Sitting at the window of my room at the Intercontinental in Toronto. I always ask for a high floor, for the view, and this is a doozy. 24th floor, facing northeast. Ahead and left, a few blocks of 6- and 10-story office buildings; behind them, skyscrapers, interspersed with the occasional older building (the Fairmont Royal York hotel, gilded-age limestone with copper-capped parapets and a sloped copper roof. Close enough so I can see people at work but far enough away that they're not oppressive. Some buildings quite nice, some undistinguished, some crappy, but together an exciting skyline, partly because it's unfamiliar to me. On my right, the train station! A dozen tracks, the station building, trains snaking in and out. Then the urban waterfront -- the inevitable expressway, office buildings, warehouses, cranes -- and the lake. Over which the sun rose this morning and is still rising. My view north largely unimpeded: the highway, trees (might be a park along the lake?), some low factories. Sky clear, day cool, according to the fall jackets on the people hurrying to work 250 feet down from me. I love to travel.