There are people and noises from the street, small throngs of people are gathering.
It's the arrival of the commercial Olympic Torch.
And because the restaurant isn't yet open and we're curious we go out to the street to watch.
There are lots of police. Vans and cars going up and down the street. Then there's music and more cars, it's like a parade, and a big truck comes by blaring music, loaded with all sorts of youthful dancers "getting down", passing out little Canada-Coke Olympic flags and special "collectible" bottles of coke. As the music fades another truck appears, more waving dancers "getting down", it's the Royal Bank of Canada, who would have thought bankers could be so fun?
Is this a day off for them? Do they simply pick the "cool" tellers and stick them on this van to drive up and down the street for the day the torch is in town? Or are they professional dancers, traveling across the country to promote the good name of RBC and Coke? They don't seem that professional. But they sure are trying to look like they're having fun. Although if you worked in a bank a day spent dancing on the back of a truck might seem like fun.
Do they drive down the highway like this, dancing on the back of the truck in the empty prairie, in the cold mountain passes?
Then there are more police, a squad on bicycles. Police come down on foot, pushing back pedestrians from the street, keeping it clear for the torch.
The crowds, the people, they immediately push back onto the street when the police have left.
More joggers, and finally the torchbearer, smiling and waving for all the world like it's Santa Clause. I'm seized with an overwhelming desire to grab a fire extinguisher, it'd be easy, for all the security and precautions, the millions spent, it all comes down to goodwill in the end; we're Canadians, we have nothing to protest, it's our moment, "lets all get along, shall we", meanwhile the torchbearer, still smiling and waving disappears down the street.
Anticlimactic.