The good times roll on

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Well I’ve had another awesome few weeks in North America.

Highlight of the past fortnight was a trip to Seattle and Portland to see Sigur Ros, my ‘weird Icelandic band’.

Taking my gig addiction to a new level, I travelled down to Seattle on Saturday morning and spent a day and a half sight seeing and then on Sunday night it was the first of three Sigur Ros concerts, in three nights in three cities.

The morning after the Seattle concert I then headed to Portland for the second concert and early the morning after that it was a full day’s travel back to Vancouver via Seattle for the third concert.

Even I thought I was crazy for undertaking all this travel just to see a band but it was totally worth it. The first night in Seattle was great but then Portland was even better and then the last night in Vancouver (and also the last night of their North American tour) was just totally amazing and ranks as one of the best concerts I’ve ever been too.

The set lists for all three nights were similar but the Vancouver and Portland sets were much better than Seattle and the lighting, music, crowd participation and sense of fun got better each night.

One mind blowing moment came when they played a really up tempo song of theirs and had the whole crowd standing up, clapping along and then near the end of the song they unleashed a downpour of multi coloured confetti - it was magical.

Despite the band growing in popularity over the past few years, the band also looked after the fans and played intimate 1,200 to 2,000 capacity concert halls, again the Vancouver venue (and my seat) was by far the best of the three and definitely the nicest concert hall I’ve been too.

I did manage some sight seeing as well. Despite losing my credit card when I arrived in Seattle, almost missing bus connections (and literally getting back to Vancouver just in time for the last concert).

Having been to Seattle a few times already, I wanted to get out of the downtown area and so this time I checked out the nearby, trendy Capitol Hill district with all its cute shops, cafes and restaurants (and an awesome specialty beer shop with hundreds of beers from all over the world including Coopers Pale Ale for only $10/6 pack!).

On the recommendation of a friend I also headed to the outer suburb of Fremont which is a bit of a hippie/artist commune. There are strange and interesting pieces of street art throughout the area, some cool weekend markets, an interesting stone troll under the bridge, a great chocolate factory (curry and coconut chocolate is tastier than it sounds!) and lots of great cafes (including an awesome veggie restaurant).

Unfortunately I only had half a day in Portland which wasn’t long enough to really get a feel for the city and the lack of access to funds (I had $17 cash on me to last 24 hours - luckily there were free meals at both the hostels) also limited my touristy stuff to a stroll through downtown, Chinatown and the hip Pearl District.

I didn’t even get to sample any of the many micro Breweries scattered around the city but I did get to have an awesome 4 shot latte at the coffee roaster across the road from my hostel. I also had some great coffee at two small coffee roasters in Seattle - three of the best coffees I’ve ever had and it sure beats Starbucks!

Back in Vancouver and two nights after Sigur Ros I went to a gig by Aussie electro-rock outfit Cut Copy with my friend Dane (who I met when I sold my spare ticket for the gig to). The crowd were totally mental tonight and it was non stop dancing for an hour and a half making for a totally exhilarating night.

Things are still going well at work, we’ve had a major accounting system upgrade which has resulted in some big challenges with billing - so much so it reminds of the GST roll our in 2000, and I’m now spending part of my time in billing, relief work in matters/conflicts and have just started down in credit control (that’s right Margaret, I’m chasing clients for money!!!).

Getting along awesomely with my flatmates, we’ve started Survivor nights and generally a few of my flatmates friends come along, we have a group dinner and then laugh at the silly Americans.

The other weekend was Thanksgiving (Canada not the States) and house mate Jason invited me to join him and his girlfriend and his cousin for an overnight stay at his parents house in Chilliwack around 1 ½ hours outside of Vancouver.

It was my first thanks giving and the first ‘family’ even I’ve been to since leaving Perth. Jason’s mum and dad are really nice and their house has stunning, uninterrupted views of the forest (the whole area really reminds me of Roleystone).

We had a great dinner on the Sunday night (I made some awesome stuffed pumpkins) and then drank and played games into the wee hours of the morning. On the Monday morning Jason’s mum took myself and Jason’s cousin for a tour of Chilliwack including her work (both of Jason’s parents work/worked for the RCMP - yes the Canadian mounties!).

The rest of the day was spent playing card and board games (I totally whipped their asses at Hearts) and that night we were joined for dinner by some family friends and their one year old kid - it was a really lovely couple of days.

This week I’m back house sitting for Nicky’s cousin and hoping to make use of what is likely to be the last remnants of sunny weather (two days of constant rain have been replaced by some much needed, but likely short lived, sunshine!).

Well that’s all from me for now, hope all is well back home and to all those that don’t know, very exciting news that Kelly and Craig got engaged the other week and a special congratulations for Maria’s Plush making it past the one year mark.

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