in the hall of the troll king

Roman Payne said it well - and oh, he knew how I feel about hotel rooms ( they're magic ) and subway trains!

Spent a few days in a big city recently, in a neighbourhood where I felt faintly nervous about going out after dark - the number of drug addicts and suspicious characters gathering in gangs in dark alleys might have had something to do with it.

Yet, I pulled my friend with me down to the subway station ( not the safest of places ) as we were walking back to our hotel. I wanted to smell the burned metal of the train tracks and hear the rumble of approaching underground trains vibrate in the walls. I wanted to watch men in dreadlocks and giggling women in high heels hurry to their train. I wanted the possibility of glimpsing a huge rat in the tunnels. I wanted dark looks from under homeless hoods and the spark of danger in the air. I wanted an urban night where anything can happen. I wanted the Big City, hundreds of subway stations and millions of stories meeting under strip lights.

"I would like to bottle this smell," I sang, delirious. "The one of steel and old urine. I would like to record this sound of a faraway train deep underground. I would listen to it when I can't sleep."

My friend thought I was mad, and rightly so.