Archive for the ‘travel’ Category

I have returned with aching feet from an exploration of Montreal. Oh, and as of 2:15 PM last Saturday, June 23rd I am married. I left my phone charger somewhere above Vermont I think (in case you’ve called and think I’m dead), and our house is full of gifts, the volume and size of which basically demand that we buy a house; our apartment, while spacious, simply can’t hold this much stuff. I’m pushing for that house to be in Canada, now that I’ve witnessed first hand the miracle that is a French-speaking city. I’ve hauled out all my Rush records and insist on greeting everyone here with “bonjour” or “bonsoir”, even though it makes checkout people visibly consternated and perhaps a bit hostile.

Getting married was easier than they tell you. Going on a honeymoon was significantly more difficult. But no matter the level of difficulty of all the background activities the important thing is that for 10 days we were surrounded by friends and family or on vacation, and everyday when I woke up I was face to face with the easiest and number one best decision I’ve ever made. Every American, especially the ones who think we live in the best country ever, needs to visit Canada at least once. Canada is clean, polite, and has its priorities in fucking order. Want to know how many times I read about Paris Hilton in the newspaper or saw her on TV not counting the times I flipped past CNN? Zero. Goose egg. Zilch. It was really nice. Being even a temporary participant in a society like that makes you realize just how much brainwashing we go through on a daily basis in the US, making us the irritable frat boys of the world. Oh well. I’m off the soap crate for now I guess, except to say that flying out of an airport where no one knows that the fuck the “TSA” is is a nice experience.

Security Person: Sir, what are you doing?
Me: (Taking complete contents of bag out–including laptop–and removing shoes and socks.) Getting ready to go through security. Duh.
Security Person: Oh. Well, we can just put your things through this powerful x-ray machine. It seems to work much better than having some asshole getting $6.15 an hour paw through your stuff and treat you like a terrorist just for trying to get to Washington Dulles Airport.
Me: (Weeping.)
Security Person: Sir? Here, let me help you.
Me: (More weeping.)

Later, after I put on a pair of shoes my wife bought for me I found myself stuck with a shoebox and plastic bag. Hopefully, I approached an attendant in the airport terminal and told her about buying the shoes, and not being able to fit the box into the trash. I told her I was hesitant to simply put it next to the trash lest someone think it was a bomb. She laughed kindly. “Oh no, that’s fine. This is Canada. Everything isn’t a bomb here. Are your shoes comfortable? They look very nice.”

In two days, I’ll be getting married. After that, I’ll be in Montreal for our honeymoon–not unable to post, but probably unwilling. I’ve maybe mentioned all of this before, almost certainly if I know you in real life, but I’m extremely excited and nervous. For ten days we’ll be either surrounded by friends and family or on vacation in another country; I happen to think that despite the obvious stresses of planning such a thing that this is a wonderful way to begin a life with another person.

Anyone who has suggestions of things to do while in Montreal or Quebec City who happens across the blogint he next eight days or so should feel welcomed to leave comments on this post. We’d really love to have a few more activities than we need while we’re there. Besides, after watching Sicko Canada seems like a nice place to live permanently.    

Man, we have really screwed the pooch in Iraq, in case you missed it.

I boarded the Carolinian yesterday @ just after 11 am and arrived in Greensboro, NC–4 hours away by car even when obeying every traffic law and stopping at all state lines to pee–8 hours later. In other words it’s es lento como mollasses en Enero. That’s the barest essentials one need know when considering train travel. The experience itself was not so bad. I had people to talk to and fairly interesting scenery to watch, as well as a bag full of books and a packed iPod. And I also could have taken an express, thus dispensing with pointless stops in places like Selma, NC, population 3687. No, the real trouble started when I finally arrived in Greensboro and had to wait for a solid hour before I could get my one measly checked bag.
As my brother said, it seems that since it’s their job to get passengers and their luggage from one place to the next they could at least pretend to be efficient about it. He also remarked dryly that it made sense that Amtrak’s usual solution to this problem was just to derail the train, thus eliminating the baggage handling from the equation altogether. Instead they had us all coralled into the baggage room searching out our own luggage. Ugh.
So train travel is not the nostalgic event I thought it might be (my train mix helped, with big doses of Iron & Wine and Joanna Newsom), but at last I’m home and plotting my second escape.

Random bits and pieces from Chicago.

From the highway in Kentucky you can see antebellum barns and one lane roads winding parallel to quiet streams; horses bound along just out of view and blue hills roam along. But the highway itself blasts through the countryside, little deterred from its mission to carry weary people quickly from one town to the next.
And honestly, when you’re driving 13 hours from central North Carolina straight through to Chicago all you really want to do is get there. Were this trip simply about the travel it would be my single-minded desire to seek out the unturned stones of the shores of the midwestern prairie ocean. But I really want to be where I’m going. All of us do, but at the same time we’re all seeking distraction from the boredom these roads breed. Families pass eating burgers and talking between the rows of minivan seating. Couples go by, one asleep the other softly drumming on the steering wheel in time with unheard music. The vehicles are like disconnected train cars, all sharing a track and destination but hurtling there at wildly different paces.

On my first car trip to Washington, DC, I remember the feeling of being in farmland one minute and quite literally staring down the Pentagon the next. That sort of unsubtle progression is what the American highway is all about. From barren desert to Las Vegas in minutes; from midwestern Prairie to the shore of Lake Michigan in seven exits or less. It gets us there but it hardly makes us mindful of the lives of early explorers, for whom there were no quick revelations of urban scenery to contrast with the endless swaths of green.

Experiencing these cities themselves is almost better; stand at the corner of 7th and Pennsylvania SE at rush hour on a Friday and think about how fast you could be looking at cows. A thirty-five minute drive to the south will allow you that privilege. From Waveland Ave. In Chicago to the Dells–and all the cheese and farmland you could ever want–is barely an hour.

I’ll be in Chicago until Thursday of next week visiting a friend, attending a trade show, and seeing the sights. Expect a full report and photos on my return.
Also, my birthday is next week–so here’s my wishlist just in case.
Meanwhile, things can always be worse; you could always find dead things in your food. (Via boingboing)