New York VI

So, I discovered my inner journalist and battled selfconsciousness to take this picture of a man, just outside Grand Central station:


I guess he was deliberately referencing the men made famous in photos of the Depression. But with a modern twist - endorsements from his media appearances.

I also saw this sign in the East Village which made me giggle:

People are obviously aware of the worsening situation. But at the same time, luxury businesses seem to be continuing to thrive: the photo's not great, but I saw this advert for a helicopter taxi to the airport on a taxi on Fifth Avenue.

Boston III

I don't know why, but I've not yet written about the war (probably that should be wars). But they are omnipresent here in a way they aren't at all at home.

I noticed it most listening to people's conversations on buses and trains. I have probably overheard at least four groups of people talking about friends they have who are currently overseas fighting. One girl was berating her friends for failing to stay in contact with someone they had all once been close to, but who had been in Iraq for nearly a year. An old couple were talking about how hard it was for some children they knew to be growing up without their father around. War seems to have intruded into people's everyday lives here much more than in the UK.

I stole this picture from Sarah, who is in Boston for three weeks on a visiting fellowship at Harvard; I forgot my camera when I went out walking today. She pointed these signs out to me. They are all over the city, 'though I saw a particularly high number in a poor neighbourhood called Dorchester. I can't find anything about them on the internet, but apparently they are the names of American soldiers who have died in recent conflicts. I'm not sure if they lived on, or had any connection to, the streets they are assigned, but it's startling to be reminded, on nearly every street corner, of a recent death. And many are well tended (like this one) with flowers and american flags.

Chicago II - or "Americans love their dogs"

My first host in Chicago, who I met through Servas, and I went today to a park in the north of the city to... enter her dog into a dog fancy dress competition.

Leaving aside the fact that I am really quite scared of dogs, and being held in a small enclosed park with 60 of them, all off their leashes, for 2 hours is close to my room 101, it was quite an experience.

Joey was our entrant - as Elvis. She ended up winning 3rd prize in the home made costume category:

Other highlights included geisha, police dog, wonderwoman and a pirate:

It was certainly unlike anything I have ever, or would ever, do under my own steam, but then, that's part of the point of this adventure. Only, adventurous in a direction I wouldn't necessarily have expected.

Signs of the times

Sign in a bakery in Seattle
Sign on a suburban street in Boulder - click on it to enlarge, I think it's worth it (it's a public response to a rather angry letter from a neighbour accusing the poster's author of conspiring to murder a bear, calling him septic scum and suggesting he goes "back east").
Protest advert in central San Francisco.

San Francisco II

One really nice thing about America is the street life. Possibly this has something to do with the climate, which encourages people to spend time outdoors with their fellow citizens. Two examples:

In Denver, and again in San Francisco, I saw public chess boards, at which crowds of (apparent) strangers gathered to play each other!

And this morning I saw this group of elderly Chinese women (there was a similar group of men on the other side of the park) doing some kind of co-ordinated dancing (Chinese line dancing?) in the Italian quarter. They seemed unselfconscious in the face of a number of curious photographers.

The train from Denver to Emeryville (for SF)

34 hours of train is a lot of train by anyone's standards. Not to say it was boring - far from it. In fact, I only managed to read about 100 pages of books because there was so much to see, and so many people to talk to. So, there is too much to write to really be able to tell you what it was like. Instead, I will write about the people... and a little about the food.

The photo is of the one meal I took in the "dining car" (always makes me think of the chattanooga choo choo). Unfortunately you can't see quite what a disappointment it was. They were sold out of the only vegetarian option (veggie burger), so I had to take the macaroni cheese from the children's menu. It came in... 3 minutes! As did my dining companion's steak burger. It was a small bowl of overcooked pasta, with a very small amount of cream sauce. Where was the crispy cheesy topping?! Maybe kids aren't supposed to care about that.

The rest of my food I brought with me - the on board meals are expensive and (as you might have guessed) not that great. However, on my seriously long haul from Seattle to Chicago I have a sleeping car, which is fiendishly expensive, but includes all my meals in the dining car. So, watch this space for a detailed (and if I remember, illustrated) discussion of Amtrak cuisine.

No Amish this time, but a good and varied collection of people nonetheless. 2 English gap year students doing NYC to SF in one go, a computer game idea generator from Barcelona via Montreal, a train nut who spent hours (literally) telling me about California's historic inter-urban railways, a bossy mum with her recalcitrant son - she drove him mad making him do things like give up his seat so I could sit next to her and talk, a crowd of Serbian students, a black doctor with a white wife, a Glaswegian son-in-law and a Chinese daughter-in-law (and a passion for Obama) and a woman who had lost the sight in each of her eyes but in two different ways...

I am struck by the easy sociability of Americans, and ashamed when I find myself ill at ease or worrying about being rude.

De Tocqueville wrote about the pleasure two American strangers have on meeting one another, and how this contrasts with the English, who exchange only the most necessary pleasantries before making their excuses and going their own way. This was (incredibly, 170 years later!) illustrated on the train. The lounge car attendant asked me, and the man in the queue behind me, where we were from. London. And Manchester. We smiled nervously at one another and asked politely what the other was doing in America. Then the conversation stalled. Yet I imagine he was as swept away by the openness and friendliness of Americans and found himself in long conversations with them, as I did.

PS update on 10th October - I forgot to write that we journeyed along a river for quite a long time, passing a couple of camp sites, and lots of people out in boats or on the shore enjoying the great outdoors. As the train went past, literally half of those along the river pulled their trousers down and mooned us. Is this some kind of great American tradition?

Boulder, Colorado

I am afraid Boulder has disappointed me. I was hoping for something along the lines of Hebden Bridge / Todmorden, but bigger, since everyone says it's the best place in the US to live, is totally right on and wonderful in every way.

It is true that the place is full of cyclists, ethical furniture shops and stoner-ish students. Sweetly, its bus lines have names like hop, skip and jump. But it's also the yuppiest city I've ever been to - so it is full of oxygen bars, smug people, over-priced restaurants and travel agents specialising in Nepal and Tibet.

And the most beggars I've seen since I arrived in the states - with signs saying things like "way beyond hungry" and "punched (in the face!) and hungry".

Cleveland, Ohio

I have found reasonably convincing proof that America is a more advanced nation than England:

1. Peanut butter pie
2. Peanut butter cup Ben & Jerry's ice cream
3. No waiting list for an allotment (here at least)

On the other hand, there are a few stikes against:

1. One train per day out of Cleveland in each direction - both between 2 and 3 am
2. No pedestrian access to Cleveland's long distance train station (!)
3. Local taxes spent buying the most expensive site in the city and building an America Football stadium on it - used only 9 times a year and unaffordable for the majority of residents of the city...
4. Black poverty levels which make some streets look a lot closer to Umtata, South Africa than the rest of the USA

Most surreal experience in Cleveland: going to a public chalk art festival where a Caribbean band performed an hour of songs about how everyone should vote for Obama.

Word on the street is that he won't carry Ohio, and McCain knows it, so will campaign hard in the area in order to deplete the Obama camp funds.