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Crossing the border
A 2 hour wait to get into America!! Hi there
As we have not really observed anything particularly new or interesting in Canada since our last installment, our observations this time relate to what we experienced on our recent trip across the border into the US.
- Fast food diet. The number of overweight people we noticed in the US was significantly more than what we have seen in Canada. We were expecting to find a large number of overweight people when we arrived in Canada as we figured it was so similar to the States that the prominance of Fast Food outlets would surely result in a population of fatties. However, this simply hasn't been the case. But after only 2 days in Seattle it is apparent to us that the US definately has a greater obesity problem. We have commented before on our suprise at the lack of big fast food outlets such as McDonald's in Canada (not really lacking as such, but just not as many as we thought there would be) but we had no trouble finding plenty of McDonald's in Seattle.
- I guess quite understandably the US is much more protective of their borders than Canada. On our way
down it took us 2 hours to clear US Customs and Immigration, such is their thoroughness in screening the people coming into their country. On the way back it took us approximately 10 minutes to clear Canadian Customs and Immigration. Admittedly it was Sunday night when we crossed back into Canada so traffic was light but even so, it is probably more stressful going through a McDonald's drive through.
- We were amazed at the number of huge shopping centres and malls etc located right along the I5 (main interstate highway). Every couple of miles there would be another big shopping centre with pretty much the same superstores as the last one. They seem to be in apparently random locations surrounded by farmers paddocks or bush with no actual residential neighbourhoods to serivce (I guess they must be there somewhere but it looks pretty weird). As well as shopping centres there are gas stations, fast food places, restaurants and motels every couple of miles as well as even more randomly located casinos with hundreds of cars in the parking lots. There is no way Transit NZ would ever allow that sort of development to happen along NZ highways, although
there are no cocky's farm accesses etc directly on to the I5 to slow the traffic down and clog it up so that would certainly keep Transit happy.
As mentioned above, we spent last weekend exploring Seattle, the largest city in Washington state, just across the border in the US. We boarded our bus in downtown Vancouver at 9am on Saturday and within the hour we were queing up in traffic at the border. After disembarking from the bus we stood in line for about 30 mins waiting to be processed. We then experienced further delays when they couldn't get a match on my fingerprints. Working as hard as I do lawnmowing (yeah right!) my hands have become severly dry and are peeling to the point that the fingerprinting machine couldn't actually read them properly and they weren't able to match them to the set they already had on the system. Thankfully we had a very patient customs officer who was able to see the funny side of it and after getting some help from another officer they agreed that I was not an iminent security to national security and the problem was sorted and they let us through.
Cruising the I5
Heading south on the I5 between the border and Seattle. Having held up the bus a little bit longer than expected we proceeded to head on down the I5. I didn't get to see much of the countryside on the way down as I crashed in the back of the bus having got up at 5:45 that morning to listen to the Blues lose to the Sharks.
On arrival into Seattle at around 1:30 pm we walked though downtown to our accommodation. We stayed at The Moore Hotel, a charming old hotel that has been pleasently restored and offered some pretty reasonable rates, although we did have to share a bathroom. Next to The Moore Hotel is The Moore Theatre where now famous Seattle bands such Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam cut their teeth in the music biz (more about that later). Once settled into our room we headed off down to Pike Place Market, a very popular and lively public market with fish markets, fruit and vege markets, arts, crafts, restaurants, cafes and many other cool little shops and stalls. As with most public markets there was also an abundance of very entertaining street performers. There are couple of pretty popular public markets in Vancouver but I have
Barber shop quartet
These guys were really awesome!! to say that this one tops them all. Another popular attraction within Pike Place Market is the original Starbucks. This was where the phenomenun began way back in 1912 and this Starbucks is refreshingly different from the standard layout and decor of all other present dayStarbucks, although we didn't venture inside as the place was just to crowded. A short walk down the hill from the market is the Waterfront where we watched all the vessels on the harbour taking place in the Maritime Festival.
After exploring the Pike Place Market and the Waterfront we began to make our way to the 'ball park' via the Pioneer District. This area is Seattle's version of the historic Gastown area of Vancouver and consists of cobbled roads and paths with tree lined streets and old red brick buildings that has been transformed from a 'Skid Row' (interestingly enough the term Skid Row actually has its origins in this area after one of the dodgy local streets was nicknamed Skid Road, but that is another story) into a trendy area with cafes, bars and art galleries etc.
On the otherside of the Pioneer District is Safeco Field, home of the Seattle
Art museum
Neat statue outside museum Mariners Major League Baseball team. The stadium is sited right next door to Qwest Field which is home to the Seattle Seahawks NFL team and looks back over the downtown area and Puget Sound. Unfortunately the only seats available to us were the worst in the stadium right up in the 'nosebleeds' where you almost need binoculars to see the game, but we weren't bothered as we had an amazing view of the whole stadium spectacle (and they only cost $18). The game was a pretty interesting experience. It was quite strange standing for the singing of the 'Star Spangled Banner' but once the game had begun and we had our peanuts and beer we were settled in for an evening of baseball. The first 3 innings were pretty entertaining with the NY Yankees scoring 5 runs in one innings. The last six innings were less exciting with neither team scoring any runs so the game was effectively over after the 3rd innings. However the regular breaks in the baseball allowed for various games and other entertainment over the PA system and the scoreboard to keep the crowd amused, including the traditional 7th Inning Stretch where during the break between
the top and the bottom of the 7th inning the crowd stands and sings "Take me out to the ball game". Anyway, in the end the Yankees won the game 7 - 2 but lost the 3 game series 2 - 1.
After the game we strolled back through the Pioneer District and downtown area to our hotel for a much needed kip. The feeling we got from our late night wander was that it was a slightly more risky place to walk in a night than Van.
After a bit of a sleepin the next morning we checked out of our hotel and went and found somewhere on the waterfront for a nice cooked breakfast. We then cruised the downtown shopping district but as we're travellers on a budget, Emma was unable to satisfy her growing urges for reckless shopping sprees. She did pop into L'Occitane just to see how it differed from Canada and was suprised at the additional products they had to offer that her store didn't. We then jumped on the monorail and headed for the Seattle Centre.
The Seattle Centre includes many popular attractions including Key Arena, a football stadium, fun park,
Really cool carousel
I didn't go on it but it looks fun, very beautiful Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Experience Music Project and of couse, Seattle's most noticable attraction, the Space Needle. We jumped in the glass elevator that runs up the side of the Space Needle to the obseration deck and were instantly rewarded with stunning vistas of Seattle and its surrounds including Puget Sound. The tower is not particularly high (the Skytower in Auckland is bigger) but has plenty of interesting displays etc to keep you amused. Once we eventually tired of the view we headed back down to terra firma and popped over to the Experience Music Project. This is an amazing looking music museum that features displays of Seattle's musical history as well as some other interesting and interactive musical displays. The museum is the brainchild of one of the co-founders of Microsoft, Paul Allen (not quite in the same league as Seattle's most wealthy citizen and fellow Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, this guy is only worth $18 billion making him America's 5th richest man) and was designed by the same dudes that did the Guggenheim Museum. Inside there is a section tracing Seattle's musical history from Bing Crosby, The Kingsman (Louie, Louie) and Ray Charles through to Sir Mix-a-lot
(Baby got back), Queensryche (Silent Lucidity) and The Presidents of The United States of America. There was also a section on the emergence of the 'grunge' genre in the early 90's in Seattle through popular and influential bands lke Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Although this was an interesting section I was a little disappointed with how small it was given the influence these bands have had globally. The most interesting part was definately the section devoted to Seattle's most famous musician Jimi Hendrix. This exhibit featured lots of childhood items such as letters to his grandparents (his family is actually from Vancouver originally) paintings and drawings as well as other interesting items such as his first recording contract, some his clothing he wore on stage, the guitar he played during his famous Woodstock set, the guitar (whats left of it) he famously broke and set alight during a show and his original lyric scribblings for such well known songs as Voodoo Child written on airline and hotel stationary. There was also an interesting gallery tracing the development of the electric guitar and an interactive section where you have the opportunity to learn to play a musical
very clever performer
balancing guitar while playing instrument or mix some tracks and record a vocal track, all sorts of things. The other highlight was the massive sculpture created using hundreds of guitars that are rigged to played random musical tunes. Unfortunately they didn't allow cameras so we have no photos of anything in the museum but for me it was probably the highlight of the trip to Seattle.
After spending a couple of hours in the museum we were pretty tired and about ready to head home to comfortable anf familiar old Vancouver. We departed Seattle at 6pm and headed back up the I5 to Canada. The border crossing was no trouble this time round and we were back in Van in our apartment by 9pm so we made pretty good time coming back compared to the trip down there (despite a quick bus change as a result of some slight mechanical troubles) . So all in all it was a pretty good weekend away in Seattle. The title of this blog maybe slightly misleading as we had no trouble at all sleeping in Seattle and it was far from grungy. The title is just Emma being creative and playing on words. 'Sleepless' of course
refers to the Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan movie Sleepless in Seattle and 'grungy' of course refers to the grunge music genre with which Seattle is so often linked.
Back in Vancouver, we spent an evening a couple of weeks ago at a show starring Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie from the popular improv tv show 'Whose Line Is It Anyway'. The live show followed a similar format to the tv series including some of the same games with some new ones thrown in for good measure as well. The show involved alot of audience particapation (Emma and I sat upstairs just to be safe) and was absolutely hilarious. Definately one of the funniest live shows I been to. By the end my face was hurting form so much laughter.
Much to our disappointment all the good tv shows that we used to watch back in NZ (like Heroes, Prison Break, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Family Guy, American Dad, Gilmore Girls etc) and have only just begun watching again here during the last few weeks are all having there season, or even series, finalies. Hopefully they will be replaced with some decent sitcoms over the summer because there
View of safeco field from a distance
The white stadium beside it is the football stadium, home of the Seattle Seahawks NFL team. just isn't any on free to air tv here (apart from Scrubs). Apart from the good shows mentioned above, it is all crime dramas like Crimal Minds, CSI, Law & Order and Criminal Intent, or news. For those few of you that I know are as mad about Gilmore Girls as Emma is, we saw the final ever episode last week so if you guys haven't seen it already and want to know how it all ends give Emma an email (I'll give you a clue, it had Emma in tears).
Nothing really new to add workwise. Emma has had her 3 month appraisel and passed with flying colours and has now been given keys to the store and has the added responsibility of opening and closing the store. After two weeks of rain all day everyday, lawnmowing was becoming a bit of drag but we have now had almost three weeks without rain so its been a bit better, but I am still keeping an eye out for any other opportunities.
Last blog we asked you guys to leave a comment so we could get an idea of who was reading it. As you can probably see
Pike Market
Awesome market we had a grand total of 3 comments which tells us that a) everybody who reads this is to busy (or lazy) to post a comment or b) noone we are sending this to is actually reading it. I'm sure its not the latter as the stats show that we have had more than 200 views since we posted that blog and I'm assuming that at least some of those have been people we know. So whats the deal? Admittedly a number of you have sent us emails which have been great, but for the rest of you, come on guys. I was sure I had an older brother out there somewhere but who would know anymore. And Amy and Michael in Scotland your family in NZ (and us in Canada) would really like to hear from you so give us a tingle or and email. Also we have received some postcards from a couple of you which have been really great and we have stuck them on our wall as decoration. We hope to create a bit of a collection of postcards from people on our wall so the new rule is that if you go away somewhere for
a trip you have to buy a postcard and send it to us (if you want the address give us an email).
Right, consider yourselves told. Until next time.
Peace out.
Gaz and Emms.
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Tisbury
non-member comment
We do read it
Thanks for your travel blogs. Your Dad Emma sends them on to us I think. It is put on the notice board and people read it at their leisure. It sounds as if you're having a great time of it all. School's going well. I don't know if Janine has left for England yet, she's still waiting on her Visa last I heard, but her replacement Toni is fitting in well. No other changes at the moment - I think we have had enough for a while. Take care Margaret