Wandering through old buildings is not my idea of a vacation. Sure, there’s history here, but most of it revolves around state-sponsored mayhem and gratuitous violence. Assassinations, expulsion of ethnic groups, court intrigue, occupation by Nazis, Russians, and the International Monetary Fund.

Blood and money.

All reduced to postcards, flags, garnets, Mucha posters, and beer cosmetics.

“You could say the same thing about Toronto,” says Mimi. “Or New York. How about trying to find something positive about the place.”

“Restrooms.”

Mimi takes my hand. “You’re not going to make a fuss about that again, are you?”

“I just don’t see why they can’t provide tourists with restrooms.”

All of the major tourist destinations in Europe have washrooms. But you have to pay to use them. And for as much as we’ve travelled, I’ve never gotten used to coin-operated toilets or bathrooms with sentinels at the entrance who take your money and dole out slivers of thin toilet paper, as though each piece were a sheet of hammered gold.

“Charging to use a bathroom is just wrong.” I can feel myself warming to the task. “Remember the restaurants in Italy where they brought us bread at every meal? The bread was terrible, but they charged us for it anyway, even when we said we didn’t want it.”

Mimi puts her arms over her head and stretches from side to side. “Maybe that’s why we travel.”

“So we can pay for bread we don’t want and rent time in a toilet?”

“To complain.” Mimi stops stretching. “Maybe we travel so that we can complain.”

FRANKLY, I DON’T NEED to travel in order to complain. I can find plenty of things to criticize without stepping out of the house. Big box stores such as Walmart that treat their employees like indentured servants. The religious right that can always find someone to hate. Politicians who acknowledge global warming but take no actions that would affect corporate profits. The gun lobby that believes thoughts and prayers are the proper response to the killing of schoolchildren.

I can even complain about where I live.

Guelph, Ontario, is a lovely place. University town. Couple of rivers, the Speed and the Eramosa, running through it. Eric the Baker. Artisanale. The Bookshelf. Wyndham Art. In the summer, when they lower the floodgates, you can canoe the Speed up past the Boathouse, all the way to Victoria Road, before you begin to run out of clearance.

But my idea of paradise is the Northwest Coast. Somewhere like Tofino. Open ocean. Fog. Rain. Where it’s never too hot, never too cold. Goldilocks country. And grey. Where the dominant colour is grey.

When Mimi and I were both working, our jobs controlled our landscape. Now that we’re retired, we could live wherever we wish.

“Bird, all your friends are in Guelph.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“What would your friends think, if they heard you say that?”