The Largesse Apple

Pics of Toronto and New York - also a couple of Oliver pics in the Seattle gallery

Everyone in New York looks down towards your feet, though not from shyness. It is a familiar phenomenon that I've experienced in London, though less frequent. It took me a while to recall why so many people, instead of looking you up and down, as the less subtle people watchers are prone to doing, they just glance straight down at your feet before moving on. I'm not wearing bright pink clown boots so it is of course a shoe obsession - everyone gets judged by their shoes. Primarily a female obsession that has inevitably crossed over to the male realm as a result of the biological drive to reproduce. Men now wear their status on their feet (everywhere else too of course, but they finally figured out shoes were the surest method of seduction).

That observation alone could usually sum up a smaller city (like large swathes of Sydney perhaps - image conscious, materialistic and money-centric. But NYC has vastly more layers, in fact, when you arrive in NYC you leave the USA and enter what feels like the sovereign nation of New York. Perhaps its the size of the buildings in lower Manhattan, that makes you feel like Manhattan is one state in the nation of New York. The skyline of Manhattan is indeed astounding - even for a anti-big city cynic such as me. Even more gob smacking is the enormity of the old buildings - with Gothic architecture they rival the heights of many of the new skyscrapers - now the Twin Towers are missing. The phrase 'concrete jungle' must have been coined in NYC for it is indeed like walking through a forest of massive buildings.

Walking through Lower Manhattan however is also like going to Disneyland, everyone seems to be a tourist, the New Yorkers are probably hiding in the tall buildings waiting for dark so they can scurry home without bumping into fools like me standing still staring upwards.

To quickly recap the past week - Lukas and Oliver dropped us at Seattle airport and we bade them farewell after a much needed relaxing week with them. It was great to spend time with Lukas and to really consolidate in Oliver's mind that we're his Aussie family who love him too. On arrival to Toronto we were met by Lucas and Farah (refer to the first couple of hundred posts for details of our escapades) and were whisked off to Niagara Falls - a spectacular must see that also kept us from falling asleep after not getting a wink on our overnight flight. We were spoiled rotten with rooftop BBQs, cooked breakfasts, a swim in Lake Ontario at 'The Beach' on a glorious summer day, and a thorough guided tour of Toronto. But Sunday evening was time yet again for a sad farewell and we boarded our overnight bus to NYC - not before I caught an emergency taxi back to Lucas and Farahs apartment to get my wallet!

After a couple of days of intensive sight seeing in NYC I come away with mixed feelings, Times Square and the Empire State Building were monumental let downs - some bright lights and big screens - woo. hoo. But the buzz of kids on summer holiday programs and the community service advertising further redeems the US, probably local governments mostly, in terms of their approach to educating and guiding those who need support.

Also 9/11 ground zero, the size of the buildings and imagining their collapse was mind boggling, just beyond words. I also found the general architecture of the apartment blocks here in Harlem where our hostel is, and around the outskirts of central park, to be constantly lovely and half makes me wish I could live here for a little while - but I get over that pretty quickly the next time someone looks at my feet.

Seattlites

Seattle pics up.

I've only just noticed the title of the last post was Seattle to San Fran. The direction of travel was of course the opposite to that, and we've been in the Seattle for the past week. During this time, my position on the state of affairs in the US has softened a bit. In fact, I've found myself quite taken by the Seattle (and the Pacific Northwest in general). A city that spawned grunge culture with bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam might either be a highly conservative industrial society that was being rebelled against, or a left leaning, thoughtful and progressive society that fosters creativity and self-analysis. The latter appears to be the case.

The city is built between Lake Washington and Lake Union, snow-capped mountains to the east and west and the largest and whitest, Mt Rainier, looming in the south. Hiking, skiing, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, horse riding and other outdoor pursuits abound from just the city fringe. The city itself has a variety of cultures and architectures that vary hugely between suburbs.

We were told that after the 4th of July the sun would come out, and has it ever. Cold, damp days have been banished to day dreams by the now apparently irrepressible sun. The cloudless days and more subtle nature of Seattlites has most likely made this city (and the USA in general) feel vastly more livable. And for some reason I'm evaluating everywhere I go in terms of its livability - rather than what it offers to the temporary visitor.

But our week here with my brother Lukas and his little boy Oliver finishes today and we move forwards, and ever more eastward, this time to Toronto to visit Lucas and Farah. So in the words of a guy called Rudd (not Kev though), goodbye to the west and hello to the east.

Seattle to San Fran

It’s been barely a week since my last update but already feels like I’ve been in America for an eon. Has a day gone by that I haven’t eaten fries? Not that I can recall. As I expected, the portion sizes are generally gargantuan and the smothering of salt, fat and sugar into everything is beyond belief. How anyone survives without a finely tuned shopping and eating strategy baffles me. Surprisingly, the size of the people hasn’t caught my attention – perhaps the obesity problem in Australia explains why. Many Australians eat just as much rubbish (perhaps in less enormous quantities) and just as little fruit and veg, and exercise less than a dead person. My complaints with the USA could extend to how annoying, loud and ignorant the vast majority of people I’ve come across are, the few exceptions to this make the generalisation more than fair in my view.

The positives in the USA, where they exist, are also staggering. The landscapes on offer include every conceivable environment – and I haven’t even been far. Deserts, rolling fields, agricultural monocultures, permacultural diversity, alpine meadows and hills, snow capped craggy mountains and dense concrete jungles are what we’ve passed through in a week, including a temperature varying by nearly 30 degrees Celsius. The forces for good in the US are also powerful. The extremes of the US make Australia appear a lumbering mass of apathy being poked at with sticks by the tiny rabid left and right wings. But of course the strong progressive nature of the US is counteracted by the howling conservative army led by the religious right, racists and republicans.

The wedding we attended in Sonoma was a success and we had a fun few days together with friends. We’re now with my brother Luke in Seattle, watching the rain set in this afternoon following a quick hike (1000m gain in altitude) up and down Mt Si.

I should mention that of all the many buses I have ridden on, the greyhound bus from Vallejo (near San Fran) to Seattle was the worst with the loudest, smelliest, most disturbing passengers I've ever seen.

Photos are up of the past week