read.  I had ice to chip off my block of ice.  I had snacks I hadn't eaten on the plane.  I had cake--yummy.  I had 14 channels of unwatchable stuff to flip through and don't forget "Murder She Wrote" at 6:00 a.m.--I'm sorry, but if I ever meet Jessica Fletcher in real life, I'm running away--someone is always getting murdered around that broad--she had more nieces and nephews and old friends than anyone on the planet and by golly everytime she went to see them, someone got murdered, but I digress.  So an altogether fine, lazy morning, but by noon when I was expecting Adam, I was watching the bottem of the building across the street, which was mirrored so that I could see him coming into the hotel.

Adam and I were just going to walk around--check out Queen's Mall and the downtown area.  But first, I needed to go to McDonald's to check my e-mail.  The closest one was at the Train station, just a few blocks away.  I was prepared for a long walk, because I know Adam's idea of a few blocks.  Also, I never saw a train or even an entrance for a train station.  I'd seen a ferry stop on the River on our first day, but no trains.  I knew they had them, because I had originally mapped out taking the train from the airport to my hotel. 

Anyway, Adam leads the way and a few blocks later he starts going up this very steep broad set of stairs.  From the street, I can't see the top of the stairs, but there are lots and lots of people going up and down.  I, of course, stop.  When faced with a flight of stairs, my knees require at least an inquiry into an alternate route--an elevator or lift?  An escalator?  Two very large men to carry me?  Surely there is some alternative to very long, steep flight of stairs--don't they have a McDonalds on the next block at street level?  Adam is not amused and says come on.  At the top of the stairs, straight ahead is an elevator--I throw Adam the death stare, but he has his suit of armor on and it doesn't even faze him. 

We then walk into what I can only describe as a cave--it felt like we were underground.  It felt like going into the bart stations in San Francisco.  You go down a really long stairway (escalators) down underground to the trains.  It felt like we were underground, except that I had just climbed a very tall stairway to get here.  Weird.  Anyway, the McDonalds was straight ahead--it was tiny and dark.  I was hoping for pizza for lunch, so I just ordered fries.  Adam once again has to figure out how to get the internet on my phone and I check my e-mail, review, answer, review, answer.  My office really could live without me--oh they missed me, but no one died.  Darn.  But I digress.

After Maccas, Adam and I walked out (I think I made him wait for the elevator, but maybe not because I really don't recall taking the elevator--maybe there was another way out) and over a few streets to the Queen's Mall.  There were a bunch of shops, but nothing that I wanted to see and then Adam said, let's go in here.  It was a very crowded corner of some shops and straight ahead was an escalator.  Suddenly we were in a giant indoor mall with grocery stores, general merchandize stores, lots of clothing stores, little fruit and vege stores, just everything under the sun.  There were eight floors and so many, many people.  This was a Thursday, but it was wall to wall people everywhere.  It was huge.  And bright--very clean and pretty indoors.  I dragged Adam into a store and made him look at folding chairs, but he refused to let me buy one for him.  On one of the floors, the escalator went right into a store that was like a Michaels Craft store (but not).  I wanted to look at cross stitch supplies, but they didn't have any--none.  When I had gone to London, I had gone into Harrod's and their craft and sewing area was really millinary (for making hats)--that's what this store reminded me of.  But we went up another flight (escalator, thank you Queen) and we were still in the same store, but they had lots of cross stitching and knitting supplies.  It was cool, but I didn't really need anything and I wasn't going to have room in my suitcase.  It was just cool to look.

We kept going up on the escalator and at the very top was the movie theater.  Super 8 had just opened and Adam wanted to see it.  Me, not so much.  On the other hand, it was really gloomy outside, it didn't look like I was getting pizza, so popcorn sounded pretty good just then.  And no flights of stairs to walk up to get there.  I was in.  The movie exceeded my expectations and Adam did not succeed in making me remove my hands from my eyes and ears for the scary parts (why did he even try, silly boy).

We walked around the mall a little bit more and then I said how do you get out--I hadn't seen a single entrance or exit out.  Adam said that had puzzled him for a while too--there are only three places to get back out to the street, but he had memorized them and we did find our way out.  There was some construction across the way and Adam said that they were builing an ice rink (because it was winter), but that it wouldn't be completed for a few weeks.  

Well, I was malled out, so we walked to Adam's apartment to pick up the car (I did not walk up all the stairs to his apartment--just to the parking lot).  We drove out to another part of town to the Sizzlers that Adam knew of.  He was telling me about when he and Wayne had been at the train station in this part of town.  A weird, crazy guy had tried to talk to them and seemed like he was following them.  Adam said that he had tried to be nice, but that little bit of not rude, niceness had made the weird guy follow him more.  Adam said that they were careful walking home, because they didn't want that guy to know where they lived.  It really freaked him out.

Anyway, driving there, I tried to close my eyes.  I was not in charge of navigating (thank goodness).  Adam found his way there and although the parking structure was the seventh level of hell (think very skinny circular concrete enclosed driveways, driving on the wrong side of the road), we survived and walked a long distance through a concrete parking structure maze to an out of the way, non-descript door.  It was all very twilight zone and then out of nowhere was the very pleasant sign for Sizzlers.  It was very bright and lovely on the inside--a stark contrast to how gloomy and dark it was outside in the concrete parking structure.  Anyway, we ordered and we were shown to a very nice table.  The place was just starting to get crowded, so I was glad we were having dinner so early.  Adam was back to the table and I got up to get my drink.  When I came back to the table, Adam said, "That was him.  Did you see that guy you just passed?"  "Who," I said.  "The weird guy that followed Wayne and I that I was just telling you about."  Adam was totally freaked out, but the guy didn't see him and left.  How weird was that.

After a while, we relaxed into our dinners.  I could only eat half of my steak, but since it is kind of a buffet, they really don't let you take home left overs--no containers.  Adam said that he would take the other half of my steak home, but as it got closer to the time to leave, he said are we really fold up half your steak in a napkin and take it home, kind of people?  He doesn't even have a dog.  No, we were not. 

On the way home, we stopped at the grocery store and I got another bag of ice.  (This time when I got back to the hotel, I divided the bag of ice into smaller ziploc bags so that it wouldn't melt into a giant block--score).   It had been a nice lazy day (no pizza, but a nice steak dinner and a good movie--it was a very good movie when you close your eyes and ears during the scary part--I can't attest to the movie that Adam saw, since he kept his eyes open, but I digress).  And I had cake for dessert back at the hotel.  All was right with the world.

Stay Tuned--Adam and I saw terrific vacation homes on the coast--they only wanted a million dollars for them.  Such a deal.