‘Little Tom’

Although Jon and I have just been swanning about so far, I’ve been given some money by my college to go and visit graduates out here. I thought it was about time to go and find one who lived in Seattle. I left Jon on Vashon with the meth addicts and headed off to meet this guy. His name was ‘Little Tom’ and he stood at just over 6 foot 4. A gentle giant if ever I met one; when I bumped in to him he was bending down on the floor trying to get a payphone to work because he got jumpy that I wasn’t around on time. He graduated from Balliol in 1955 so he’s pretty old but as sharp, enchanting and hilarious as they come. Turns out he used to work in the Pentagon and he kept getting out maps to show me the strategic sea routes and history of Seattle. I stayed with him in his house in Maple Valley, a suburb of Seattle that is all automated sprinkers, green lawns and hazy mountain views. Forty minutes driving straight out of the city and purely residential, Maply Valley is the classic US suburb, built on the premise that there will always be enough cheap fuel to allow you to live great distances from the amenities and facilities needed for daily life. On arrival, I met his wife ‘Mrs Brown’, a tiny sharp woman who was a domestic goddess/scientist (I’ve never seen anyone fold up a bedcover so efficiently in my life). their home was incredible, their ‘back yard’ (understood in Britain to be a small concrete slab outside your house which is sometimes big enough to park your car on if you’re lucky) was a gigantic lawn/pine forest/deer park. Their fridge loomed like Mount Ranier. My bed had no less than 8 pillows. Bit of a contrast to the sleeping bag and beans the night before.

The next morning I was fed twice before being taken on a two hour cruise where an overly friendly narrator who was non-ironically called Cindy told us about everything we passed, pointing out things we might have missed, like big bridges, and telling us what they were (big bridges, apparantly). We saw the floating homes on Lake Washington that really do float on Cedar logs. Apparantly they used to be very cheap forms of housing that were slums, but now they sell from anywhere between 1 and 17 million. The state restricts the number of floating homes that can be built on the lake and when one was built illicitly, the owners decided to succeed from the US rather than give up their home - they now form their own independent nation with their own currency and stamps.   Everything we passed was stunningly beautiful -the wealth of this place, the size of the cruise boats and the stadiums, the gallas and the festivals, was overwhelming. We passed by ‘Microsoft Mile’ and saw Bill Gates’ house. The house itself was obscured by trees, doubtless screening out the masses of tourists who stop their boats to gawk. We saw the sand he’d imported to create his own private beach and Cindy reeled off a list of ’OOOoooh-Aaaaah’ facts about his extravagant lifestyle. As the richest man in the world, I guess there has to be some kind of ‘Gates-cult’ around, there seems to be a weird aspirational-critical fascination with the man and his house. Personally I was more interested in Mount Ranier, which appears and dissapears at random intervals depending on the atmospheric conditions - allusively posing as a cloud and showing herself when she wants to, dwarfing the skyscrapers even though she’s 100 miles away. Long over due for an erruption, she could wipe Seattle away. But, as Mrs Brown said, she didn’t yesterday, or the day before and she probably won’t tomorrow - so people just get on with it.

On the way home we went up the Space Needle (you know, that weird space ship on knitting needles shown in Frasier) and it was ok.

When we came home, I helped Mrs Brown package up some parcels of gifts she was sending to the troops in Iraq. She has a blue star hanging in her window, which means her son has been posted their. If the star turns gold, it’s a sign he’s not coming back.

Vashon Island

A curly haired bouncy woman at our hostel told us that the best place to camp was Vashon Island, so we decided to ‘head off in to the sunset’. We were temporarily adopted by a woman on the bus who took us the whole way and made her husband give us a lift to the campsite. She was commuting home - better journey home than being squashed in to the London Underground! The destination is pretty good too; lots of rolling zero friction roads sweep through forests and pass by little rich hippy communities filled with liberals seeking refuge from the mainstream on the mainland. Everyone who lives there seems to love the place.  

At the campsite we were greeted (after quite a long wait) by an exceptionally chilled American called Dan who had a moustache, a gravelly voice and a ‘yeah, yeah, whatever…’ attitude. The site was empty save a few tee-pees and wagons dotted around and Jon and I pithched up our tent. Ok, Jon pitched up the tent – I ate some crisps. There being no shop at the site, Jon and I cycled the few miles in to town on the hostel’s free bikes and picked up some beans and hummus for dinner. We opened the tins and put them next to the fire where they cooked nicely. We had some weird company for dinner. The only other people there were two staff (an ex meth addict who hadn’t slept for 48 hours and a guy who was going to die from cancer any minute) and a small young korean woman who tended to be silent apart from the odd ’sometimes I just wish I could pray all day’ comment. The social dynamic was, shall we say, less than optimal. Try sustaining a conversation with those three whilst eating a can of boiling beans in the dark. Jon and I retired to our tent quite early that night. The whole island was so quiet, the trees so tall and the sky so clear.

After a few failed attempts at pancake mixing the next morning we produced something that vaguely resembled burnt scrambled egg, ate it and headed off in to the forest. We came to a huge lilly pond where we soaked up the sun and sacrificed ourselves to the mosquitoes. Grabbed our bikes and cycled to the beach where we paddled in the Pacific, Jon cartwheeling in the wetsand.  

Seattle

I love this place. As you drive South the city creeps up on you, all shining water, skyscrapers and space needle. Looks like the kind of scene that should have credits rolling up it. Should anyone want to visit the place, stay at the Hostel International just off 1st Avenue. Jon and I rolled up without booking and got the last two beds in the place. I've never seen such a hostel – huge free breakfast, massive rooms, no 'line ups' for the shower andcomplementary stuff wherever you go. The people here seem friendly without the stepford wives quality of the Canadians – more down to earth.

Apparantly this place is supposed to rain all the time but the city has been bathed in sunlight since we got here. Rather than being a grey drizzling city it's the most colourful city I've ever been to. The Pike Place public market sells more beautiful flowers than I have ever seen - cheap because they are grown locally. The whole place is bustling and alive with water and sky scraper views on every side.

If these explosions of colour weren't enough, Jon and I woke up this morning and bumped straight in to the annual gay pride festival. 50,000 paraded through the city. I have never seen a parade like it – more material than any parade I have seen before. Headed by 'dykes on bikes' the parade kicked off with 40 or 50 crazily large bikes roaring at high speeds up and down the street that was lined with cheering crowds. Then came firetrucks, dancers, bands… Loads of politicians and corporations trying to tap the 'pink pound' in Seattle had donated vehicles, balloons, bubble machines and free hand outs to the parade. Apparantly Starbucks is 'Proud of Pride'. 

What was also interesting about the parade was that it wasn't just a happy clappy event. There seemed to me to be an undercurrent of anger and reaction about the whole thing. Liberals might be in a majority in Seattle but they know that they're outnumbered by most Americans who vote in an openly homophobic president. Not only that, but before the parade started to come through some Seattle residents had come out to preach the evils of homosexuality with the crowd. I did a few interviews with some of them, holding signs that said all gays were going to hell etc. They were pure religious fundamentalists, unable to explain why homsexuality was evil beyond quoting the Bible. Obviously the crowd who'd turned up to see the parade were outraged – many gay couples walked straight up to these protesters and kissed right in front of them, the rest of the crowd cheering loudly whenever it happened.  

Crossing the border…

Felt like a really 'cool road tripper' as Jon and I caught an old American chromed-to-the-hilt bus out of Vancouver. At the border of the US all of us were made to get out, have our bags checked and our private travelling plans exposed. Probably a publicity stunt to prove that the American government is 'cracking down on border control' post 9/11. If you ask me they're cracking up – the guy that checked my passport thought that the NRA was the best organisation in the world. I decided not to pick up on that one though. My finger prints were taken and then the guy slipped a microchip in to my passport. I asked him whether it would track my movements in the US and he told me that it would just check my movements across the border…. 'No Ma'am we don't care what you do once we let you in to the US, it's just letting you in that's the issue'

Leaving Vancouver

Before our bus left for Seattle, Jon and I found a friend to take us back to East Hastings in a car so we could get some photo evidence of what we'd seen. We cruised round in the streets in the morning, cameras poised at the windows. Things didn't look as bad as the day before until we came around a corner and stopped at some traffic lights where we saw people sitting in trolleys, dealing and shooting up – we snapped a few times but got noticed. The light was on red as about thirty angry looking guys started shouting, 'Hey – they're fucking taking  photos of us!' A few of them picked up bits of litter lying around on the streets and throwing at us. I was just thinking 'lights turn green lights turn green ' over and over in my head like some kind of chant as they started closing in. Luckily the lights switched and we left.

As we drove away I thought it must be pretty awful to have your life photographed like that without permission. On the other hand, if things like that are going on people should know about it and if the alternative is to shut these issues out so no-one thinks about or deals with the problems behind them, I'd rather take a few pictures. I'll see if I can upload some later.

Vancouver Retake

Today the perfect Candadian bubble burst. Jon and I hit Chinatown which is just East of Downtown. As you descend down the hill you enter several blocks of what can only be described as crack dens. Drugs are rife here because Vancouver serves as a port from Asia. More recently though, crystal meth has proved to be the more serious problem. Some of the locals had expressed concerns to us about 'the drug problem' but no-one prepared us for social deprivation like this. In London you meet your fair share of crack addicts, but you meet them in a context when there are other non-drug addicts around should anything get nasty. Around Homer Street in Vancouver there doesn't seem to be anyone who isn't an addict to turn to. Skinny women are selling themselves for crack, we saw a man lift up a girls skirt to inject her thigh, we saw an older chinese woman selling pills from a shaking hand. Tramps wind in and out of alley ways lined with wires pushing their homes about in trolleys. Many people are so thin you can see their ribs pertruding from their clothes and their cheeks are hollowed out, moving shiftily about in the windows of abandoned buildings turned crack dens. Many homeless people in Vamcouver seem to be mentally ill and, combined with drug addiction, the result is almost inhuman. I was utterly freaked out - all this was taking place in broad daylight, the sun shining and the glistening impression I'd got of Vancouver on the first day existing just 5 minutes up the road. Moreover, these people were desperate and I was a tourist with a big bag in flip flops who looked like a rabbit in the headlights. Yesterday the place had had an eerie quality about it because it didn't seem real. Today the Candadian friendliness and cleanliness felt fake. I didn't know which was worse: that these people were living like that, or that the Candadian government was letting them.

Vancouver

It's 9pm Canadian time and 5am my time. After travelling for almost 18 hours we've arrived at the beginning. Arriving at the airport was surreal: everything is freakishly *clean*. If you could play 'match the airport with the place' you'd know you were in Canada – the airport carpets look like lawns the sterile smell of chlorine accompanies the model fountains that seep alongside the esculators. Outside the airport, just as inside, Vancouver has this feel of being thoroughly planned: it's a blue print city, a model town, a real life Sim City 2000. On the way back from the airport it hits you – just over a century old the place hasn't had time to be bombed and remade, for buildings to be demolished and re-assembled; houses haven't had time to pile on top of each other nor have the streets had time to wind around each other or to wear in to the landscape. Growing up in London, it seems like houses are wedged in to every space; in Vancouver, it seems that every house is protected by its own superfluous space. The pattern that slips by on the bus; road, tree line, pavement, lawn, house, lawn, pavement, tree line road….each house segregated. All the colours seem turned up because everything is so clean – jet lag haze and sickness giving some kind of dream like quality to it all. 

As for the people, Jon summed it up exactly: 'offensively friendly'. When a uniformed stranger in an airport bombards you with questions, your going to feel edgey right? Not so in Vancouver; this authority figure is genuinely interested in where you're going, just like the woman at the currency booth who genuinely believes that your outfit is cute, or the bus driver who really does want to take you some way for free. The smiles and friendly nature seem so permanantly fixed that you have to question their authenticity, or their depth. 

There is a security in the predictability though – in the knowledge that someone just will stop to point out directions, or that a stranger will lend you some money for the internet. The young people are too clean to be of any threat – they eat too many apples to be intimidating. Walking around the streets, my first impression of Vancouver is immaculate -  even the homeless seem to have shiny trolleys. Even the mountains aren't rugged – more like scenery that someone has gently penciled in to complete the picture.       

The beginning…

Our flight is due to leave at 8am on June 22nd. When it lands in Vancouver, two 21 year olds will try to make their way from Canada to Venezuela. Watch this space.

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