"Nice parks, but no health care"

As Alick and I were walking through Capitol Hill in Seattle, a funky part of town, kinda like brunswick st in Melbourne, we were discussing and comparing the general state of things, Seattle, how we like it, other places in the US, New York City, Vancouver, Canada, Melbourne and Australia - it was a very in-depth and complicated discussion ;) , and Al said to me "Nice parks, but no health care" and that summed up the US quite well. Some things are fantastic while others are really bad.

The last few days in Seattle we went to a Baseball Game, Mariners won 8-7 in the 9th, saw John Butler Trio at the Moore theatre, which, in the past, has played host to well knowns such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains et al., who pioneered 90's music and grunge in the Seattle area. We also visited EMP; a music museum kinda thing which had a history of the guitar gallery, with real guitars from each era and maker which was really cool, a Jimi Hendrix museum, with some of Jimi's guitars, fragments of guitars, clothes, original song notes etc.
It also had a timeline of music progression and history in the pacific north west, which, come the late 80's to 90's was the place to be. All in all a really interesting place.
It also had a sound booth where you can go into sound-proof rooms and play instruments and jam with friends and stuff. I played a real fender strat, and pinched an emp guitar pick. Good momento!

Seattle, Starbucks.

I've never seen so many Starbucks in one place. There is almost one on every block, one on every street corner. Granted, it is where it all started for Starbucks, but really for a small city, do that many people drink that much coffee?!

Apart from that Seattle is really cool. Quite a small central downtown, on the water, boats and ferries going all over, a very cruisy city. Lots of seafood, the Pike place market is quite a fun place, especially the fish store with their unique selling style.

Tonight, Baseball. Seattle Mariners Vs Boston Red Socks. Beer, Hot Dogs and Baseball - how much more American can you get!

More Photos - 2x Calgary->1x Lake Louise-> 1x Montreal-> 2x NYC

Some Photos.. 2xRockies->2xMontreal->3xNYC

1700+

I just realised that on my little trip through Calgary, the Rockies, Montreal and New York City i took somewhere around 1700 photos! Bit trigger happy perhaps! I'll try put a few up for you all to see when i get some time, but right now i need to sleep. It's 6pm and i've been up for 18 hours already today. I hate early mornings and timezone changes - it really screws you up.

Home to Vancouver

I'm back in Vancouver now, and absolutely buggered from all that travelling. As expected it was raining when we landed.
My last day in NYC i went up the Empire State, however the views weren't all that good cause there was alot of smog and pollution, but it has to be done. And then i spent the remainder of the day wandering around SOHO, which is a very very cool part of town.

I had to get up at 3.30am new york time to get to the airport, and through customs and all that for my flight at 7am out of JFK. Damn that is one big airport. 9 or 10 terminals! So i've showered, my mountains of clothes are washing, and now i'm hungry. Time to go get some food!

NYC Day 4

Started the day at the Central Park Zoo. Not a bad little (very little) zoo. From there, headed down to the lower east side for a bit of wandering around. Lunch at Katz's Deli - Pastrami sandwich was delicious.
Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge after lunch, wandered around Brooklyn for a bit, then back across the bridge to Manhatten. Chilled out in a park and read some of my book in the late afternoon.

Went back up to the top of the Rockefeller this evening to watch the sunset and take some night pics of the city. Apparently, they want you to buy all their photos - i wasn't allowed to use my mini tripod to take night shots, but got a couple in before getting in trouble!
Last day in NYC tomorrow - back to Vancity early sunday morning.

NYC Day 3

Took the subway downtown to the financial district. The World Trade Centre Site, Wall St, NY Stock Exchange (although the public is not allowed inside), the Bull on Broadway, South St Seaport, picked up a cheap ticket for the Tarzan show on Broadway at TKTS the cheap ticket place. Took the Staten Island ferry to Staten Island for some great views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhatten Island.

The WTC is a hive of activity at the moment, you can't really get the gist of what happened at the moment, it will be better when it is finished i think. Still kinda brings you down to earth, to see this massive hole in the ground where something should be. I walked right round the edge of it - they are still pulling down buildings around the edge that were damaged by the falling towers too.

Tarzan was a great show, the usual disney crap, but had great sets and fantastic aerobatics, all the gorillas swung all over the stage - and i had one of the best seats in the house!

NYC Day 2

Today I rode the Subway!
Shitty weather forced me inside for a fantastic day. Metropolitan Museum of Art in the morning - Egyptian artifacts, knights armour, greek and roman statues etc.
Lunch was New York City Pizza, covered in cheeze, minimal toppings, plenty of oil!
American Museum of Natural History in the afternoon. Very cool, informative, covers nearly everything on this earth, animal and otherwise. Plenty of dinosaur fossils.
They've actually been very smart and organised all the fossils into animal types, ie. Vertebrates, those with 4 limbs, those with, rear facing pelvic bones, those with ear openingts etc etc. AND into evolutionalry progression by era. Very well done!
Spamalot, the Monty Python Musical at night. What a great show! Very very funny. Picked up cheap tickets for $US 49 plus tax, normally $US 110!! Not bad eh!

Say no more

New York City Day 1

So after being delayed for over 2 hours last night, today was amazing.
Starting at the Rockefeller, and a trip to the top of the Rock for some insane views, I walked to Times Square, Grand Central Station, The New York Public Library, down 5th Ave past the Empire State (which i will ascend later), down to Madison Square Park for lunch. Then from there all the way up broadway, past Macy's (which had a huge sale), through Times Square again, all the way up to the Columbus Circle and the south west corner of Central Park. Across the bottom of Central Park to the 5th Ave Apple Store. I love that place - coolest store in the world!
Then it rained cats and dogs, so back to the hotel for some dry clothes, and on to a tour of the UN.
Over 250 photos later!
Dinner at the Comfort Diner on 45th St, a stroll through Times Square again - with all the lights and stuff it looks like Vegas!

Tomorrow is going to be bad weather apparently, so i'm thinking about going to some museums and indoorsy type things.

At the hotel i'm staying at they have these alarm clocks/stereo type things that you dock your ipod in which is really cool, so you can listen to your music on speakers, but also wake up to it when the alarm goes off. This morning i woke to #36 - Dave Matthews Band Live at Red Rocks 15/08/1995. A great start to the day!

Grand Prix du Canada était fantastique!

Yes, thats right - the Grand Prix was awesome! I only had a general admission ticket, but nabbed myself a posse that allowed me to see pretty much all of the hairpin turn. So the cars would fly past at around 300km/h and then break hard and slow right down, go around the corner and fly off. I also saw the first half of that sickening crash that happened at the hairpin turn.

Last night i flew to NYC, however my plane was delayed by over 2 hours - fun fun! So i arrived around 10.30pm and pretty much crashed straight away. Today it might rain, not happy! I've had great weather so far for this trip, why can't it just hold out a little longer!

Song of the day, how could it not be: New York, New York!

Back in town!

Sorry for the absence folks, while in the Rockies there was no internet. What a fantastic place it is though.
I was staying with friends in the Kananaskis park, just near Banff, and the scenery was amazing. Over the weekend we went hiking, rock-climbing, fishing, drinking, I saw all the sights, did some drives etc etc. In 4 days however, i couldn't see everything, so i'll just have to go back!

Montreal is great. Been here 2 days now. Yesterday I wandered around old Montreal and downtown. It's surreal to be walking around a Canadian city and everyone is speaking French! The place is absolutely packed as it is GP weekend here. I went to the track today, it's in an island in the middle of the river made out of the dirt that they dug up to create the metro.
Not as good as the Melbourne GP, not as many support races etc, and there is less space for general admission people to stand, so it will be packed on sunday. I think i have scoped out a couple of good places to watch the race from. Should be a good day!

Tomorrow: More Montreal, a friend is visiting from Ottowa.
Song of the Day: Life In The Fast Lane - The Eagles.

Wow!

So i'm unexpectedly very impressed by Calgary. Granted, i'm seeing it in the summer and it has been 28 degrees and absolutely beautiful. In winter when it is covered in snow and -30 i'm sure it would suck a bit, but right now - Amazing!
Today i walked everywhere. All around downtown, the park, the river, the cool neighbourhoods where all the young people hang out. It really is a boom town. There are people my age absolutely everywhere, there is alot of money to be made here.

Me and my mate James cooked a BBQ for dinner, had some beers out on his patio at his house - which is so nice by the way. A perfect way to end a great day.

Tomorrow: off to Banff.

Yesterday i forgot to add a song of the day, so for yesterday anything Tom Cochrane or John Cougar Mellencamp would probably be appropriate for Calgary. I'm going to go with 'Small Town', or 'Life is a Highway'.
Today, hmm.... How about 'River Town' by Live.
Cya!