At The Tea House.

Menus and Metal Cabinets.

My satchel was nearly bursting with the weight of newly-purchased books. I strained to lift it over my head, to remove my camera. Sure, I realised this made me appear to be a tourist, but that was a misunderstanding under which I could happily labour. It would make me look interesting. A traveller, a nomad, a mystery.

I remembered how it felt, being a traveller. How ordering a beer, in a foreign language, made me feel special, detached, an observer from a faraway land. How my accent immediately pinned me down, made me someone to talk to, made me someone to question, to inspire awe and, perhaps, fear. Being a traveller could be good. Being a traveller could be very good, even in my home town.

I picked up a menu at the counter, and seconds later she was taking my order. "Will that be enough?" she tempted, against my meagre order of mustard and cheese toast. Yes, I decided, it would be.

"Oh, and I can get you some more milk if you want. I tend to make these coffees strong."

She was my kind of baristress. And, I realised, she was a baristress with an American accent.

"So you've come here from the States," I observed daftly, hoping she wasn't Canadian. I'd made that mistake before.

"Yes," she replied with a smile. "I wanted to get as far away from George Bush as possible."

I chuckled with her, realising that she had come more than three months ago, sniggering that however different things might be now, she had really just flown from the master to the lapdog.

"Yes," she smiled again. "I really should have done my research."

Umberto Eco, and a half-finshed coffee.