On the wall of the elevator at Hyndman and Company, my insurance broker, is this sign:

The sign, as you might imagine, does not inspire confidence in the fitness of the elevator: it seems more complicated to deal with a stopped elevator than it does to deal with a downed airplane.

The only time I’ve ever been in an elevator that actually did stop was when I lived on the 29th floor of an apartment building in downtown Montreal. One day the elevator just stopped moving between floor 27 and 28. My displeasure at being trapped was mitigated by the sudden opportunity to use the elevator telephone; unfortunately I opened the door to said phone only to find that the handset cord was dangling free, disconnected from the elevator itself. Fortunately the elevator started moved a few minutes later, seemingly of its own volition.

Here in Charlottetown most if not all of the elevator phones ring into one place: the “Message Centre” on Grafton Street at the corner of Hensley. They’re the same people who answer for our home alarm system, and they’ll also take your call if you want to make a reservation at a national park campground in Canada. One wall their “command centre” is covered with old black telephones that ring when someone picks up a phone in a Charlottetown elevator.

Remember that night, back in the 1950s, when your Mom and Dad were out celebrating that new promotion. They were splurging — going to Enrico’s downtown rather than the usual place around the corner. Enrico’s had real cloth napkins, and a wine steward, and a fountain right in the middle of the dining room. After dinner they decided to make one last splurge — the bank was already broken anyway! — and have “special coffees” Maybe an “Irish Brogue” or an “Italian Sunset.” The coffees came in glass decanters swaddled in cloth, on a special serving tray, with an exotic chocolate angel perched gingerly on the plate below.

Remember that night? Well that seems to be the plateau on which Charlottetown coffee shops place the cappuccino. Without sounding like a Euro-snob (okay, I realize it’s too late for that): in Italy the cappuccino is a workaday drink, not special event. It costs about 1,20 EUR and it lacks any pretense or pomp.

Here in Charlottetown cappuccinos cost as much as a Big Mac, and they’re served in pompous, delicate glass vessels that would be more at home at a cotillion than a jobsite. Like this one, at Mavor’s:

Not only are such vessels too precious to hold coffee, but they’re not actually suited to the task at hand — they elevate the foam high about the actual coffee, thus preventing the two from the delicate dance required for each to achieve its optimal state.

Otherwise, the Mavor’s cappuccino was about as bite-free and bland as you can imagine. It’s not hard to imagine why Starbucks — whose coffee Mavor’s “proudly brews” — has spread around the world like wildfire: if my cappuccino was typical of their swill, their product is designed to neither offend nor particularly delight anyone.

I promise that I’ll shut up about all this shortly. Indeed I’m considered recanting my newfound coffee adherence, and going back to the simple life of an iced tea drinker.

I picked Catherine and Oliver up yesterday at the airport around supper time and, what with our cupboard being bare at home after a two-week absence, we decided to go out for dinner. Although Oliver pushed hard for The Noodle House, I pushed back with a suggestion that we try the new Boston Pizza out by the mall.

After the whole Mike’s debacle four years ago — Mike’s was the last chain pizza restaurant to open out by the mall — I didn’t have high hopes for Boston Pizza. But you have to try everything at least once.

And to our surprise and delight, they make a very good pizza: thin crust, not drenched in sauce or cheese, and available in a stunning variety of combinations (we shared a “Thai Chicken” for example). Their staff are obviously very well-trained — we had several “well, that was very nice” episodes — and they are family-friendly both in attitude and with a kids’ menu that includes more than just dinosaur-shaped deep-fried chicken (Oliver had the quesadillas and salad).

The place was packed, so the word must be getting around. A shame it has to be part of the University Ave. urban sprawl, but it’s the best pizza in town right now — Catherine said it was the best pizza she’s ever had in Charlottetown. We’ll be back.

I had high hopes for Timothy’s when I walked in this morning on the second day of my “okay, now that you like coffee you have to try and find the best place in Charlottetown for a morning cappuccino” quest: they have arguably the nicest staff of all the coffee shops in town (and certainly the hippest) and it’s the most pleasant coffee shop to simply hang out in. But, alas, the cappuccino came served in a standard coffee mug, which is just plain wrong. And as a result the coffee languished separate and apart from the foam, and it was impossible to effectively stir in the sugar. The coffee itself, perhaps for related reasons, tasted weak and diluted. Sadly, I came away unimpressed.

On the other hand, I did get to chat with both Brenda Brady and Harry Holman.

I needed a new jacket to wear on my trip to Italy, so the week before I left I spent a couple of hours in Marks Work Wearhouse in Charlottetown; I ended up buying a WindRiver Microfleece Windproof Softshell Jacket.

The jacket is basically the same general idea as the Polarfleece jackets from REI that I’ve been wearing for the past several years, but it’s got a wind-proof lining which means that I can wear it almost year-round.

It’s well-equipped with pockets, sized just right, and it’s comfortable. What more could I want?

Well, perhaps for it to not start falling apart after three days.

The inside pocket zippers were the first to go — they simply came off the rails because their “zipper ends” weren’t properly stitched into place. Then the main zipper started to come off the rails too, and the fabric inside the outer pockets started to fray.

I might understand this if I was driving the jacket hard — climbing mountains, running the Iditarod, etc. — but I was simply moving about my regular everyday life.

Now I know that I shouldn’t expect the world for $49.99. But three days of use out of a jacket isn’t acceptable wear at any price.

The jacket’s going back to Mark’s this afternoon. I’ve got an email into MEC looking for suggestions about a replacement.

My last batch of trip photos just made it into my Flickr. Starts in Colletta on Saturday morning and ends on the road from Halifax to Charlottetown last night.

Okay, that wasn’t bad. Although I could do without the precious little glass “muggette.” I don’t want to see my coffee, I want to be teased by its pleasures.

The flight over the Atlantic was uneventful but for the extreme granola quotient of the vegetarian meal; I fail to understand why “vegetarian” must equate to “prefers tasteless sugar-free dessert.” Oh well. Had to get my luggage inspected in Halifax because I checked the olive box, but this only took a minute and they were very nice. The drive home to Charlottetown took me to the edge of my faculties; fortunately Johnny and Jodi prepared a tasty macaroni and cheese dinner for me. I expect I’ll be up before sunrise hunting for cappuccino.

As I type I’m here at Heathrow waiting for my flight on Air Canada home. Or at least to Halifax, which will be almost home.

When I learned how close Cannes was to Nice yesterday I scuttled my plans to spend the day in Nice and spent the day in Cannes instead. It’s a very pleasant city, similar in esprit to Montpelier (or maybe it’s just like all French cities — my experience is limited here!).

After visiting an Internet café to solve a temporary crisis in the Plazes-o-sphere (you can’t use Plazes by SMS when you enter a new country, it seems, until you use Plazer to establish your new nationality), I had a pain au chocolate, did some shopping, and then, because it’s the kind of thing I do, went to the movies. There was simply too much to the appeal of being able to say “oh yes, I saw that in Cannes” when conversation about The Departed comes up (it’s called Les Infiltrés in France).

The length of the movie (it’s over 2 hours) meant I had to make a quicker dash than expected back to the Nice airport (it’s only about 24km), something made slightly more challenging by the 10,000 other people trying to get out of Cannes after a day of holiday shopping.

But I made it, with plenty of time to spare. No problems returning my car to Alamo (the whole renting-at-Alamo through easyCar experience went very well), the automated British Airways check-in took 15 seconds, and I was the only one going through security. Even the fact that our flight was delayed by 45 minutes worked out, as somehow they “made it all up in the air” and we arrived only 5 minutes late.

The Ibis Hotel at Heathrow was predictably dreadful — dirty, ugly, smoky and with bathroom drains that didn’t. But I was only there overnight, and the bed was comfortable enough. The “Heathrow Security Experience” was, also predictably, awe-inspiring, with lines as long as the eye could see. They’re getting good at it, though, and I was in and through in about 30 minutes.

If all goes according to plan I’ll be back on Canadian soil at 2:00 p.m. today. My only decision now is to whether to check “yes” on the customs form where it says “have you been on a farm in the last 14 days.” Is an olive grove a farm?

I’ve reached the end of my time here in Colletta. As I type I’m packing things up here in the wee apartment and preparing to walk up the hill for a last cappuccino and to hand the keys back to Massimo before driving down the valley to the autostrada where I’ll head west to Nice, France. From Nice I’ll fly up to London tonight, overnight near Heathrow, and then fly back to Halifax in the morning. If all goes according to plan, I should be back in Charlottetown around supper time tomorrow.