Emma & Ben… Far From Home

6th – 16th June 2017

Our first stop in the USA was Seattle. It’s famous for quite a surprising amount of stuff; the Space Needle, Frasier, grunge music (Nirvana hail from near here), the movie ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ (according to Em, a “classic” movie I absolutely must watch when we get home…). It’s the birthplace of both Starbucks and Microsoft. It’s also renowned for having lots of rain, although a local confidently told us its rainfall is average for the USA. However, we aren’t sure we believe him. It just kind of drizzles… almost all the time. A bit like England really. 

We arrived around 10pm on an Amtrak train from Vancouver. It took us about 30 minutes to get to our hostel, where we checked in and headed straight for bed. The next day we were up early (ish) to hit some of the main sites, starting with the famous Pike Street Market. 

The market is one of the largest and oldest in the whole of the USA. It’s home to a wide array of different cafes, bakeries, shops and food stalls; this includes the first ever Starbucks. Over the 3 days we were in town, we tried quite a few of different foods available, and all of it was delicious. Yes, there are hundreds of tourists there, but if you are in Seattle, you can’t miss it; it’s brilliant!

In the afternoon, we went to the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum. It was the top rated thing to do on Trip Advisor, and showcases the art of Dave Chihuly, a local glass artist. Some of the pieces were really cool, but it was also quite expensive for a relatively small exhibition, and the blurb describing the pieces was horribly pretentious, even for an art museum. We wouldn’t really recommend it.

In the evening, we went up the Space Needle. Originally built for the World Fair of 1962, it’s quickly became a symbol of Seattle. It offers great views over the city… with one problem. Can you work it out from the picture below?

If you are on top of the Space Needle, when you look out over the skyline, you don’t see the Space Needle. This is a bit of shame, as it is such an iconic building; in hindsight, if you want to see the skyline of Seattle, we’d recommend going up one of the skyscrapers instead.

On our second day, we tried to explore more of the city, including the University of Washington, which was really impressive. As Em works at a university, she got super excited to see some of the students were graduating! I wasn’t quite so amazed. Apparently, “Lizi would understand”.

From Seattle, we got another train south to Portland, Oregon. Portland isn’t famous for lots of stuff like Seattle is; its claims to fame include having lots of food trucks, the TV show ‘Portlandia’ (no, me either) and having the slogan “Keep Portland weird”, a reference to the fact they like to embrace the kooky and do things differently.

When we arrived, we found there was a festival going on, which included a big parade. We watched as these different floats went past, followed by marching bands and rodeo queens with perma-grins, all with names like Britney and Cindy. The mayor showed up too. 

We watched for a while, but our bellies were rumbling so we went to find some of the food trucks. There are about 700; apparently they all sprang up in 2008, as those who lost their jobs in the recession tried to find new ways of making money. 

If we are brutally honest, apart from the food, there wasn’t too much to do in Portland. We went to the famous Rose Gardens, had a wander around the shops and markets, and did a walking tour of the city. It was a nice couple of days, but at the end of it, we were ready to move on.

We flew from the Pacific North West into New Orleans. Within an hour or so of landing, we realised that during our stay in the Deep South we would have a job understanding what the locals were saying on account of the strong accent. It was like when we watched the first season of “The Wire”, and it took us a few episodes to work out what the hell everyone was saying. The problem was both ways; they couldn’t understand us either, although they seemed to have more trouble with me. I even had one lady ask me if I was speaking English.

Whilst we were in New Orleans we went (you guessed it)… on some walking tours. One of them looked at the history of voodoo in the city. The lady running was clearly a believer in the power of voodoo, and told us how she uses crystals, dolls and potions, as well as how she nailed chicken feet to her door to scare a neighbour. I tried my best to disguise my withering scepticism, and to be fair the tour was quite interesting.

Apart from going on yet more walking tours, we spent most of the time enjoying the city’s famous food, drink and live music. 

New Orleans is well known as a party town full of colourful characters. Some claim this may be as a result of New Orleans’ unusual beginnings; when the French needed colonists for the emerging city, and having unsurprisingly failed to convince normal citizens to make their way across the Atlantic and settle in what was basically a big swamp, they instead just emptied their mental institutes and prisons of their inmates and shipped them here. 
If you like live music, it really is a fantastic place to visit. There is so much, both in the streets and in the countless bars. It’s not just jazz and blues; there is pretty much something for everyone. Walking down Bourbon Street at night, you really are spoiled for choice.

On our final day, we went to the National WW2 Museum. It’s pretty new, and pretty good. Like most museums in the US, you pay for a basic ticket, and then can pay extra for special exhibits. We ended up splashing out to go and see a documentary narrated by everyone’s favourite Villa fan, Tom Hanks. It wasn’t a normal film; it had props and special effects that helped bring it to life. At the end, the super patriotic Americans cheered, proud of how they single handedly won WW2 (we think the role of the British and other allies was rather underplayed). Even if a bit biased, it was really good. We can’t say this for the other thing we paid extra for; the chance to complete a simulation of a submarine mission against the Japanese Navy. Em and I had the job of marking the ships on the sub’s radar; it was like a really crappy video game. We didn’t really get was going on or even know if what we did helped the sub in the battle. In the end, we got sunk. It was the only low point of the museum, and of our time in New Orleans.

(Posted by Ben)