happy B.C. day

so we are at the US-Canadian border in Blaine, Washington, on an Amtrak thruway bus headed to Seattle, stuck in a five-hour backup, and i’m stealing Internet from the US Customs Station. it’s the start of a long weekend flanked by British Columbia day, a provincial holiday i’m told authorities created to buffer the lack of holidays in august, the laziest month of the year, and everyone was headed to the US to celebrate.  i think this is brilliant, and if i ever find myself unfortunately thrust in the throes of state administration, i will declare a California day, or a New Jersey day, or a Pennsylvania day, and everyone will drive to Canada and have picnics.

i am outside. it is a beautiful day, and all the Canadians are going to the duty-free shop and buying alcohol, then opening the bottles on the side of the road to share with total strangers.  a girl comes up and sits next to me and starts talking to me about how unreal this traffic is, but at least it gives her time to work on her tan before she meets her fiancée in Seattle.  i approach our Korean driver who converses with a stout little Canadian man with skinny white legs, a red face and a straw hat.

man from winnipeg: well, i’ve never been a religious man, but… last year, God spoke to me. [awkward pause]. has God ever spoken to you?

me: [slowly backing away] um, if he has, can’t say i’ve ever heard it. i probably wasn’t listening.

winnipegian: well, God spoke to me last year. and you know what he told me?

me: eeeh… no?

mr. winnipeg: well, he told me to buy a Toyota [pronounced "ToYOter"] convertible. so i did. i’m not gonna do a silly thing like not listen to God.

me: [slightly relieved this man is being facetious.] no, you wouldn’t want to piss God off by not getting a convertible if he tells you to.

we are joined by a man named “Bobby” from a Maryland tour bus. he has the thickest Eastern shore accent i have ever heard. fresh off an alaska cruise, he waxes on to us for 15 minutes about everything he learned about raising wild salmon.  i admire his enthusiasm; he is like a schoolboy who just learned about dinosaurs and wants to tell his mom and dad everything a stegosaurus eats and poops during dinner.

we shake hands and he puts out his left hand.  i find this strange and think maybe he was a boy scout.  Bobby, newly retired, is 60 years old, and he just had a stroke that at first debilitated the left half of his body.  he has made a full recovery and now always shakes hands with his left hand, just because he can.

Bobby says everyone on his tour bus, all Marylanders, are bitching and moaning about the wait.  bill from winnipeg says, well, there’s not much you can do.  at least it’s not raining.  Bobby says yeah.  what’re y’all drinking?

i tell Bobby he belongs on the west coast.

on the road… again

so i’m sitting here on a bus about 500 meters from the US-Canadian border. we’re told the border crossing is backed up for five hours. miraculously, i whisk out my laptop and pick up a wireless network called “THE BEST OF THE BEST” that is unencrypted. so i figured i owe it to myself to post something. but i warn you this will be a bitch fest.

amtrak = idiot incompetent fascists
(see? someone agrees with me.)

they call me at 11 PM last night to tell me that the train i am scheduled on from seattle to portland, OR is not running. in fact, no west coast trains are running this weekend due to some mysterious, unforeseen “mechanical failure.” chances are i probably wouldn’t want to take it anyway. but the bus i was slated to take from vancouver to seattle was running on time, at 8 AM. seeing as it was going to arrive at noon, i booked a greyhound passage departing seattle at 1:30 PM to give myself plenty of time to walk ten blocks from Amtrak to Greyhound, and get a cup of coffee at (gasp) starbucks. yes, they have starbucks in seattle. it’s pretty unexpected, i know.

so i get to Pacific Central station in vancouver 40 minutes early and try, just for kicks, to see if i can get a continuous greyhound booking to portland. no dice. the guy tells me the amtrak bus will meet us outside. here’s the snitch: i never received my amtrak ticket in the mail, since (although i ordered express delivery and paid 12 bucks extra for it) it didn’t arrive to my house in san francisco before i left for canada. so i am sans ticket, and i explain this to the korean driver of the coach bus, who tells me that he requires a 38$ canadian deposit before he lets me board the bus, and then i’ve got to produce proof of purchase once i get to seattle. this is all well and good if not for the fact that i intentionally purged myself of canadian cash, especially bills, as i was LEAVING CANADA ON A BUS. the ATMs in canada don’t recognize US debit cards, unless they are bank-affiliated. the currency exchange wasn’t opening until 8 – coincidentally, when the bus was slated to leave. so the korean driver goes:

korean driver: i have to take a deposit – 38 dollars – no exceptions.

me: i’ll give you everything i own. here. watch. take it. canucks hat. it was 25 bucks. how about this crappy motorola razr? you can hold it as collateral.

korean driver: no exceptions. i’m going to get a coffee.

me: okay…

i follow him into mcdonalds. the mcdonalds in canada have a maple leaf embedded in the arch. as do a lot of corporate logos here. he seems to be completely ignoring me, and then i realise that he is stalling so i can wait for the exchange to open and cough up 38 bucks to board the bus.

thus, here i am, by the grace of god. on my way back to the states, stuck in what we’re told is a 5 hour backup at the border.

glad i bought that 1:30 pm greyhound ticket.

i want my damn money back, amtrak, you punks.

fascists.

c’est vancouver: c’est magnifique

in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, the United States and its allies, for a variety of staggering reasons, loses World War II to the Axis Powers. while Germany takes control of the east coast of the US, the west coast falls under the rule of the empire of Japan.

i mention this as it correlates to my first impression of Vancouver, having been to Japan before ever having visited Canada. Vancouver looks like what San Francisco would probably resemble had Japan taken over in 1945. and i don’t say this simply because it is chock full of camera-wielding Asians sporting peace signs, though this is also true.

the elements of design in this, the most fluid of cities, seems distinctly Asian-inspired. the vast majority of building downtown is brand spanking new, and you can literally pan your head around the horizon and see new glass and steel condo towers seemingly erecting themselves on all shores. walking through ritzy downtown shopping areas along narrow alleyways adorned with immaculate sidewalks reminds me more of Japan than of North America. further along, you wind up on a sunny beach strewn with downed old-growth redwoods and cedars, from which you can glimpse snow-capped mountains just across the bay on Vancouver Island. not to mention miles and miles of bike trails through one of the largest urban parks in North America. and one of the best seaside pyrotechnic displays you could ever hope to see in your lifetime.

combine with all of that a cheerful, fun-loving people (with funny accents), as well as some of the youngest and best-looking, and the ever-more civilised metric system, and you get Vancouver.

 

if this is Canada, give me more.

incommunicado

so, people have been hitting me up hard to post something new, since i have been trawling up the pacific northwest for a few weeks now without so much as a peep or a snapshot on this thing.  part of the reason is that i was on a boat going up the inside passage from vancouver into alaska, and that internet cost about $1.75 a minute for a shitty dial-up connect.  also, well, words really can’t do it justice.  and like a dumbass, i left my USB cable at home in frisco, so i can’t upload any damn pictures until i get back next monday.  so you’ll all have to put up with my whimsical rambling until then.

i won’t try and describe the beauty of alaska, only advise any americans (or otherwise) who have never been out there to take the privilege of going to one of the most beautiful places you can go to without a passport.  make the trip, you will never regret it.  and though hiking to the summit one of the state’s many mountains will give you breathtaking views of all that lies beyond, as i can now attest, there is probably no better way to immerse yourself in alaska than by sea.