Six Days in San Francisco - July 23rd - 30th

I was expecting a lot from San Francisco, having been immersed in its pop culture ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. At any moment I was expecting to see John Stamos, Bob Saget and the whole Full House gang (except for Joey who, in my universe, died from cancer shortly after the show went off the air) walking around Golden Gate Park holding hands with a miniskirted Margaret Cho and Harold Perrineau dressed in a sequinned frock and suspenders.

Imagine. They'd be the Tranners!

Instead picture this scene: It's 11 a.m and I'm arguing with a chick with blue dreadlocks over the fact that she won't let me check into my hostel, despite my bringing the pity party and relaying my story of the nightmare bus trip from Portland. I've just had a 'white knuckle, knee buckle' cab trip because people in the Bay City don't drive, they drag (*boom tish*), and the taxi drivers are the worst.

Sam's Tips for Surviving San Francisco #1 - Don't take taxis. Just don't. Walk from the airport if you need to, your chances of survival are greater and, with all those godforsaken hills, you'll be a few kgs lighter in a matter of days.

Needless to say, I lose the argument with Gonzo but she budges a millimetre and allows me to check my bags into storage. I decide to blow off the city for a day because I'm feeling completely shagged and even after I wash my face and attempt to shake off the bus-lag I still resemble the Creature From The Grease Lagoon. There's a huge screen TV in the lobby and free internets which means I'm set for the day, but the one thing I'm lacking in is food and I'm starving after wisely avoiding the 3 a.m Taco Bell pit stop. That warrants a wander to the nearest place with edibles. Unfortunately, the view from my cab was a building-tinged blur so I have no idea where I am or what I'm surrounded by. I discover just how unfortunate am I the second I step outside.

A woman in a raggy turban is muttering to herself and swatting away an unseen person. There's a man sitting huddled in a doorway. Another guy is surveying the street, eyes wide and bloodshot, as though he hasn't slept in weeks. There are unidentified suspicious substances all over the footpath. The street is devoid of well-dressed, sane individuals so in my present state I fit right in. My hostel is smack bang in the middle of the...quaint neighbourhood of San Fran known as the Tenderloin. Oh. Shit.

Welcome, my friends, to San Francisco.

Sam's Tips for Surviving The Bay City #2 - Whatever you do, if you're on the cheap accomodation-wise...DON'T, I REPEAT, DO NOT stay at the HI City Center. Stick with the HI Fisherman's Wharf which may be in the middle of Tackyland, USA (Fisherman's Wharf is like Darling Harbour except drenched in visual pollution, full of candy stores & bad tourist attractions and completely charmless) but at least you don't have to mess up your hair and put on a crazy face in order to avoid stalkers & drive-by shootings. YES IT IS THAT BAD.

I do have one good thing to say about the San Franciscan HI hostels and it is that they offer great walking tours of the city. I went on the trip to the Museum of Modern Art (great for Warhol but the rest of the collection was quite wanky) and got to meet a few people but the guy from the hostel we had as our tour guide creeped me out.

So, back to my finding eats. After some average pancakes at the nearest place I could find that looked relatively safe and drug hustler free, I scooted back to the hostel as quickly as possible to glare at Gonzo and settle down to a nice afternoon watching...the Sci Fi channel. What is it with hostellers and sci-fi shows? Is it because some of the people who frequent hostels resemble creature people usually found only on Star Trek? Or is it just a general rule that the most social of living arrangements end up attracting the most antisocial of inhabitants (eg: prison, hostels, comic conventions)? As I enter, there's a guy sitting on one of the couches who, without warning, hacks up a great glob of phlegm and spits it into his cup. I make it my business to slide along my couch to be as far away from him as possible. Come now, my fellow tera'ngans*, let's try and show a little decency, there's a lady present...

Two things happen which save me from my first day in The Hades Hostel. 1. Hugh Jackman's left bicep appears on screen. 2. Hugh Jackman's right bicep appears on screen. Yeah. X-Men 2 comes on and this is how I meet Meika. She comes into the TV room and since she is normal and hasn't run screaming from the room at the sight of unwashed Sam we do the awkward 'Who is going to say something first' dance, she wins, and we chat.

Approximately four hours later I'm in Jazz at Pearl's with Meika and her equally lovely sister listening to some big band numbers after a meal of average Italian with far too much cheese, some cheap beer and amateur palm reading. This is a hell of a lot better than the original night I had in mind. What amazes me on this first night in San Francisco and continues to amaze me all throughout this trip is the variety of people I've managed to come across and even, dare I say, appreciate as members of the human race. There were and are a lot of people who inspire the opposite emotion, but let's not discuss them just yet. Over the course of the next six days I meet Emma, a chick from New Zealand via the States with the most confused accent I've ever heard, two more Kiwi girls who are my roommates for a brief period of time, one who snores like the running engine of a Mack Truck and doesn't look much better, but they're both out for a good party and they're good people so I like them and then there was the most exciting meeting of all.

Picture this next scene: I've been trekking up and down the fucking San Franciscan hills all day and I'm in need of a break. I'm wandering around The Cannery near the Waterfront area, snacking on two huge scoops of Norman's delicious Gelato. That's when the most beautiful music begins and I realise that it's two buskers, a man and a woman of the usual opera build performing 'O Sole Mio', the one opera piece that I'm familiar with. I'm intrigued, so I grab a pew. Unfortunately the performance ends, the small crowd disperses and it's just me and the opera duo. That's when the woman pulls out a copy of Harry Potter 7, smiles at me and we get talking. Her name is Litz Plummer, but some may know her as the Opera Lady of San Francisco and you can listen to her here. Myspace does not do the great lady justice. The gentleman's name is Robert Close, he's performed as Piangi in the Broadway production of Phantom and he is hilarious.

Robert: (this was after extensive conversation) You know what I like about you? The fact that you're from Australia, which is famous for all the sun and beaches and yet...*lifts trouser leg* you're about as pale as I am.

(For the record, I managed to tan slightly after a week or two in the Nevadan/New Mexican/Texan sun but then I moved to the West Coast of Canada for the winter and any hope I had of retaining my slightly less translucent colouring was shot to shit).

Those three viginettes basically sum up San Francisco. It's not so much a city as it is a collection of neighbourhoods smashed together - some are naughty, some are nice. If you've got no idea what you're meant to be doing when you get there, then my advice would be don't move, siddown kid and listen to me.

Sam's Tips For Surviving San Francisco #3 - Places To See & Places To Avoid Like The Plague

Consult this map and be wowed by my MS Paint skills. You may notice that there's a clear path you can take to get around San Francisco whilst still avoiding the sketchy areas.

You can't travel to San Francisco and not visit Haight/Ashbury as it is easily the greatest neighbourhood of them all, although I'm sorry to say you will be disappointed if you're wanting to recreate the '69 Summer of Love. Unfortunately, some of the hippies survived to see the 80's. As the haze of pot smoke began to fade, they discovered the joys of creating outfits made from the trashed remainder of their marijuana plants before selling them to hapless tourists at a mark-up rate of 800%. Fucking business hippies man, is there any greater contradiction? They and their love children invaded the area, ditched the 60's spirit, kept the rainbow decor and now it's an expensive shopping district full of decent vintage outlets and stores hawking pot/acid paraphenalia (even though all the users moved to British Columbia some decades ago. You want to see real hippies? Go to Saltspring Island, not San Francisco).

So I had a look around the Castro because we all know of my relentless fag-haggotry and again, I was disappointed. Yes, the area is gayer than a cluster of antique dealers at a Margaret Cho show, but so is Darlinghurst and that suburb is twice the size of the tiny Castro. I did enjoy the sight of the local public school and it's definitely worth a look if you can avoid going near the neighbouring Mission area, you're gay and you fancy going clubbing.

One of the neighbourhoods I had no preconceptions about is the Nihon Machi district. It's the more sterile, less tacky Chinatown and on the map, it's situated somewhere in the Western Addition area. Eat here, as there are a few decent hole-in-the-wall Japanese places and you're guaranteed to be served a meal that isn't covered in cheese for a change. Your other option for food is Haight/Ashbury where I would suggest the Ethiopian restaurant in the middle of the main strip for a similarly cheese-free and cheap meal. After you're done, go check out the Asian grocery with the Great Wall of Pocky. Yes. You now know where I made a significant portion of my spending money disappear...

The worst part of San Francisco, Tenderloin aside, has to be the South of Market area, which is full of sketchy run-down buildings and the only thing more run-down than the buildings are the people. I walked around this area (thankfully not for very long) and I found myself questioning how San Francisco manages to be regularly ranked as one of America's most liveable cities, (especially seeing as I'm inclined to agree with most of the of other selections on Places Rated, except Portland should be #1 with Pittsburgh as #2).

Another suggestion I'd make to visitors heading to California is...don't (you have no idea how badly I want to make a shirt that says "Fuck California...I'd rather be in Oregon") but if you must head to the Bay area, take a day out and roadtrip. Your options are to head to the Napa valley and/or Sausalito which I didn't get around to visiting but if I had the opportunity again I'd go there or alternatively, you can head down south to San Jose, if only for the sunshine, relative warmth and the opportunity to sing "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?" on the Greyhound. I checked out the Winchester Mystery House (which isn't exactly mysterious so much as it is gigantic and full of unnecessary rooms and doors that lead to nowhere), and wandered aimlessly around the strip malls. My one recommendation for San Jose goes to Lisa's Tea Treasures mostly because I found the funkiest pair of teapot earrings there (sadly I didn't get to sample the tea).

After six days, too many hills and not enough scoops of Norman's finest ice cream later I left my a shoe in my locker at the HI, packed my gear and prepared, with a heavy heart to start my journey eastwards to Las Vegas (the one place I wasn't looking forward to visiting) and beyond.

A Musical Guide To San Francisco:

Honeymoon - Phoenix: I didn't have many romantic moments in San Francisco but driving over the Bay Bridge at night, listening to this song felt like one of those perfect instances of universal timing where everything just fit. I suggest you try it.

O Sole Mio - for obvious reasons.

Do You Know The Way To San Jose - Dionne Warwick: Again, obvious but very funny if you're me and you're quietly humming to yourself on a crowded public coach.

Any of Margaret Cho's comedy albums are great for commentary while you're walking around, the best of the bunch being Notorious C.H.O.



* that would be the Klingon word for human. You have no idea of the shame I felt when I googled the words 'Klingon Dictionary'.

A Note From The Road: Portland to San Francisco

I loved the ride from Seattle to Portland. It was short, it was smooth, the people were few and spaced out and we left Seattle and arrived in Portland on schedule. There was no muss and very minimal amounts of fuss. I thought, "How good is this?! Buying a Greyhound Discovery Pass was the greatest idea I've ever had." First impressions last. They're also, more often than not, completely and totally wrong and you don't have to be a character in a Bollywood film to realise this. I figured out just how incorrect my first impression of Greyhound the minute I witnessed the queue going to San Francisco on the 6:15 coach. They were packing the bus to the rafters. I realised that this ride was going to be considerably more confined than my previous journey but I retained a sense of cautious optimism after all, what's the worst that could happen...right?

Why on earth are people stupid enough to be optimists? Being optimistic and telling onesself Hey things aren't that bad/They could be worse/Let's look on the bright side is basically dangling the proverbial carrot in front of the fates and begging them to show you just how far they can stick it in. Don't be optimistic, kids. A semester of first year Philosophy will teach to listen to the greats: Hobbes, Voltaire and well, me. We'll tell you that if expect the worst, then you'll leave enough room to be pleasantly surprised. The only people who wax lyrical about the joys of optimism are tools like Rousseau...an idiot, communist and I hear he tortures puppies on the weekends he doesn't spend jacking off to his own doctrine regarding the state of nature. If the symptoms of optimism persist, fine...be that way, but at least try and suppress these instincts if you ever plan on travelling with Greyhound.

So, I realise five seconds after I sat down that I've made a huge mistake. I'm leaving the greatest city in these United States to get on a night flight bus that's filling up with your regular circus sideshow acts and the ringmaster is heading straight towards me. I could smell this guy before I saw him. It's a combination of stale beer, crusty sweat stains and cigarettes with a hint of the military. I was still in my stage of cautious optimism as there were a few seats left and I thought that maybe I'll be that lucky one who doesn't have to fight for elbow room for sixteen hours. However. As soon as I caught that scent, I knew that fate had once again taken up the orange rod and was aiming squarely for buttocks. I heard the slurred words "Anyone sitting here? You look like you'll be good for conversation" and had no choice but to take one last look around before uttering "Uh...er...ohbuggerit. No. I won't be chatting though, because this is a night bus and I intend on sleeping."

"We'll see about that." say the Fates.

Joining myself and the lead tenor in the 'Down With Personal Hygeine' acapella chorus on the bus to Sacramento were three girls around my age taking up the three seats behind me and a mother and daughter directly across the way. One of the girls looked as though she required the extra two seats for herself alone and well, she was fortunate enough to be able to take up two. Bitch. One would spend the next 9 hours talking aimless, vowel-elongating trash on her cell phone (re: 'Yeeeeeahhh....liiiike...I knooooow etc etc), causing me to fantasise about hijacking the bus and taking it on a trip to Facestab city. The other one would spend most of her time sleeping and if you think that would give her an exemption from a taste of my critical bile then you're wrong, because she snores and therefore I hate her. Not as much as I do the King of the Four Whiffs next to me, because he proceeds to pull from his bag of ancient relics one pre-(Gulf) war cassette deck and over the ear headphones which will allow him...and everyone else within a four seat radius...a chance to listen to his collection of 80's metal and hardcore hip-hop at full volume. It is so loud through his headphones that I can hear lyrics.
Thankfully, this is why phones now double as mp3 players. I look at mine only to discover that I'd forgotten to charge the battery last night. I have 18% of my battery power left and even when I become desperate and play Golden Skans for the 14th time that day, I can still hear a half-arsed riff spewing forth from the wax-laden inner ears of the Arizonian Asshole next to me.

This is why I hate the human race. I sit back and think of drag queens.

Too many godforsaken hours later, I can no longer feel my toes, it's the next day, we're somewhere just outside of Medford. I am not sleeping. I have not slept. Sgt. Blotto, despite my protestations, is still playing his music. That bitch behind me is still on her phone and the other two are bonding with my cellmate because they appreciate his taste in tuneage. I'm going to allow you to Madlib the emotion I was feeling at that moment, which you can feel free to insert [here]. Our one meal stop is at Taco Bell so I decide to pass and maybe get a glorious half hour's worth of snoozy goodness. Approximately 13 and a half winks later, we're back on the road again, the bus driver/my hero is warning The Cell Phone Trio to shut up before they're evicted from the Big Greyhound House and I'm using my last 5% of battery to play Golden Skans. Yes, again. I'm just at the point of reaching peace when the old lady in the front row heads to the back of the bus and promptly begins retching. This is why I don't eat at Taco Bell. Her contralto solo lasts for three rounds of five awkward minutes and suddenly, the Military Breath Monster and his collection of 'It Came From Planet Journey' cassettes doesn't seem so bad. It's right about now that my batteries decide to breathe their last. I sit back and think of sweet transvestites.

I wake up just in time for the sunrise, somewhere outside of Sacramento. We roll in at around six and finally the Fates decide to play it my way and I see that Captain Puce Heart and the Skankettes are queueing for the San Diego bus. I even manage to score a seat all to myself on the way to San Francisco and there may have been a few more half hours (although still not enough) of poorly-positioned napping because the Californian desert scene outside can only hold my interest for a short while. We roll across the Bay Bridge on time and all I can do is sit back and think about the Pearl I left behind.

Portland - July 19th - 22nd: Home Is Where The Horror Is.

Wave goodbye to living alone, I think we've found our home - Patrick Wolf - The Railway House.

Three groins in a fountain...and one girl smirking on a street corner.

I came to Portland with three indispensable guides - the Frommer's Guide to Portland, generously donated by Astha, Chuck Palahniuk's Fugitives & Refugees (my favourite author's guided tour of the place he calls home) and Katherine Dunne's Geek Love, which isn't really a guide but is an essential read as a couple of the characters call the city home. I only had three and a half days to spend here, which didn't seem like enough time when I first left Seattle. By the time I had climbed aboard the bus to leave Portland, I knew for sure that I needed to stay longer and halfway into my week in San Francisco, I had half a mind to board the next bus, forget the rest of the trip and spend two months in The City of Roses.

You know why they call it the City of Roses? It's to cover up the smell of sex, drugs, booze, sweat and other illicit indiscretions that occur in this most interesting of cities. How do I know this? Because I witnessed it. Mum, if you're reading this...you might want to go back and read my Utah entry because we all know how wholesome Utah is and well...this one ain't gonna be pretty.

Portland isn't a pretty city by any stretch of the imagination. For a major city, it's really small (two million people in the entire metropolitan area) The tallest building is big, pink and fabulous and the residents of Portland, a city which has given the world plenty of writers (Chuck, Katherine and Ursula K. LeGuin among others), musicians (The Shins, Dandy Warhols etc.) and other assorted brilliant minds, naturally they all call it The Big Pink. There are tons of bridges of all different shapes and sizes crossing the Willamette River, which divides the city in half. It has beautiful parts (The Pearl District, The International Test Rose Garden, Washington Park) but it has a lot of not-so-beautiful bits as well. Skidmore immediately springs to mind and well, whatever immediately springs to your mind when pondering over a word like Skidmore, that's probably what you'll find in that part of Portland.

So why did the place have such a profound effect on me? Buggered if I know.

Whilst in Portland, I stayed at two hotels, The Benson & The Paramount. One of these hotels still has one of my precious black and white heeled shoes. I don't like to play favourites with my shoes but these were particularly special, however if Portland needs a tithe from each visitor then I suppose a shoe is the least I could be giving up (for the record, the other one is in San Francisco, as there was no point in me carrying around one shoe, was there?). The Benson was classy. What happened because of the Benson was um...possibly ever so slightly less classy. During my first night in Portland I heard they had free live jazz down at the bar. I also didn't want to pay for my internet (damn cheapskate classy hotels), and (reasons to move to Portland: #1) the city has free wi-fi covering the whole of the Downtown area. Free. Hell yes, quoth I, so I put on my glad rags and wandered down to the bar area to hear some jazz and maybe gather up some inspiration for that entry about Utah that I was planning. Yeah, that was the plan...

When I get to the bar there's an assortment of middle-aged folks clustered around and most of them turned to see what the hell this young whippersnapper thinks she's doing with her laptop and that crazy flower adorning her head. Cripes. There's a young guy behind the bar who pours me a glass of Viognier which, surprisingly, I don't hate. A few gulps of wine later, I'm still not able to think of an opening line but at least the jazz is kickin'. A younger woman with a Southern accent wanders over to the bar, sits next to me and strikes up a conversation with the young bartender. Then, she spots me, the only other person in the area who isn't nearing the blue-rinse decade and comments: "Well, that looks like a lotta fun there, honey."

I've given up trying to think at this point, so I chat to the Texan woman for a while. Her name is Denelle, she's in Portland for a high school teachers' conference, her favourite word is ‘groty’ (pronounced ‘grow-ty, a synonym for ‘gross’ and yes, Texans are hilarious) and she's thinking of hitting up a strip club as soon as her friend comes down. She's got no idea where my accent originates from, so it's a good thing that she doesn't teach geography. Her friend, Ron, who I initially think is her boyfriend, arrives shortly thereafter and they depart for the club around the corner and I'm stuck being bored and surrounded by baby boomers once again. Cut to two drinks and about an hour later...

So by this stage I'm still at the bar, talking to a guy named Cliff who's in Portland on business and another guy named Mike about my trip and their work and, you know, just shootin' the breeze. Both are around the 40 something mark but they're kind of cool, I'm kind of smashed, they're kind of smashed and Cliff's from San Francisco so at least I'm getting some decent travel advice. Also, I'm no longer paying for my own drinks. My head is yelling at me. Denelle and Ron arrive once again, fresh from their adventures in the strip club and they ask the bartender, who I've discovered is a Jonah from Hawaii where he plans to go once his shift ends. Somehow, we all end up talking and before I know it, all of us bar Cliff who has retired by this stage, are wandering drunkenly around the streets of Portland, with NFI where we're headed. It's around this point in time that I realise Mike is tagging along because he's drunk enough to have developed the idea that he has a shot at me however it would take a wide variety of simultaneous intoxicants before I lose both my equilibrium AND my dignity, so we all know nothing's going to happen there (you can breathe out now Mum, why are you still reading this?). Denelle is frightened when she discovers my age (I'm the baby of the group at 22), I'm shocked when I learn hers (no way does she look 30) and the fact that she only met Ron about a week ago, he’s married with kids, she’s also married but with without the kids, and when the shocks subside, we resume our drinking. Mike is the next to retire when he realises he's out of his depth, I'm also considering retiring however, somehow time leaps forward, it's 3:00 in the morning, we've all left the bar which closed an hour ago and are sitting around Jonah's studio apartment eating Doritos and I've been tagged as the wild one because these guys have assumed that since I don't talk much, I must have a lot to hide (I don’t). I become acquainted with my bed at around 3:45 a.m and for the record, there's no one else in it but me.

Did I mention that was my first night?

I wake up the next noon expecting a bitch of a hangover but I'm proud to say that I'm still every inch the hangover virgin. Muahaha. A long history of alcoholism in the bloodline certainly does have its uses, doesn’t it?

I dedicated my second day to wandering around aimlessly around the local area and I discover the joys of The Pearl (and its many galleries and excellent Peruvian restaurants…for such a small blue-collared city, Portland sure produces a lot of artists), the cleanest Chinatown I’ve ever seen (which is not many mind you, but the number is steadily growing and Portland is still winning), and the smells of Skidmore (ick) which to its detriment is kinda dodgy but to its credit, they’ve got a pretty cool Saturday street market there and Portland still has less homeless people than Seattle. Portland is a mecca for vintage clothing and Magpie is easily the pick of the bunch, two blocks from The Benson and as I would discover soon enough, indispensable to my Portland experience. Portland is also to home to the Greatest. Book. Store. Ever. It is called Powell’s, it covers an entire city block and it is so good that people are literally, dying to get in there. On the corner, there’s a sculpture of books containing the ashes of a guy who wanted to be buried in the store. I could have spent my entire travel allowance in a matter of hours, however I restrained myself and simply bought a copy of Geek Love.

Only Portland could provide the inspiration for such a novel. It’s a city filled with freaks: young kids proving punk isn’t dead as long as there is hair gel and various shades of electric blue still present in the colour spectrum, undiscovered prophets covered in rags and dreads, spreading their unique gospel to an audience who can’t be fucked with listening and gorgeous little gay boys running around hand in hand, knowing full well that if there’s ever a place where the marginalised can find their kin, it’s here. Then there’s me. By the time the sun has set, I’m in love with a city all over again.

That night, I’m buggered but not yet beaten. I grab some Thai food and head over to the celebrations at Powell’s, because it’s the 21^st, it’s Harry Potter 7 and they’re throwing a block party. It’s the Pacific Northwest which means it’s drizzling with rain (my two and a half weeks of sunshine in Seattle were sheer, dumb luck) but nothing can dampen the spirit of a couple of thousand people of all ages, watching some dudes in purple, red and green ribbons dance around, beating each other with sticks whilst singing traditional English tunes. There are fire-eaters, jugglers, people dressed as Dumbledore and Hagrid standing around for photo opportunities and the biggest sea of black-cloaked Hogwarts students seen since last Halloween. I stick around for a while but since I’m not buying the book (I was spoiled and happy about it, because that ending…ew!), I decide to bugger off and catch a bit of shut-eye after a quick nightcap.

The next morning I move hotels to the Paramount and catch an Asian brunch in the hotel bistro which is meh, average, but I’m seated next to a couple with kids, their daughter takes a shine to me and we chat. They’re Portland natives (also known as lucky bastards) who have previously lived in cities all over the world and chose to raise the ankle biters in The City of Roses because there was no better place. They give me all these brilliant suggestions for places to go and I realise I’ve only got one and a half days and there’s no way I can manage to fit it all in. Sigh.

I spend most of my day hiking up to the International Test Rose Garden (after going the wrong way. Note to self and others – the Rose Garden and the International Test Rose Garden are NOT the same thing. One is a sports area and the other is an actual Rose Garden and they’re on opposite sides of town. I am an idiot, but we already knew that. When I manage to find my way to Washington Park, the first thing I notice are the squirrels (how cute!) and the first thing the squirrels notice is me, and the possibility of food somewhere on my person. After taking a breather on a bench, one springs its way over to me (the way they move is so funny, to me at least), with a curious look. I fake as though I’ve got something nutty and delicious in my hand and the adorable little rodent is brave enough to come all the way over to sniff my hand. It discovers I’m a liar, shoots me a look of squirrelly wrath and runs off, probably so it can plot the destruction of the human species and rant about how shit everything is to a freaky Goth girl.

As for The Test Rose Garden…I’ll let the following photo speak for itself:

Yeah. There's a reason why half of my Portland photos have a distinct floral motif.

The other great part of this side of town is at the foot of the hill, there’s Elephants Deli. It’s bloody huge and full of good looking gourmet food and sweets. Because I’m predictable, I choose the rose flavoured lollies and they’re now responsible for keeping me awake on Greyhound trips. That night I had myself a burger at Virginia’s…one of the oldest cafes in Portland, where you can still smoke inside (a minus, but at least it’s well ventilated), it looks like a dive (quite cool) and they serve up an awesome Cajun burger. This is all so I can mentally prepare myself for this evening’s entertainment.

I’m off to Rocky Horror.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show holds the record for the longest theatrical release in history. Right now as you’re not reading this, somewhere in the world it is midnight and there is a cinema playing the film. It is also the only film in the world which is a comedic, dramatic horror/sci-fi/musical where by the end of the film, all the characters are in drag and know each other in the biblical sense. The Clinton St Theatre has been screening the film since its first release and as a result their shows have become legendary. If you’ve never seen the film before, then you’re not my friend and I don’t want to talk to you. Also, don’t go to a midnight screening, hire the dvd first, be mesmerised and THEN go to a screening. Preferably at the Clinton St. Theatre, a classic cinema on the outside, buggered and worn on the inside. You don’t know what kind of substances make your feet stick to floor. Purely by chance, I’m there on an over-18’s night. Outside of the cinema there’s a girl running around in her underwear, a man who is the spitting image of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, a lady wearing more clothing than half the queue who reveals she’s a stripper by trade and a girl clutching a Potter book who, like me, is a Rocky Horror virgin and she becomes my buddy as we’re both not a little terrified. Yes, you’re labelled a virgin if you’ve never gone to a screening at the Clinton and tales of all the horrible things the regulars do to ‘devirginise’ the newbies have become a part of the Portland folklore. I rocked up in a makeshift Magenta costume (it’s a dream of mine to play her at least once in my life) including this perfect white apron I scored from Magpie that afternoon, ten minutes before the store was due to close.

As for the show itself…I’m not breathing a word, at least not in writing. As far as I’m concerned, what happens at Rocky Horror stays at Rocky Horror. What I will say is that I’m going back at least twice before I leave Vancouver, if only so that I can confirm that what happened that night wasn’t all a twisted figment of my imagination. Did I feel violated during my Rocky Horror experience? Oh yes. It was such a relief to find some Americans who have made it their personal mission to be as offensive as possible. What I will tell you is to drive there and park nearby. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT rely on cabs, as I spent a frightening half hour waiting around in the deserted streets for my cab to arrive and in my fishnets, apron and somewhat revealing top I had a couple of guys in cars pull over in an attempt to well...you know. I ended up hiding out in a pub for ten minutes to ward off more potential stalkers and gave my cabbie an earful when he finally arrived.

On my final day in Portland, I wandered across the river and into the Hawthorne district, which is full of funky stores, people with dreadlocks and the largest assortment of tools for Wicca that I’ve ever seen. I make it back into the city in time to take some happy snaps of downtown before I go off witness the world record attempt for the worlds longest all drag queen chorus line in Portland’s main square. Only in Portland could such an event happen. A lot of the ladies were professionals but many were volunteers, the oldest in his 60s and the youngest was a mere 11 (get them young, get them forever!). His drag alias for the day? Miss Samantha. Of course. Also in attendance was the legendary Darcelle, who has been doing drag shows for donkey’s years and her club is yet another Portland staple which I didn’t get a chance to check out (next time…). They broke the record, with over 60 people donning a frock and dancing to ‘I’m Coming Out’ (of course!) by Diana Ross. Fantastic. I’m so pleased I was there to witness it.

With four hours to go before I had to head off to the Greyhound station and parts beyond, I grab a coffee, stumble across a craft show four blocks away from the main square (there’s always something going on in this city) and bid a temporary farewell to a place I know I’ll be seeing again very soon (but not soon enough for my liking).

To all the people of Portland, Oregon…thank you. If there’s any hope for the United States of America, it can be found within your city walls.

Discography

The Shins – Sea Legs

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Cast – The Time Warp

Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out

Wilco – Impossible Germany

Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position/The Railway House

The Rapture – Get Myself Into It

Seattle or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Inner Sci-Fi Nerd - June 30th - July 19th

Viva viva viva viva viva Sea-Tac! We've got the best computers and coffee and smack...

You know you're off to a good start when, on your very first day in a new country, you stumble across an International Beer Festival and can therefore cure the jetlag with drinking! Welcome, my friends, to Seattle. Condensing my three weeks into one entry may prove to be an impossible feat, but I'll try my darndest.

Phwoar.

I'd like to start by saying that Seattle is a very good looking city. With the majesty of the Olympics overlooking Puget Sound on one side of the city and Mt Rainier on the other, (not to mention that Space Needle, he's such a nice guy), I barely glanced at the men...but when I did manage to tear my eyes from the natural wonders of the Sound and have a solid perve at the other natural wonders...heh, well they weren't too bad either. Of course, the best looking people in the whole of Seattle were the people I had the good fortune to leech off for almost three weeks...my dearest friend Milly and her equally lovely housemate Astha (cheers ladies).

Seattle isn't without its dodgy side, for starters there's a good many homeless people in the Belltown area (which is also home to a chunk of the Seattle yuppies), including one guy who decided to park himself across the road from Milly and Astha's building at one in the morning and sing, off-key, as loudly as possible. You want to know what the real 'Seattle Sound' is? It's a combination of the cawing of crows and seagulls, the shrill whine of the ambulance siren, the hammering of construction and the chorus of the hobo 'battle of the bands'. This is why the Seattlelites invented grunge, it was the only genre of music loud enough to compete with all the background noise. I had trouble adjusting to Seattle when I first arrived and it took me the full three weeks for me to start liking the place. The odds weren't exactly stacked in favour of Seattle, what with the jetlag (I kept waking up at 3 a.m which is 10 a.m Sydney time, also known as 'normal time'), the flu (it accompanied me on my flight over and still hasn't picked up on my numerous dropped hints for it to bugger off), the eventual dependence on Nyquil in order to try and solve both problems (it caused more problems than it started) and just the general feelings of displacement and confusion everyone has to deal with when they're faced with the infamiliar (re: 'Milly, WHY DOESN'T THIS SHOWER WORK? This backward American plumbing system is vexing me!').

That and, as cool as Seattle is, I had difficulty fitting in with its rhythm. Seattle's a strange mix: both casual (almost to a fault) and upmarket (yuppie, ugh) at the same time. Everyone's got at least three different expensive, new-fangled, technomological gadgets, but they'll go to a classy Italian restaurant in shorts. What?! That and there were quite a lot of cool places (four tiki bars!) but there just wasn't enough freaky in the tiki, at least not enough for this former Newtown rat. Where had the famed Seattle underground that had brought forth the greats, like Cobain, disappeared?

Capitol Hill.

Oh, how my opinion changed once I found this little slice of home in a land far away from home! All of a sudden my hair colour was tame, my sense of style made sense and the ever-present coffee houses were...still ever-present, but they had vintage clothes and rainbow flags next door. Hooray! Capitol Hill is also home to great food, quirky little joints and a statue of Jimi Hendrix on Broadway (rub the head for good luck).

The main disappointment I faced whilst in Seattle was the lack of good bands playing in July. Here I was in the land of good music and all the good music had decided to temporarily vacate the city for a month so I was left with only one gig to attend. Boohoo. The good news is that my one gig was a Klaxons gig and the plusgood news is this gig happened before Jamie decided to botch a stage dive and fracture his tibia (I'd like to nominate myself as his replacement as I can sing those high notes in It's Not Over Yet better than he can and I'll take any reason to be sandwiched in between James and Simon...clearly there's something in the Strathford-upon-Avon water). The doubleplusgood news (for me) is that the Australian fans had to miss out because their gig was after the accident and I, therefore, get gloating rights.

The gig was definitely one of the better moments of my Seattle experience. I'd had a shocker of a day - I'd experimented with a different sleeping pill (note to self: never again), woke up at 3 in the afternoon feeling as though I'd been socked on the back of the head by an entire orchestra of blunt instruments, faffed around the flat for a while trying to wake myself up and then looked at a text message from Milly reading "Are you ready for the gig tonight?" only to realise I had about half an hour to get ready and get out the door. Shit. I raced up the hill (as slowly as possible), met Milly and Sean and promptly felt a fresh onslaught of pain and suffering from joyous cramps. We rocked into Queen Sheba's Ethiopian Restaurant (naturally my first thought was oh so politically correct: "What? They have food there now?") with me looking like the by-product of death's final cough, wanting nothing more skip the gig and instead be lain out on a rock somewhere in order to be pecked by birds.

And then the food arrived.

I don't know if it was the ibuprofen or the bold flavours of the Ethiopian food (a cuisine which now sits in pride of place next to Thai and Spanish in the list of 'Sam's Favourite World Foods') but I managed to find my second wind (well, actually, it was more like the first for that day) and had never felt more refreshed in my life. We rocked up to the gig late (oops) but we caught most of the set, even if we had to see it all from the back. Fortunately, Chop Suey is a small venue so I could still see the stage (not to mention the rather attractive individuals who were on the stage) and there was a nice little piece of eye candy standing directly in front of us (yeah, I was totally there for the music), so I wasn't too irritated that I'd broken my tradition of being in the front row. Unfortunately, Chop Suey has no ventilation so it was bloody hot and sticky for most of the gig. Oh and naturally the little new raver bastards in their day-glo body stockings chose the back as their little fortress so it was difficult to hear the post-song banter over the cries of "YOU GUYS ARE SO HAWT!!" So, the boys were really good live, the highlights being Gravity's Rainbow (the one song off Myths of the Near Future that I'd properly listened to...'properly' here means 'heard more than fifty times'...the reason why I barely knew any of their other songs pre-gig was because I couldn't stop playing that one song) and Golden Skans, which kickstarted the next little Klaxons obsession (let's not discuss how often that song has been played over the past couple of months) despite their drummer (Steffan, the almost-fourth member who, as Sean correctly noted, looks about thirteen and dropped so many beats during Skans that I almost nominated myself for the position of new Klaxons drummer...any excuse, really).


Top Seven Best Things About Seattle (not in any specific order, as always):

1. Cheap flowers at Pike Place Market - The rest of the market is like any other market in the world, but you cannot find more beautiful flower arrangements for the right price. $10 for a bunch of flowers which completely obscured my view of the oncoming traffic as I walked back to the apartment building and would have set me back at least $25-30 had I been in any other city. Anything that is bigger than my giant head and that cheap has to be worth it.

2. Red Light & Pretty Parlour, Capitol Hill - Vintage, glorious vintage. Red Light is actually a thrift store chain, they've got a bunch of stores in Portland and a couple in Seattle but the stock is quality (and the stock that isn't quality is often good for a laugh) and organised by decade. The fact that they even made an attempt at organisation won me over instantly. Pretty Parlour is smaller but more fun and retro in decor as well as in fashion.

3. The Space Needle - It may seem ridiculous, especially if you're a local but you can't not go up to the observation deck at least once, if only so you can take in the views of the Cascades and the Olympics at the same time. Try not to go weak at the knees once you experience the view, it's a quite a long and presumably deadly drop to the bottom of the tower.

4. Oddball Mini-Museums - I originally wrote off the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop down on the Seattle waterfront as a rubbish little tourist lure, filled with tacky little 'Got Rain?' t-shirts and Space Needle mugs and what have you. Then I got bored and wandered in. Yeah, it's a tourist trap, but it's a tourist trap with a real mummified body among other things. I don't know why an emu egg is classified as a curiosity, but there's some stuff up on the back wall that's worth checking out if you're in the area. Also, on Capitol Hill there's the Seattle Museum of Mysteries. Say hi to Phil and eavesdrop on people debating the existence of Bigfoot in the Washington forests, find out where the ghost of the first woman mayor of American, Bertha Landes resides and ask to have a go of the theremin.

5. Famous Graves - Jimi Hendrix (who, sadly, I missed as he is buried all the way out in Renton), Bruce and Brandon Lee were all buried in Seattle. You can spot which graves are theirs easily, even if you're a stupid red-haired tourist because of all the pilgrims gathered around, taking photos. Is it morally wrong to do so, do you think? I have no idea...

6. The Science Fiction Museum & Hall Of Fame, Seattle Center. - God, how embarrassing. I originally went here for the Experience Music Project and only dared to venture into the Sci-Fi half of the museum simply because it was free with the EMP entry. My name is Samantha, and I'm not a Sci-Fi geek but at the same time it just so happens that a lot of the pop cultural thingies I like just coincidentally happen to be vaguely related to that particular genre, and for the record those pop cultural thingies certainly do not AT ALL extend to anything beginning with Star, whether it be Trek or Wars, thank you (uh, hi Samantha). It's a really extensive museum, they have everything from the uh, cool side of sci-fi (re: Blade Runner, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Red Dwarf) to the usual rubbish convention fodder (Trek, Wars, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, that Joss Whedon shit...etc.) I was so surprised to find myself preferring this over the less-than-overwhelming EMP, even...dare I say...enjoying it.

7. The Abundance of Live Music, Everywhere (especially on Capitol Hill) - The best thing about Seattle is that in so many places, you can see musicians getting their gear out and playing a live set...even in the smallest cafes.

Top Seven Places To Eat/Drink

1. Queen Sheba Restaurant, Capitol Hill

Bliss. There's something that feels so natural about eating with your hands, especially when you can also eat the plate that your food is served on. Plus, how good is that food? Australia needs more (well, one would do) Ethiopian restaurants, it might just lure me back home. America would do well to ditch all the Mexican restaurants and replace them with more Ethiopian, for I just can't get enough.


2. Broadway Grill, Capitol Hill

Try the giant chocolate chip cookie, served warm and still in the skillet with ice cream on top. It's like an orgasm in technicolour. The crab cakes were great too. The waiters are so fabulous, darling (I felt right at home) and there's Red Light a few floors down. Er, I recommend that you try on clothes before you go to the Grill.

3. Phuket Thai Restaurant, Queen Anne

The best Thai restaurant with Thai Food (I love how they phrase it as though there would be some other kind of cuisine at a thai restaurant...) in the second (possibly third, but I didn't get to see much of Fremont, sadly) best neighbourhood in Seattle. Conveniently near Easy St. Records and the local indie cinema. Try the Swimming Rama (again, this dish needs to be introduced to Australia posthaste, it's basically like Satay Chicken but with the addition of spinach. Mmmm. ) and complement it with a Thai Iced Tea (American Thai restaurants are awesome because they all serve thai iced tea, as opposed to Sydney Thai restaurants which barely ever have that particular drink...the only place I recall is the second-rate joint near my house where the food is meh but at least there's tea).

4. Etta's - Belltown.

I had my first traditional Sunday brunch here. As it was my first time, I was rather nervous (had to have a strong cocktail in order to get myself in the mood) but I was very pleasantly surprised by the size (just right) and quality (again, phwoar) of the dungeness crab cakes. I want more...and I'll spare you all and refrain from making a poor quality joke out of the possibility of having coconut cream pie next time.

5. Salty's, Alki Beach

Phhhfttt, beach. I've seen pathetic little spits of sandy land at the edge of Tuggerah Lake that have more claim to the title of 'beach' than Alki does. The sand is grey (what little sand there is) and miserable looking and you can't swim in the water because even in the pleasant warmth of summer, the water is still too cold. So why do people still insist on coming here? Two reasons. One is the brilliant view of downtown Seattle, which might even top that of the Space Needle, because from Alki the Needle is included in the skyline. The other is Salty's, a buffet restaurant that a bunch of us journeyed (ugh, damn you Steve Perry) to for Sean's birthday. At first I thought "Ugh, a buffet? Does it look like I do buffet?" and then I discovered that well, yes actually I kind of do...but only on the condition that said buffet is Salty's and that it's the Sunday brunch buffet because oh my lord, what a spread. Delicious. No danger of salmonella poisoning here. There's a ridiculous amount of top-class gourmet selections here, including Atlantic Salmon with miso and something-I-can't-quite-remember-but-whatever-it's-fabulous dressing and a delightful little dessert called key lime pie which I've never seen in Australia before and that fills me with shame and disappointment.

6. Tini Bigs, Belltown

You know why American beer is so piss-poor and made from strained and fermented cat's vomit? It's so people will leave it for the rednecks and seek superior fare amongst the wide selection of 'whyhelloI'mdrunkandyou'rehotoratleastIthinkso' martinis! It took Milly one, possibly one and a half (bless her little cotton socks) and me about three (very bad effort, where on earth did my indestructible Irish liver disappear to?) before we were slaughtered. I suggest the Burning Man Martini (chilli and chocolate, is there a better combination?). I also suggest that you not mix martinis, for the consequences may be dire.

7. Coastal Kitchen, Capitol Hill

We went to Coastal Kitchen during Jamaican food month (their cuisine changes every few weeks...you might be lucky and get to sample Sub-Saharan African food one week and then the next week find they've changed to Italian and ...I imagine...they'll want to put cheese on top of everything) and we were lucky. That jerked chicken was good (I'll let the Futurama fans finish off the rest of the sentence).

Top Four Worst Things About Seattle

1. The Hobo Chorus

There are only two million people in Seattle, which is nothing compared to the five million in Sydney, yet I'd say the homeless population is about equal. Which is quite depressing, especially when they're all asking you for cash and if you gave your spare change away to every single person asking for it, you'd soon be joining them on the corner.

2. The Coffee

Yes, it was Seattle that was responsible for Starbucks. I think you can blame Seattle for most of the annoying coffee chains that have sprung up over the past ten years, except for Gloria Jeans, which is clearly the work of Satan. I didn't have one decent coffee the whole time I was there. I was told this is because I chose iced coffee each time but hey, it was summer and it was quite warm for Seattle, why the hell would I drink boiling hot coffee? If you want good coffee, go to Portland. Not only is their coffee vastly superior to their northern neighbours, they also have free wi-fi everywhere.

3. The Experience Music Project, Seattle Center

Oh Seattle, city of the emerald hue, you let me down with this one. It wasn't completely boring (they had video interviews with Ruth Brown and Henry Rollins) but it just wasn't as much of an experience as I had hoped. I barely spent an hour trolling around. Sure, the Jimi exhibition was great but the rest all looked a bit sparse. I'd say to anyone wanting to go here, come back in ten years when they've picked up their game a bit and for this trip...um...gonextdoor.

4. Everything Shuts At Once

I now recognise this to be a nationwide issue (like the cheese fetish) but come on Seattle, I thought you would be so much cooler than that. Bars shutting at 2 a.m because of silly liquor laws? The whole city shutting down after 11 on weekdays and maybe 2 if you're lucky on weekends? Not even Sydney is that slack.

Discography

Despite my poor gig effort, Seattle will forever be associated with the following:

Klaxons - Golden Skans. Will someone please get this song out of my head, I am begging you, please stop this madness! Seriously, you don't want to know how many times this song was put on repeat, particularly in that last week in Seattle. And in Portland. And well...I'm in Santa Fe now and still not tired of it, although there have been other tunes on high rotation to help curb the Klaxons-induced insanity. Damn you sexy Simon Taylor and your so-indie-it's-almost-emo hair. And that music video. Omfg. No wonder I find him (and James isn't too bad either) attractive, they're so obviously gay!

Obviously there has to be some Nirvana, the question is which? I'm going to go with School.

Robyn Hitchcock - Viva! Sea-Tac. Awesome, awesome song about the city, sung by a loony British bloke with a kink for the streets of Belltown. Get it here, because it took me ages to find this song, those of you in Australia have no chance of obtaining it and everyone deserves to hear this little gem.

Weezer - Undone (The Sweater Song)

C.S.S - Let's Make Love & Listen to Death From Above

Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around, Comes Around. Arrghhhh. Damn you Timberlake. I hate you so very, very much for making me love this song. To be truthful, I fell in love with this song during the flight over to the U.S.A, in a double bill with Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous (double the arrrgghhhh) and yes, I am totally blaming the cabin fever for this one.

The Great Utah Road Trip July 3rd - 8th, Part 2: Freaks and Geeks in Salt Lake City

Well, in those days Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah...but unlike Utah, it was eventually made liveable. - Professor Farnsworth, Futurama.

I've decided this entry is going to be mostly comprised of lists, because I could rant about Utah until the cows come home and if I don't restrict myself somehow, it's going to expand to the point of literary explosion. My old university essays will start to feel threatened and we certainly can't have that, they're inferior enough as it is.

Pretty much every SLC local, every American, every living creature has asked me the following question at the very mention of our little road trip: why did I stay in Salt Lake City, hell, why travel to Utah at all? Salt Lake City was an experiment to see if I could survive the whole 'going it alone' approach to travel the way I had planned. Start off with the very worst (she wrote, with trepidation...) and by doing so, become accustomed to the joys of unlimited freedom and the potential pitfalls of loneliness, getting hopelessly lost and, most of all, my own incredible stupidity which tends to rear its ugly head whenever I'm thurst into the infamiliar. I'm pleased to say that the experiment succeeded (meaning I'm still alive and writing this entry in Portland).

I'm less pleased to say that Utah was pretty much exactly what I expected: Red State Hell. Lots of chains, lots of dodgy people, too much heat and too little sense. I will say a few things in Utah's defense (before I start working for the prosecution) - the people who aren't dodgy are quite friendly. People will often greet you in the street which was a shock to the system after coming here from Sydney. There were some random surprises: as I was wandering around one afternoon, I turned a corner and found a concert/festival that wasn't full of tabernacle music. Also the Life After Death exhibit at the Salt Lake Art Center was pretty good (loved the works of Neo Rauch), unfortunately it was the only exhibit.

The following places I have listed are not in any particular order of importance. I thought I should mention that before the 'WTF, you're listing a Catholic Church first?' comments begin.

Top 5 Favourite Places In Salt Lake City/Utah (I did have some, you know).

1. The Cathedral of the Madeleine 331 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City

Yeah I know, I know...I went to the Mormon heartland and was nearly converted to Catholicism. It doesn't matter which creed you follow, if you're in Salt Lake and you're dying from heat exhaustion, or just need to escape...go to church. I'm not religious at all, thanks to three and a half years of studying the subject at university, yet I found this to be the most peaceful and beautiful place in Salt Lake City. It is deliciously cool inside the Cathedral and there are murals covering the walls and ceiling, the likes of which kick the ass of some of the more famous cathedrals in Europe. After a few moments of sitting in the pews, taking in the violent splendour of the Stations of the Cross, I found myself in the chapel, lighting a candle. As soon as I did, this cool breeze floated through the room. Again, let me specify that I am not religious, but I was v. grateful for that coincidental occurrence.

2. The British Pantry, 652 SW Temple, Salt Lake City

Say hello to the lovely ladies at The Pantry if you're in the area. If you're not in the area, make time for tea and scones and go here. The British Pantry was my favourite spot for brunch in SLC because it was ridiculously cheap ($4 for a huge pot of Scottish Breakfast tea and two scones with fresh chantilly cream and jam, what a steal), and the staff were just gorgeous. I spent half an hour talking to them because they refused to let me drag my bag around in the oppressive midday heat.

3. Hogle Zoo, 2600 East Sunnyside Avenue, Salt Lake City
Yeah, I'm a sucker for cute, caged animals. Go check out the zoo's adorable Sand Cat and the Arabian Wildcat who, despite its name, looks like it belongs in a Victorian manor, with a pink bow around its neck. The black bears were fun to watch...the more sedentary of the two was quite happy to lie around in the baking hot sun (I'm going to guess it was a she, since she reminded me of myself) but the other bear would spend half its time pacing around the enclosure and the other half walking over to the lazy bear and butting its head against her back, trying to stir her into action only to receive a bite on the snout in return. Hogle is also home to three of my favourite animal species: the African elephant. Dari the megalomaniacal matriarch, Misha the clever subordinate who stores food in her tusks so she can get her share of the spoils and Christie, the baby (relatively speaking, she's only a year younger than me). The only problem I had with Hogle is that the most rambunctious animals are not the spider monkeys, nor are they the showoff giraffes. It's the children. Howling, screaming, crying kids. Everywhere. Christ.

4. Esther's Cafe, 30 East 300 South, Salt Lake City

On my last day alone in Salt Lake City, I was making a fast getaway from a creepy Salt Lake Stalker on a bicycle and I needed somewhere to disappear into. Quickly. It was also around dinner time, so I bolted into the first place that looked open, hoping to kill a couple of birds with one stone. That place was Esther's. What a stroke of luck. It's a cheap looking joint made for take away and initially I didn't have much confidence in the food. Before I could turn on my heel and make for the exit, I found out they had homemade clam chowder as the soup du jour. Something I'd never had before and was aching to try. So, I decided to take a chance on the little diner that could. Add a bit of green tabasco and the result is exquisite. Either that, or I was really hungry. Friday is clam chowder day at Esther's, so do yourself a favour and have the friendly people behind the counter look after you for an hour or two. There are free refills (well, there would be if the one serving wasn't so filling) and it's cheap and cheerful.

5. The Bonneville Salt Flats.

They filmed part of Pirates 3 here (think of the bit where Jack is in Davy Jones' Locker, talking to a few hundred replicants of himself) and once you step out onto the texturally incorrect salt surface, you can see why. The landscape is eerie, all white and blinding when the sun is out and all you can see is this huge expanse of nothingness. Much like, you know, the rest of Utah. Take the I-80 on the way to Nevada and you'll be driving right next to it. Bring those sunglasses.

Top 5 Worst Things About Salt Lake/Utah.

1. Salt Lake Stalkers

By the time the others had come back from camping, I was at the end of my tether. I'd come to Utah with certain expectations about the place, the main expectation being that it's full of Mormons who are a pretty harmless, if stupid, bunch of people. That expectation turned out to be correct, however, I'd failed to prepare myself for the rest of the population who are not Mormon and although they're harmless, they're irritating in the extreme. Dodgy men infest Salt Lake City at every time of the day and night (I refused to go outside my hostel after 9pm for this reason) and if you're a young woman on your own, they will target you. It doesn't matter if you refuse to acknowledge their presence (believe me, I tried), they've got bicycles and they will circle you. And follow you. And ask ridiculous questions, especially if you have an accent. The problem is, if you throw a rock in the spokes and they fall off their bike and get hit by a car...then you look like the bad guy. So instead I had to grin and bear it and try to lose them as quickly as possible. This is difficult, because Salt Lake City isn't exactly the liveliest of towns and the streets are close to empty, even in peak hour.

2. Mormons

Only ye with enough faith to tithe 10% of your total income may enter here.

Except for their taste in architecture, it's a well-known fact that I hate Mormons. The history of the Mormon religion is an adventure into the ridiculous, the two leaders and their merry band of idiots were so disliked amongst the general populace of wherever they went that they had to go all the way to a barely inhabitable place like Utah in order to set up shop, they wear ridiculous underthings and they wake people up on Saturday mornings in an attempt to spread the stupid around. Plus, who willingly goes to church for three hours?

It's also a fact that I am not a particularly tolerant person and that one of my favourite things to do when I am approached by a person I recognise to be an idiot is to question them relentlessly and to make them as uncomfortable as possible. Wandering around Temple Square was a difficult experience for me, mainly because I wasn't able to wipe the smirk off my face the entire time. Temple Square is the main tourist attraction in Utah and the main objective of the thousands of missionaries there is convert you, so it's very difficult to just wander aimlessly around the place, people want to take you on tours or if you're not on a tour and you're on your own for too long, they come over for a chat before the independent thoughts have a chance to begin. The hilarious thing about the missionaries in Temple Square is that they make sure to have the rookies come over to you, so they can harp on about all that 'loving one's family' crap and they can avoid talking about, for example, how the Book Of Mormon sets up a huge case for racial genocide. I was firing question after question at this one girl about the simplest things and she was turning a nice shade of lobster red in the face from the exertion caused by thinking. I know, I'm a needlessly cruel little wench and possibly a bride of Satan. But they're idiots.

3. The Weather

Utah is hotter than Hades. Hot and dry, which is better than hot and humid but a damn sight more expensive, thanks to all the bottles of water one has to buy. Potential travellers to the area (snort) beware - it is impossible to walk a few metres in the heat of a Salt Lake summer without a 'sip' (re: massive, gulping chug) of water. There's little change between night and day, if you don't count the light and the best time to go running around is in the early morning, before the sun has had its first few fags and isn't yet hot enough fry you to a crisp. The only brief period where the heat wasn't as intense was during a sudden wind/dust storm which descended upon me after I'd been walking around for four hours straight trying to find something interesting to look at (the Sugar House District is not urban, nor is it hip...it's suburbia. The SLC guide book tells filthy lies!) and it was exactly what I didn't need. You will be sunburnt, so take sunscreen and even if you have the complexion of a 'fair English rose' like myself, you will probably get something of a tan (Praise be to the Christ and the Prophets! It's a miracle!!). Also, if you don't own a pair of sunglasses and you go to Utah, then you're a bloody idiot. Get the hell off my blog.

4. Hostel Patrons

I really liked my hostel. The Camelot is in a really inconvenient location (quite a ways out of the main centre, in a particularly dodgy district) but the rooms are deliciously cool, even during the day and they're decently furnished, clean and comfortable. I scored a private room (hallelujah!) and I wasn't bothered by anyone barging in at some ungodly hour of the morning (re: 11 a.m) trying to tidy it. There was one problem though: the other people staying there were freaks. There was one guy who, every night from 9 to 11 without fail, would be watching a Star Wars film. The Hayden Christensen films. Ughhhhh. I'm not a huge fan of Star Wars, mainly because geeks tend to make oh-so-hilarious jokes after they find out my last name ("Why, no, I'm not related to Luke Skywalker...") and I hate how George Lucas temporarily destroyed Natalie Portman's stellar acting talent (Christensen never had any talent to begin with). There was another asshole who, when I was blundering around trying to work out the crazy check-in system, was doing his best to be as unhelpful as possible when I inquired about the workings of the hostel. I never had direct contact with anyone else but for a while I'm pretty sure I was the only woman, the rest being an assortment of older, morbidly obese guys with severe cases of plumber's crack. Gross. And the Camelot claims to attract a 'more discerning clientele'...

5. Billboard Moralising

This wasn't limited to Utah. It's everywhere, even in Washington. Billboards in America can be hilarious at times. Check this one out. Other interesting signs along the way included an ad which listed how much bacteria is exchanged during a kiss (at the bottom it revealed itself to be a Toyota ad, wtf) and a church sign - 'Don't be too open-minded or your brain might fall out.' Hmm. Start talking before they start thinking...

My main qualm with SLC was the fact that there was bugger all to do there...I was there for a mere three days and was struggling to find something to divert my attention by the third day and I'm fairly easily amused. I ended up having to go to the mall. It could've been worse though. Imagine if my hostel didn't have free wi-fi?! Or worse still, what if I'd been wandering around the desert in the heat and dust and the burnination, like my friends?

Discography.

A whole bunch of songs will be forever connected to the Salt Lake City/Utah in my mind. You want to know what I was listening to on the way? Download the following:

Journey - Don't Stop Believing

Oh my god, Steve Perry. If I ever meet you in person, you will be thrown into the Pit of Doom. Kosta and Jon's endless repetitions of this song (I missed a whole chunk of renditions, thankfully) meant that Journey have now become something of a personal joke between the Red State Road Trippin' Seven.

Viva Voce - Get Your Blood Sucked Out
Sufjan Stevens - In The Devil's Territory
Elvis Presley - Hound Dog
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
The Arcade Fire (Mormon music!) - Keep The Car Running

The Great Utah Road Trip July 3rd - 8th, Part 1: Where To Find The Coldest Beer in Boise.

I know, I know, technically I travelled to Seattle first but I barely had time to adjust to the time difference, let alone the Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest grid before I was whisked away to the Red States. That and I'm still in Seattle at the moment, so I'd much rather do a write up once I've had the full SeaTac experience (Viva Sea-Tac!).

We set off for Utah on the afternoon of the 3rd, seven of us in two cars, Percy and Karl. Everyone tended to hate Karl for his complete inability to accelerate up hills but his unco-operative behaviour reminded me so much of Feste, my moody Beastiva that I quite liked him. Of course, I say this because I didn't drive...the concept of driving on the right hand side of the road doesn't freak me out but I'd be bloody dangerous in action...I'm damned if I know which way to look whenever I cross the road as a pedestrian, can you imagine me trying to do a left hand turn in a car?

Anyway, Karl came equipped with Satellite Radio, which is a lot like Cable TV in that it's the most awesome thing you've ever seen and oh my god you'll never ever get sick of this...and then after an hour, you discover that just because there's a lot of selection, that's no guarantee of quality. There was a channel dedicated to the 1950s which I quite liked, there was an all Elvis, all the time station and they even had Patrick Wolf on Left-Of-Centre but aside from that...too many Christian channels, way too much country (one channel dedicated to country is too much) and not enough rockin'.

Then there was the scenery on the road. We crossed five states during the course of our road trip - Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Nevada (in order of appearance). Washington is interesting for a while because it's quite mountainous and green and foresty and Oregon's a bit like that too but then you get to Idaho. Oh my god, Idaho, not even SatRad and endless rounds of Taboo can save you. Parts of that state reminded me of crossing the Nullabor(e) because it's all just one big expanse of deserty nothingness where no one can hear you scream. The small towns we came across within and on the way to Idaho are similar to the little spits of civilisation you see on the way to Western Australia, except there are terrible burger chains and Wal-Marts where the filthy pubs and Target Country stores should be and not as many American men (or women for that matter) go around sporting big beards such as the kind you'd see sprouting on folks in Olary.

I couldn't (and still can not) get past the amount of burger chains here. It's not just McDonalds and KFC any more...there are tens, possibly hundreds of cloned buildings with big, gaudy logos springing up in every town and as with SatRad, the more selection you have, the lesser the quality. My beef (so to speak) is not so much the quantity of these places (well, ok, it is a large part of it), but rather the fact that I don't believe that anyone should invest any sort of interest in food that takes longer to eat than it does to cook. Particularly if it takes a minute to serve up a burger, and two minutes to scoff it. It's just wrong.

We spent most of the afternoon and a few of the a.m hours on the road to Boise, the capital city. Compared to the rest of Idaho, Boise is a quaint little town with shady avenues, lots of green spaces near the river and, if the free publications are to be believed, damn cold beer at the local P.F Chang's. There's a souvenir store called Taters (oh god). There are cinemas which screen three year old Australian films. There's the Capitol building, which looks exactly the same as every other Capitol building ever, and a parking lot that looks like a giant diving board. That's really about it. That being said, I actually didn't mind Boise...the shade gave us respite from the heat, the city looked well-planned with its broad streets and its walkability (that's totally a word) and, after endless 'same, same, different name' small towns with their rows of Wendy's, Arby's and other chains with apostrophes, it was a relief to see a building over three stories high.

The next day was full of Idaho. I've complained about Idaho enough for you to get the picture I saw out of the window. Thank god for music, sweet music, as napping vertically proved near-impossible...sleeping horizontally was difficult enough for me, who had not quite become accustomed to the time zone change and was on constant doses of Nyquil thanks to the flu which will not die. Travellers tip #1: Don't take sleeping pills, no matter how strong the temptation. I found that although I slept at night, I also wanted to sleep during the day, which made me even more of a pain in the ass to be around. That and they screw with so much more than just your sleeping capacity.

zzzzzzzzzz.....

We eventually arrived in the state of Utah in the early afternoon and you could instantly sense the change...by the choice of roadside advertising. There's not enough city in Idaho to warrant many eyesores on the side of the road but Utah was a different story. The closer we got to Salt Lake, the more distractions there were and they were hilarious. One particular ad stated the following: "You exchange 500+ different types of bacteria when kissing.' I can't remember the exact number. What was it supposed to be advertising? Sexually transmitted disease? Oral hygeine products? Wrong.

Toyota.

Yeah, the car company.

Jesus christ. You know you're in a Red State when...

Salt Lake City is one of those places that looks quite beautiful from a distance. A great deal of the buildings are tall and white, it is surrounded by mountains and, like Boise, it's quite well organised in terms of the layout. After my functioning brain cell kicked in and I figured out the North/South, East/West, numbered street system, it was really easy. After coming from Australia, where all the streets are named and not numbered, it takes a while to get used to addresses like 200 S West Temple. On our first day when we were all strolling around finding a place to eat, Salt Lake looked so clean. Sterile, really. Like a dentist's office. I soon found out it wasn't the case but that first day in Salt Lake was a trip.

I forgot to mention, that day was also the 4th. It was way more subdued than I thought it would be, perhaps it was because we were in Utah or perhaps it was because we missed the main celebrations but it was so...nothing much. In Australia there are rabid patriots everywhere, with flags attached to cars and green and gold face paint and all that embarrassing rubbish that mostly occurs on the 26th of January, or at sporting events. I didn't see a single flag on anyone's car in Salt Lake. Most people didn't even wish us a happy 4th of July. My friends and I were almost poking fun of the whole concept, but that's probably because my little group was comprised of 2 Australians, 4 Canadians and 1 Canadian/American. Oh another trip for Salt Lake travellers: don't sit on the grass in Utah. I woke up the next morning covered in red scratches thanks to the itchy grassy knoll we were celebrating on and I know I wasn't the only one.

The next day saw me transferred to The Camelot Hostel on the very edge of the Downtown area
whilst my friends went camping in the National Parks. I'm a fan of keeping clean and well-groomed and although I like communing with nature on the odd occasion, two days without a shower is an unthinkable concept. So I opted to remain a city slicker in order to prepare myself for the two long months where I'd be a stranger in a strange land. Oh the tales I will tell...

The Benefits Of Terrorism: Abolishing Airline Bathroom Queues Worldwide

Flying over the dateline is disorienting. I left Sydney and arrived in San Francisco an hour later. After a thirteen hour flight. Yeah. Needless to say, I didn't know if I was Martha or Arthur for the next couple of days...thank god for the marvellous invention of Nyquil, even if it didn't always stop me waking up at 3 in the morning.

I flew Qantas and I have to say, the service is snooty, the legroom is uncomfortable (I'm a mere 5'3''), and the food is inedible but at least I didn't have to sit through Serendipity & Life as a House six times like I did last time. I'm one of those travellers who does not sleep on planes, at all and therefore rely entirely on inflight entertainment in order to sustain my sanity and stave off the cabin fever. I've only ever been on one other long-haul flight to Greece and that was five years ago. We flew Olympic. Entertainment on Olympic Airways is so bad that Qantas looks fantastic. Entertainment on Olympic was 44 hours of watching Hayden Christensen try and display a facial expression other than complete and total disaffection. So when I flew Qantas and discovered that not only do you get a choice of around 15 movies (13 of which are complete shit but what can you do?) and a whole array of TV shows AND full albums at your disposal, I was v. satisfied. For about four hours. I even made a great single-serving friend who assisted clueless little me (I swear my brain fell out the second that we took off) through Immigration and finding connecting flights. I was exposed to a large quantity of Americans for the first time, about three quarters of the passengers on my flight were American, so I was v. relieved to find myself seated next to a similarly-aged Australian chick who I could snark with. It was also my first exposure to the volume of the typical American's voice ie: ouch dude, you're louder than the jet engine, please STFU.

So after 12 long hours brightened only by Borat, Kath & Kim (how is it that I never got around to watching this show before? It's BRILLIANT!) and the Justin Timberlake album (did I not say that my brain had fallen out?) I emerged, buggered and in dire need of a shower. Unfortunately, I had another two hour flight to look forward to and before that, I had the hurdles of Immigration and Customs which seemed like such a confusing concept and I was sure I was going to slip up at some stage and be threatened with deportation or worse, an all-expenses paid trip to a dog cage in Cuba.

My first post-customs thought?

Why the HELL didn't I try and smuggle my Wollombi chilli olive oil into the country? Customs was a doddle! There were no sniffer dogs, no security checks, nothing...except for one guy to whom you hand your customs card. Even Immigration was easy, although I feel sorry for the guy who had to take a photo of me, eyeliner smeared and face oily from too much airconditioning and not enough air. He was surprisingly kind for an Immigration guy, I was expecting some drill sargeant hospitality but this guy could almost be classified as friendly.

The most confusing part was finding the Alaskan Airlines check-in counter and getting all my shit loaded onto the plane, almost flew with the wrong carrier... twice... and almost didn't get a seat because my flight was overbooked. The two occasions that I went over to inquire about the lack of seating on my boarding pass, the Alaskan Airlines woman looked at me expectantly and stated 'We're hoping some people might voluntarily give up their seats...they'll get a free round trip ticket to any Alaskan Airlines destination.' A tempting offer for sure, but there was no way in hell I was hanging around San Francisco aiport for another four hours. Eventually, I scored the best seating ever, a window seat in Exit Row, sitting next to an actual Alaskan Airlines pilot.

Captain Alaska, as he will be forever known in my mind, was a Bainbridge Island local who kept me occupied for the entire trip by using his knowledge of the San Fran - Seattle route to point out all the various landmarks (flying over Crater Lake and Mount St. Helens was an incredible experience), inquiring about the state of the Australian health/education/political system and bitching about the lack of decent political candidates. One of the benefits of sitting next to an Alaskan employee was the free (and huge) bottle of water I scored before we came in for landing. A very short two hours later I was in Seattle and feeling re-energised, despite looking (and smelling, presumably) worse than ever after an extra couple of hours in a flying tin can with wings. Cheers, Cap'n.