City, Friday, 7 AM

So there we were, all three of us dead tired, just wanting to fall into a bed and sleep until late afternoon. Unfortunately most hotels don't let you check in before at least 1 PM. Ours didn't, either. Our clock read something like 7 AM, and it was still set to home time. Here it was actually only 6 AM.
So what do you do in a big city on a friday morning at 6 AM when all you want to do is sleep?
Right.
We went to a Denny's.

A Denny's is some kind of family restaurant that also serves breakfast. And coffee. While we were waiting for our food, I watched the other costumers and their choices of breakfast: The usual eggs and bacon of course, but on top of that most of them also had fat pancakes with lots of maple syrup and on the side great amounts of sweet french toast. Crazy. Then came the coffee, which by the way was pretty crappy.
Last night, just about when I drove us across the line and into this province, at 4 AM maybe, I stopped at some small town gas station. An old lady there sold me what must have been the best cup of coffee in the world. I also used the bathroom there (which took a while), and it was the cleanest bathroom I have ever seen at a gas station in my life. I was impressed. It was awesome.
Denny's: Not so awesome. The breakfast was ok, but in my opinion overpriced. The bathroom had cold water only. They didn't tell me that my fruit cost extra. But maybe I was just tired.

Back in the car the clock said 9 AM. So we decided to drive across town to some big-ass shopping mall with indoor ice rink, indoor pool with real waves, indoor amusement park, indoor sea lion show, indoor movie theatre, indoor pirate ship and lots of other costumer-lures. We parked somewhere in the empty parking garage and slept for an hour until the place opened up.

The sea lion show at the mall. Probably especially arranged for a group of school kids, given the early time.

There was an H&M in the mall, which always reminds me of Europe, so I went inside. I saw a nice pair of cargo pants, so I bought them and put them on right away. That was nice. For some reason since I've been living in this country I have developed quite a distaste for my European style more-on-the-tight-side jeans. Like the pair I was wearing, purchased last year in Amsterdam. A little tight in the crotch area. When I put on my new cargo pants, it felt like liberation. It was like my balls had been screaming: "Unser Volk braucht Raum!"*, which all of a sudden was given to them. Also my fatigue level instantly decreased by 50 percent.

The hotel. During the afternoon it would fill up with all kinds of heavy metal fans, who'd sport mohawks or long headbanger's hair, who'd be pierced and tattooed all over the place and who'd be showing off the colours of the band they pray to - through t-shirts, belts, flags and attire that paid hommage to certain music videos of said band - I saw a guy wearing the hat of an artist combined with a white butcher's apron.

We made it back to the hotel somewhere between noon and 1 PM local time, checked in without any problems and went to sleep.

*Earth, Hitler, 1936 (according to Kirk, James T., Captain USS Enterprise)