Here comes bod!

So many museums – so little time, it would be good to meet up with any london booties who could give me some pointers.

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My train was cancelled tonight, because of a freight train derailment out near Buffalo, which has blocked the line East of here – I had the option of a nine hour bus trip, or to just give up, stay in Chicago and make the most of it.

So I went back up the Hancock tower, the city was fantastic in the dark – really incredible – very very very good, and it seems like I was the only one with a decent camera, so I became the unofficial photographer for the night – I’ve got four addresses of people who want a copy of my pictures.

So anyway, I checked back in, stored my stuff and took a nap – only to be rudely woken at 3:15 by the fecking fire alarm, so all 300 of us were turfed out into the -12’C night air.

It was only while I was out on the street, clutching my camera that I realised that I’d left my passport, money and tickets in my room – I had enough for coffee and twinkies, so I slunk around to the 24 hour seven-eleven to sulk about my stupidity.

Apparently it was a false alarm – which I guess is a good thing. Maybe I should sleep with my travel docs close to hand. Well maybe not, I’m stuffed full of caffeine and sugar- so sleep isn’t really on the cards anytime soon, still the 2 gigs of photos are pretty cool to look through.

I’ve survived the great blizzard of ’05 and got some amazing shots of the way the place coped with the lousy weather. Chicago knows how to handle snow – they had people out until 3am cleaning and salting the streets – it looks beautiful, although you’d freeze your nuts off, if it wasn’t for all the coffee bars around here.

The flight to Phoenix and Detroit was great, we hit the Jet stream coming over Colorado – lots of turbulance, but other than that everything went fine. Arring at Detroit I quickly discovered why they call it ‘Motor City’ – they looked at me like I had two heads when I asked if I could get a bus downtown.

The bus ride was an experience in its self – the airport is miles, and I mean miles away from Detroit – with nothing but strip malls visible from the road – after what felt like a couple of hours later we got to Detroit. I stayed in the Shorecrest motel, near the Ren Centre – it wasn’t bad – a wee bit tatty, but nothing to complain about – especially at that price.

My first impression of Detroit was that it was a bitterly cold, windswept, wasteland – but remembering Portland, I quickly got over it and discovered that the downtown holds some immacuately preserved art deco buildings – I spent over an hour in the Guardian building – there’s no point talking about it though – well, not without pictures – which are on a CD somewhere.

The people in the city were all very friendly and helpful, well that is except for the latino goon in the Ren Centre who confiscated my camera and threatened to arrest me for taking photos of the railings in the lobby – I never realised that GM runs it’s own private police force, one with detention powers.

Walking around the downtown area, you wonder if GM and Ford are killing the city or keeping it alive – the only real shopping was in the GM sponsored Ren Centre which is accessible by the ‘people mover’ monorail – it’s great, running in a loop from the Ren to the Ford Field where the superbowl is going to be hosted.

The city is on a vast scale, it’s several miles from downtown to the midtown area, public transport coverage is patchy at best and people drive everywhere, as a tourist without a car I found it difficult to get around.

The game was excellent – Stevie and Shannahan both scored, much to the approval of the home crowd, the atmosphere was great, hell just being there was great. We went for beers, I lost at darts and found a new home for Paddington – he’s going to be travelling the World with Alexis and her brother.

I would like to have spent more time in Detroit, I didn’t have a chance to explore the Fox theatre or the Fisher building – my cabbie took me on a free guided tour of midtown and took me out to the motown museum which was really nice of him, he knew his stuff – apparently Madonna is a Detroiter!

I never had any problems in the city – everybody was friendly and chatty – I left my camera in a diner/bar and somebody ran after me to return it, although that wasn’t the first thought that occured to me at the time.

I caught the Wolverine through to Chicago, where I was met by an Amtrak lady – apparently there was a bug in my railpass and they wanted to sort it out for me (!) – that would never happen in the UK – they were very appologetic and got it fixed in about ten minutes – more nice, helpful people – why can’t people in England be more like this.

Sorry, I’ts been a while – but trying to get on-line is tricky in this country – unless you’re lugging around an iMac – in which case you can even get a wi-fi connection in Dress Barn.

Sunday in Portland was great fun – I went downtown and up to the churches by the highway andd worked my way back down to the river – it’s a much better way to see the city. I spent ages snapping the cultural centre, particularly the Portland sign. The dome in the foyer of the new building is lovely.

I bumped into one of the presenters of a local classical music show in ‘Taco del Mar’ – I showed him some of my photos and he suggested I try to get a look around the Arlene Schnitzer hall (or whatever it’s called) – so I tried and got pounced on by security – we argued about it for a bit and a guy came over to see what the fuss was, I explained what I wanted to do and he said; ‘Ok’ which was nice – he then took me into the auditorium – which was amazing – every surface is covered with plaster work – it was a fantastic space – so anyway, we got talking about the place and he suggested that I come back later to listen to the performance, before I could say anything he’d sorted out a ticket for me in the dress-circle right behind the conductor.

It was a great experience – I was sitting, in my grungy jeans and fleece, surrounded by Portlands great and good for the opening night of their pre-Christmas programme. The acoustics in the hall were very subtle and warm – it was a very intimate experience – I would heartily recommend it to anybody. I’ve been to modern concert halls and definitely prefered the softness of the sound in Portland.

The victorian architecture around here is amazing – it’s very fin-de -siecle, really colourful. I’ve been around Division, Hawthorn and Belmont and am heading downtown and maybe over to Pearl later.

I’ve figured out how this place works – you just look people in the eye, smile and make a random comment – people will stop in the street for a chat – it’s great.

I’ve talked my way into a tour of a chocolate factory, a free lunch and a pub crawl with a bunch of fire fighters – it’s been fun. Most of the people I’ve met are refugees from other cities in the US – “Portland : it’s more relaxed than California”.

The microbrews are great – really fragrant, nothing like ‘real ales’ – they’re excellent.

I didn’t manage to make it to the BnA thing – we were over on the wrong side of town, but I did get to say hi to Tunk and SkyAnnie. I’ll try and see if anybody is still around – I’ve still got a pack of soldiers for Chris and a load of chocolate to get rid of.

Wahey – daylight puts such a different perspective on the city 🙂

Hawthorn is a much less scary in the daylight, lots of little picket fence style house painted in bright colours – they looked scary and evil in the dark – apparently Portland is all about the neighbourhoods and less about the downtown.

We’ve been hanging out in and around Hawthorn, it’s a really bo-ho area – apparently a lot like Pearl, but on a lower budget. And finally we get some sun. Am going to head off to look at the Volcano later – should be able to catch the sunset before the BnA thing.

I guess the PDX people don’t do rain – everybody was a lot chattier today.

Well I managed to get hold of Julie, she said to come over to Powells bookstore over on Burnside – it’s way over the other side of the river – but I had my camera so I set off to get some skyline shots over the river.

It turns out that the Hawthorn road bridge is a raising bridge – the huge towers in the middle haul up the central section to allow ships to pass underneath – I know this because they were testing the bloody thing – still, it was cool to watch – but kind of frustrating as I was in a hurry.

Portland has a block-grid layout typical of many American cities, but unlike Seattle where there are typically several smaller developments or a single ‘stepped back’ hi-rise to a block – the blocks here are fully developed, presenting a fairly flat and solid face typically 4-12 storeys high – it looks nice, but I prefered the way that Seattle opened up as you walked around it, giving you a sneaky peak as to what was coming up.

It was 39F and pouring with rain when I eventually got to the bookshop – nobody was there – so I tried ringing my contacts – just got their answer services, so I hung around for a couple of hours trying to reach them and stomped off back to the Hostel in Hawthorn.

I think I’d have enjoyed Portland more, had I just arrived here unannounced – not meeting up with people really put a downer on it. Still, might as well make the most of it, Hawthorn seems to be a residential district – lots of tiny clapper boarded houses – think ‘Picket fences’ or mini-Amityvilles.

I didn’t feel comfortable walking around alone with my camera – the area isn’t terribly well lit and was more or less abandoned – I must have seen less than 50 people out on the streets all night.

There is a farmers market down by the river, the japanese gardens, the convention centre and some buildings in the central historic district that I want to have a look at – with any luck the weather will lift a bit and I’ll get some shots of Mt Hood.

So far I reckon that the only thing warmer than a Portland welcome is the freezing rain – perhaps this will change later.

Got the train out of King st station – it ws delayed by about 30 minutes because apparently somebody forgot to refuel the train… we then missed our slot and hgot stuck behind a freight train for a few minutes – apparently they have priority on the lines – this doesn’t bode well for the more congested industrial heartlands around Pitsburg and Cleveland.

The train trip was great – I spent most of it in the ‘Bistro ar’ chewing the fat with a photographer and an architecture professor – it was great they loved the pictures of the library – so I’ve got another couple of contacts.

There was snow alongside the tracks from Tacoma to Vancouver – I finally got to see the Tacoma Narrows bridge – not the original, for obvious reasons and got a good view of the parallel span being built to expand the capacity of the deck.

Portland Union station was exactly whta I wanted a train station wo look like, i.e. with the dropped platform, having to cross the tracks and the whole turn-of the century charm that you get in places like Bakers street and St. Pancreas.

I met this girl in the station, she gave me a heads-up on the city – apparently there are hidden beavers and remenants of the cow parade to look out for – am also keen to get a look at the bridges and the highway. There are some hot springs that she recommended as well as a hidden bridge somewhere – she’d been there, loved it and bought the t-shirt (I have a photo to prove it) – apparently the bridge connects three islands with spans merging between all three – sounds cool, but the hot springs might be better.

Am going to get my bearings and try and get hold of Chris and Julie, then it’s sushi, sangrias and strippers — wahey!