In 1977 I arrived in Ottawa, Canada. In those days, I wasted time looking for a bar for an espresso, in vain. The bar or café, that phenomenon of Buenos Aires, Budapest, Paris, Madrid, and that which has given writers and philosophers everything from suicide, to amorous encounters and illusory clandestine meetings, did not exist in the city where I had landed. I don't know what was happening in the other cities of the country.