Today has been long, but in a really good way. Left Portland early and caught a train to Seattle; where it was experiencing a rare day of beautiful sunshine! After checking my stuff into the hostel, a really nice place in Belltown, I ate breakfast (in the sense that it was the first meal of the day; it was a very un-breakfast-y katsu-don) in the open-sided Japanese restaurant next door and walked into town. Here I visited the famous Pike Street Market, and watched people throwing fish around and yelling (in a good way!). I also had a latte from the original Starbucks store and wandered along the seafront where I failed to buy replacement sunglasses (but not for lack of trying). Spent most of the afternoon exploring 1st and 2nd avenue; there were so many interesting little places to look in! Seattle is a very cool place to walk around. This evening I have managed to get to a show and not one but two gigs! First order of the evening was a live version of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (YouTube it at once if you haven’t seen it!) in a tiny underground (literally) theatre: very, very funny and really well done with minimal staging and cast – a real find. Then on to a place called Neumos where I guess it was a rock night: a couple of boring/annoying bands, including one who destroyed ‘How Soon Is Now?’ by the Smiths. One intersting band called Ghost Town Riot who might be worth another look. Left after one song of the last band and went across the street where I was fortunate enough to catch a set by an awesome two-piece called Jogger. Hard to describe, but imagine one guy singing through a violin pick up and another covering everything else with a variety of knobs and glowing buttons! (Or give them a search on MySpace and see for yourself ) Pretty ace. And that brings us up to date for the mo! I’m now going to escape the sounds of guitars being tuned badly, and hit the hay.

So, the hostel in Portland had computers on which it was impossible to upload files; I have gotten so behind on my updates! In the spirit of late-night computering I will now try and remember what I’ve done in the last 3 days.

 

Portland. Portland is a strange and interesting place. There are loads of good things about it, for example all the trams and busses have hooks and racks for bikes; there are loads of interesting little shops (and some interesting big ones too, like Powell’s books which actually refers to itself (fairly aptly) as a city!); and there seems to be a great local music scene. There are also some bizarre laws; for example if a bar serves alcohol it also has to serve at least SIX food dishes (no peanuts here!). It is also illegal to sit on the pavement. This leads into the worse side of the city; there is clearly a massive problem with homelessness here. It’s something I’ve noticed in a few American cities actually, and I’m sure it’s linked to a lack of public healthcare – there are a high proportion of disabled people on the streets. In the UK these people would be taken care of; here they fend for themselves and live off whatever small change guilty people toss them as they walk past. It’s bizarre, and even more so in a liberal/hippie town like Portland. Social issues aside, Wednesday was a good day. I hired (sorry, rented – they don’t understand the word ‘hired’ here) a bike and explored downtown finding things like famers’ markets and (more!) record shops. Rounded off the evening with a trip to a bar which had free 80s video games followed by a gig of mostly-shite electronica and a long walk home. Fun though, filled it with a long conversation with a guy from New York about Ikea addictions and the dream of custom CD/book storage! Oh dear me…