Happy Thanksgiving!

I know it's October, but that's how they do things here in Canada. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, so we had the traditional Thanksgiving feast. I was invited by friends of a friend and it was a ball! It was just like in "the States," except there were no Pilgrims and I'm told you can't have a Thanksgiving meal here without Brussel Sprouts--which is really too bad, because I think their absence would have been the only way to enhanced the meal. Turkey, stuffing, potatos, rolls, squash, green beans, cranberry sauce, mulled wine, hot apple pie--the works. So I'll tell you this, the way to go would be to live by the border so you can be here in October and the States in November. There's a lot of fine food to be had with friends in Vancouver. Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh, Canada!

Growing up in Michigan, I've been to Canada at least a hundred times. So it doesn't really seem like going to a foreign country. But it's a much different part of Canada, and as of last week, you need your passport to cross the border, so eat it. I'm going to Canada. I'm waiting in a bus station right now for my friend Bert, who is kind enough to drop me off in Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA, "on his way" home to north Washington. Seattle is a gem for sure, and I may stop back in there in a couple weeks, but for now, I'm singing: "Oh, Canada! My home and native land..." (not really)

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
- James F. Byrnes

No One Travels Alone: Steven

"Have a seat." Steven says. "We should pray here."

"What do you pray for?" I asked.

"I pray that I might grow roots here."

I found a mildly comfortable tree root to sit against, but got distracted by the mushy earth around it.

"Be careful," Steven warned, "that's someone's roots there." He laughed.

Steven is from Belgium. If they still had hippies, he would be one. Steven found his house on Google Earth last night and saw his town from the air for the first time. He arrived in the United States a little while back on the East Coast. Then he hitchhiked across Canada before descending into Seattle. I met him because we are staying with the same people.

"Do you want a beer?" Steven asks swinging his arm my direction.

"It's nine o'clock in the morning."

"Oh. Ok."

I told Steven that I planned to come out to Snoqualmie Falls today. "Can I come?" he asked. So I drove while he crocheted and we both listened to Regina Spektor.

Steven makes hats. It's a new skill he learned in Victoria. He told me that he left many good friends in Victoria. He was only there a few days. He must make friends quickly--he's fairly disarming. I think it's the accent. He speaks like he lives: slowly and with distinction--and always with a Belgian twist.

"I loved a girl there," he told me, not referring to sex. "I loved several. It's okay to love people you know. And when you do, you find that you love each of them differently. And those loves add something to your life to make something quite beautiful. ...I think people don't love enough."

We were on our way back up from the falls basin when Steven wandered off the path without warning.

"It's beautiful," he said. Then after a moment, asked, "Where are you going next?"

"I don't know. I suppose back to Seattle."

"Why are you in such a hurry? Why not sit here in nature and relax a while?"

After a pensive pause, I agreed. We walked further off the path into a glen. I find a fallen tree to sit on and Steven lays down on a muddy hillside. The occassional tourist that walks by stops to ask if he's ok. He smirks every time.

"Dude, are you alright?" She was right next to him and her volume didn't match the serenity of the scene.

"Yeah," he replies very quietly.

"What are you doing?" a little softer this time.

"I'm watching the trees."

"What do you see up there?" and the woman lays down in the dirt next to him, her friend frozen and staring a few feet away. After a short moment, the woman says, "He knows what's going on! This guy understands what it's all about!" She speaks with mock religious conviction before standing up and walking away, laughing.

Come rain or shine?

What's wrong with this city?!? See this picture? That's looking straight up from the city street on which I'm walking. It's raining. Does that look like it should be raining to you? Welcome to Seattle. (But I still like the rain.)

Incedentally, I've been told that while it rains all the time, it almost never snows here. I didn't expect that. It has to do with the near-sea level elevation and the way the jetstream brings either cold, dry air from Canada/Alaska or warm wet air from the south Pacific. But the end result: No snow, more rain.

No One Travels Alone

As I was putting my travel plans into motion, many people asked if I was going to travel by myself. I didn't know anyone who could or would allow such a big interuption to life's plans on someone else's timetable, so my answer was yes. I planned to hit the road on my own.

But there's something about the culture of travel that opens people up to each other in a way that's sadly missing in everyday life. I don't even mean between two travelers--even locals seem to sympathetically open up when they hear the other is on the road. Maybe it's the fact that everyone misses the people they left behind, or the reality of loneliness is much less denied, but the barriers between people are much thinner when one's on the road.

What this has meant to me is that, so far I have enjoyed the remarkable kindness of some phenomenal people! I am staying with two people who are unspeakably gracious. Not only have they welcomed me into their house and given me a place to stay (at no cost), but they've shared their food, shown me around and become friends. Also a new friend is another fellow couch surfer they had staying with them. Steven and I have adventured around and beyond the city, sipped coffee and talked about important things in life.

Then there is David and his wife Michelle, whom, after a chance meeting literally on the side of the road, became friends and showed remarkable kindness and hospitality. Add to all this quite a number of other new friends with whom I can enjoy a night out. Then combine all this with the small world bringing in St. Louis friends for a conference last week and local college buddies I hope to meet up with soon. It's enough to convince me that no one travels alone. So for anyone keeping track, my answer now is, "No, I'm not traveling alone; I'm meeting my friends along the way."

A Day in the Life...

Having been on the road for a week now, I am compelled (by popular demand) to lay out for you what a normal day looks like. So that's what I will do; but you have to realize before I even start that every single day has, of necessity, so much uncertainty to it that the concept of a "normal day" is entirely artificial. Nonetheless, you asked for it, and I will tell.

I wake up on a couch. It's a futon, actually, and I've already woken up a few times already. (I don't mind.) I am staying with some very kind people I hadn't met before I arrived and the quiet bustle of their typical morning routine is enough to arouse my barely conscious attention for a brief moment. But now I am up and ready to approach the day.

I have a morning routine of my own. Everything I own fits inside my backpack, but the fitting is a trick and takes some time. I want to be a low-impact houseguest, so when it's all arranged, my possessions sit neatly as an upright and filled backpack in an inconspicuous corner. Armed with my daypack filled with electronic gadgets (which will have their own post in due time), a book, a journal and miscellanies, I take a walk to the bus stop.

I asked a few people I thought would know if Seattle's public transportation was any good. They said it wasn't. They were wrong. Other than the very rare occasion a scheduled bus doesn't show up, I find the Seattle public transit system to be efficient, ecconomical and convenient. From what I can tell, almost every part of the city is accessible this way (some by means of the "water taxi"), and their website makes planning your trip mindless. Even when one finds he needs to catch a bus at 3am, it's there waiting.

Even with the whole city open to me, my destination of choice via the metrobus is downtown. It's a beautiful cosmopolitan area perfect for people watching and finding whatever your heart desires. Most often, my heart desires coffee (the experience, not the drink). There are usually two or three of these coffee shop experiences per day where I unfold my keyboard, prop up my Nokia and milk the free WiFi for everything it's worth.

What would a day in a foreign city be without galavanting around as explorer? My favorite means for such is walking and taking it all as it comes. When in a bus or car, looking more closely at any new discovery must be a very decided action. You have to park (very tough in this city), get out to investigate, then return and re-enter traffic. So you stop less. When on foot, a curiousity is effortlessly explored. And such finds often include a great new cafe, a curiously cavernous bookstore, historic sites, interesting art, or new people to hang out with.

One peculiarity of my exploring preferences that I've found is that the exploration is done just as much when seated as when walking around. For an intellectual (meaning a person who enjoys thinking, not implying anything else), exploration is at least as much a mental pursuit as that of the traditional understanding. I can walk around the city all day and uncover phenomenal treasures, but without a backstory and historio-cultural context for my new discovery, it's merely pleasing to look at. This is why a significant portion of my day is spent reading about the things I've discovered.

Speaking of reading, several of my evenings have been whiled away in Seattle's eerily modern library or the commercial equivilent: Barnes and Noble. When you carry everything on your back, you have to pack light; so books are brought sparingly. Fortunately, books are available in abundance in this country, no matter what city your in. So the remaining half of Harry Potter that I didn't have a chance to finish is being chipped away at, one fine evening at the Barnes and Noble cafe after another.

I can't say where to fit this into the chronology, but each day includes a fair amount of various interaction with the people I've met. Sometimes this means hanging out with the people with whom I'm staying. Sometimes this means meeting up with old friends in town. And sometimes this means a night on the town with new friends I've met. This is perhaps the most unpredictable part of the adventure--and perhaps the most enjoyable.

The day ends as I find my way back to the futon (usually by bus). I sneak in as quietly as I can so as not to wake the other couch surfers. I unpack my bag, unfold my sheets, plug in my gadgets and fall asleep with only a small thought of what tomorrow will bring. After all, tomorrow is another day and so far, none have been like the last.