New York re-cap

I present a brief selection of cakes from New York.

Seen only through the window, and unfortunately unsampled, lurid cakes in Spanish Harlem:The selection in a strange, ultra-modernist cake bar (!) on the Lower East Side:And, my favourite, the cakes Nico and I enjoyed at Podunk, the most wonderful, retro, homely teahouse I could imagine - thank you Sarah for the recommendation (mine already tucked into before I remembered to take a photo)!

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.

New York V

Apologies - it's been a while, I know. But with the election over, and spending all my time on touristy activities in New York, it has been really hard to think of things worth writing about.

Some of the less touristy things I have been up to include raking up the leaves of a Quaker cemetery in Brooklyn, accompanying someone to a walk in clinic (she had tonsillitis), going to Whole Foods Market nearly every day, mainly to stock up on Dorset cereals, watching every Arsenal match and attempting to get into running (but have now hurt my knee and given up I'm afraid).

Mostly I don't feel like writing about New York because I reckon most of you know the city better than I do, so there doesn't seem much point. It's wonderful here, but occasionally there are things that get me down.

One in particular. Changing trains on the subway I saw a young man, about my age, begging. There are a lot of beggars on the subway (more than in London) but this guy was even more tragic than the rest of them. He held a sign, strung over his upper arms with string, and resting on his chest. It said, essentially, "I lost my arms in an accident and am trying to collect money in order to get prosthetic limbs".

The sheer barbarity of such a rich country being unwilling to collectively provide for this man to get new arms - to enable him to work! - was one thing that freaked me out. But the other was that I averted my eyes and jumped on my train. It was only once I had sat down that I realised my heart was racing. And that I should have stopped, spoken to him and given him some money. (If I were a half way committed journalist or blogger - I would also have taken a photo of his sign). Being so constantly assailed (and it's the same in London) I avoid even thinking about these things until it's too late to do anything. For this I am ashamed, and am trying to do differently until I leave.

Philadelphia VII - get out the vote!

Checking door knockers was pretty boring, but after we were redeployed to a more southern area office we were sent out to knock on doors and to remind people to vote.

I was lucky enough to be paired with a wonderful woman who lived in the area, knew her way around and clearly felt at ease there. And we were lucky enough to be working in areas which were nearly 100% black, so we never had to ask if someone was considering voting for Obama. In fact, quite a few people took great pleasure in pretending, momentarily, to have voted for McCain.

The areas we were in were pretty poor, including a set of streets called "the box" which is notorious for having the most drug dealers anywhere in Philadelphia, and some others where my canvassing partner had seen a teenager firing a gun the previous week. Many houses were boarded up, and many others which looked uninhabitable contained families (in the lower photo of the street you can see a man opening the door of a house that looks completely boarded up).

We knocked on hundreds of doors in the course of the day, and struggled to find a single person who had not already voted. Almost everyone said they had voted before work, at 7 or 8am. Some people had family members who had been unable to sleep, and had arrived at the polling station at 6 (they didn't open for voting until 7) just to make sure they would get a chance to vote. Someone who had arrived at 7 was the 160th person to vote at his station. Unlike in other parts of this city, and the country, there were hardly any queues after this initial rush, and no one reported being turned away or unable to vote for any reason.

But there was a festive atmosphere around the polling stations, even without queues. One had been set up in a small flower shop (see photo), another in a funeral home. Outside another, in a local park, a man had set up an amplifier and was playing covers by Dave Matthews Band, with a small Obama sign. Other people around him were sitting on park benches or standing around, often with their children, holding Obama signs, while others gave out coffee and pretzels to voters as they arrived (the 36th ward office had a huge supply of pretzels for people who had to wait in line, but since no one in our area did they were distributed relatively freely).

By 6pm we were mainly just telling everyone to have a great night and enjoy the celebrations, as people started to come out into the streets, to greet everyone they saw with "have you voted?" and drive around honking. People also started to tell us to be careful and stay safe, and since everyone seemed to have voted we left happy (and exhausted from all that walking!).

Philadelphia VI - the office and the organisation

The shifts at the Obama office in Philadelphia's 36th ward were advertised as starting at 8am, 11am and 2pm on the website. I didn't make it for 8 I'm afraid, but I wandered down there after breakfast and arrived at about 10:30.

There were seven members of staff, and about four volunteers waiting for their missions. By the time I had waited 10 minutes to be briefed and sent out, eight more volunteers had arrived.

You can see from the picture that we were a diverse bunch, though perhaps unrepresentatively white, as the 36th ward is largely black.

I have heard a lot of people talking about the military precision with which local Obama offices have been run, despite the fact that they are largely staffed by young volunteers. This is not quite how it seemed to me. I was impressed with how they were able to find work for the many volunteers who just showed up wanting to be helpful, and redeployed us by chauffeur driven minibus to other areas when we were more needed there. Especially as they must have had very little idea of just how many people would show up on the day.

However, there seemed to be little in the way of a plan of action, and a fair amount of tussling between the various members of staff over how volunteers could be most useful. All this was done in earshot of said volunteers as we waited to be given our tasks, and I was quite uncomfortable to hear the dismissive way some of them talked about us.

I also found some them pretty patronising. One guy was briefing us to go out and check whether the correct door hangers had been left out in various polling districts: we had to make sure they showed the correct polling station as some had been left on the wrong streets. He showed us maps of each district, which were enclosed by a line in yellow highlighter, and explained at length that on the boundaries of each district, only the internal side of the street was part of the district, the other belonging to a different district. He then spent an awful lot of time unnecessarily talking about how to identify which was the north side of the road, saying "but in case you have any difficulty identifying which is the north side, I've got a useful heuristic for you to use" before confusing everyone with incorrect information about the numbering of streets in Philadelphia. It was all rather frustrating, that they didn't feel able to trust us to take a map and be able to read it.

Nevertheless, I don't want to be too negative! The atmosphere in the offices was upbeat, if only from our natural enthusiasm for the project, and it felt like we were all contributing, if only in a minute way. And there was a fantastic selection of food - doughnuts, apples, home-made ginger cake, salad, chocolate bars and pizza (though all at different times - we never knew what might be on offer when we got back to the office!).

Chicago IV - birthday

It started promisingly enough - I had a lot of lovely birthday messages (thank you!) and I got out on this lovely bike again. I rode the 10 miles along the lake shore from the place where I am staying to the centre of the city, where I left the bike and went for a bit of a wander.

It then deteriorated when I found that the museum I wanted to go to was closed, and the tube line I was close to didn't go to the other museum I wanted to go to... and it was pouring with rain. I decided just to try to get some lunch, but despite this city having a great reputation for food I walked for more than half an hour without finding anything except chains and dives. When I was soaked to the skin and about to give up I thankfully came across a very nice Italian restaurant and warmed up while I waited for my rigatone with wild mushrooms and tomato sauce (which was delicious).

I couldn't face the ride home so I took the bike on the tube (so civilised!).

But the evening was wonderful - one of my hosts made pumpkin miso soup, rice and black-bean-kale-and-garlic stew for dinner, which was followed by birthday brownies (complete with candles). Then we went to the "liquor store" (which prompted a discussion about why off licenses are called that) and spent the rest of the evening sitting around talking, listening to music (handsome boy modeling school, Kate Bush and something Argentinian), drinking and... taking myers briggs personality tests. Many of you will know I have an inexplicable love of these tests, so this was about the best possible way I could have spent my birthday. No, seriously!

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.

"Empire Builder" - Seattle to Chicago

Though no one specifically asked for it, I think I promised you a tale of train food in the form of photo story. I have attempted this below!

On the first evening everyone at my table chose the four cheese ravioli, which were more appetising than they look! And not too filling, leaving room for the chocolate and raspberry torte which was delicious.

For breakfast the next day, french toast. Accompanied by a series of uncomfortable silences (single travellers are allocated to spare seats with strangers - which can be good and can be really, really awkward).

Lunch was a "garden burger" served with crisps and half a gherkin. And I'm afraid I forgot to take a picture of the key lime pie, but it wasn't what I expected (i.e. a lime green version of lemon meringue pie) - more like a lime flavoured cheesecake with a bit of crumble, or crumbly pie, topping.

Dinner on the second night was identical to the first, except the conversation was notably worse (lunch and dinner only have one vegetarian option each). Oh, except followed by chocolate icecream.

Breakfast I also forgot to photograph (sorry!) but it was rice crispies, a strawberry yoghurt, two wedges of orange and a "biscuit" (dry, savoury scone). And they'd run out of tea!!! Not impressed. Also not impressed to be sat opposite a silent (literally) minister of the church (another table mate informed me) who was the spitting image of Steve Buschemi, and with two rather rabid republicans whose best case against Obama was that he had initially not worn an American flag lapel badge.

Lunch was only available in the dining car between 11 and 12 which seemed just too soon after breakfast for me, so I got another garden burger (this time no relish) from the lounge car - incredible fpod item - vacuum packed for long life, bunged (whole - bun and all) in the microwave for 2 minutes and then it counts as edible. Actually, it did the bun a lot of good: apart from being a bit soggy on the outside (from the condensation) it was nicely chewy and sweet.

Santa Cruz

Unlike the previous debates, which have had my full attention, I'm afraid this one only got about half. Partly because I was watching over the internet, but mainly because someone was cooking me the most fantastic meal downstairs, and I could smell it and after a while couldn't bear not being near the food and had to abandon the politicians. The dinner was... extremely spicy home grown tomato, courgette, cinnamon and chilli soup, spicy italian sausage, marinated chicken wings, farfelle with garlic, home made garlic and paprika bread, salad with garlic dressing... and to finish a fruit salad with 86% cocoa chocolate! Wow. A lot of garlic and absolutely delicious.

I noted down some thoughts, as follows.

The first thing that struck me was that neither Obama nor McCain seemed as comfortable talking to "the people" (they were answering questions from the floor) as they had been in a more formal one-on-one debate. I didn't find either as articulate or as succinct in their answers, and there was a fair amount of rambling from them both.

The second was just how old McCain looks, even when he's not standing by the side of a man who is 25 years younger, a foot taller and infinitely more attractive. He shuffles when he walks. He looked slightly unstable on his feet. And you really can see the tumour on his face (or at least, some sign of where it was). Speaking of which, the doctor I met on the train said "people just don't survive melanoma - he's going to die and it's going to be soon". And we all know where that would leave us if he is elected.

The third striking thing was how similar so much of the content was to both the first presidential debate, and the VP debate. The same "facts" kept being trotted out: McCain wants to give $4bn to the oil companies. Obama voted 94 times against tax cuts. And after each of these attacks, the other tried to defend himself instead of answering the next question, while apologising by saying he knew people don't like this "back and forth" and finger pointing.

I did catch the point at which McCain called Obama "that one" but am surprised people are making so much of it as it seemed to come more from rushing to get his point out than any maliciousness.

The general concensus seems to be that Obama won, but with a caveat - that he did so only because he is already in the lead and it would take a dramatic improvement or a killer line of attack for McCain to be said to have won. I would agree in as much as I think Obama didn't do his best, he failed to say anything really inspirational in my view. But I suppose that, as in football, one shouldn't complain if one's team wins despite having played poorly. In fact, one should be rather grateful.

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?

Photos

At Ellie's suggestion I have worked out how to add photos. They are all supposedly labeled but I can't see that - hopefully they are self explanatory anyway. I've added an old one to 10th Sept which I meant to do ages ago but forgot (sorry).

I've put this photo up because I didn't have anywhere else to put it, and I guessed that everyone else was like me and had always wondered why there are 57 varieties of Heinz!

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.

Tuesday 9th September 2008 – 18:35 GMT, Ziemia Cieszynska

Someone should have told the chef that on the first day of seasickness tongue may not be the best dish to serve. Even Roman, the tough third officer who shares our table, opted for sausage instead.

Thursday 4th September - 21:15, Corus factory, Beverwijk (Dutch time)

I thought it might make some of you giggle to hear about the food on board.

I am a reluctant vegetarian, and was secretly slightly relishing the opportunity to eat meat (largely) guilt free for a couple of weeks. Arriving on board has confirmed my suspicion that vegetarianism isn't a viable option on a Polish boat. We are served platefuls of food, with no choice of either contents or portion size.

The first two dinners were roughly what I'd expected - variations on meat + boiled potatoes (with gherkins the first night, and in a stew the second). Breakfast - a boiled egg the first day, a frankfurter the next, with bread and jam. I got scared I would end up constipated and scurvy-ous after 2 weeks of this, so went to Haarlem and bought apples and vitamin c to keep me going. But then came tonight's dinner...

A large pile of droopy lettuce in a creamy sauce. A main dish of three large pancakes, stuffed with that savoury cheese you get in eastern European pastries, and covered in chocolate sauce. Plus, a chocolate mousse-cum-blancmange, with cherry syrup (possibly leftover from the lunch I missed), a pear and a large carton of orange juice.

Surely not a typical Polish dinner? I am wondering if this was a last-night-on-land celebratory dinner, or if the chef was using up his leftovers, or if he just gets bored (as the rest of the sailors surely do) of meat and potatoes, and fancies a change just once in a while.

Or perhaps he is experimenting with vegetarianism.