There’s a moment, sometimes, when you’re far enough from home that the ordinary becomes extraordinary again. A cup of tea isn’t just a cup of tea. It’s a performance, an offering, a spell cast in paper and steam. The man with the trolley didn’t ask, “Tea or coffee?” in the brusque way I’m used to. He asked it like it was an invitation. Like it mattered. His French was fluid and warm, the kind that flows rather than lands. Even his movements had a quiet grace, as if he had memorized the script of some old railway film and was determined to play his part just right.
I said yes, of course. Yes to the tea. Yes to the charm. Yes to the small magic of it all.
And there I was—an American, somewhere between Windsor and Toronto, sipping tea on a moving train like I was in a different novel than the one I’d woken up in. Out the window, the last glint of Lake St. Clair gave way to wheat fields rippling like applause. Inside, people chatted softly in French and English, their conversations layered like a bilingual lullaby.
It’s not that Canada is so wildly different from the States. The landscapes rhyme, the faces echo, the infrastructure hums in familiar tones. But it’s the subtle notes that shift the chord: the language, the cadence, the quiet courtesy in a stranger’s smile. There’s something softer here, or maybe just something slower. Enough space for things like charm to breathe.
And what is charm, really, if not the art of noticing? Noticing that tea tastes better when someone hands it to you with care. That trains feel more like time machines when you cross a border. That your grandfather’s voice still lingers somewhere in the clatter of the tracks.
Maybe that’s why this ride feels different. Not just because it’s a new route in a new country. But because for the first time in a long while, I’m letting myself be enchanted by the small things. A trolley. A French accent. A cup of tea. And the gentle, undeniable fact that I’m no longer where I was—but somewhere else entirely.
Isn’t that the whole point of travel?