Rocky guards art

Huge homes protect the wealthy

Liver punished

Crap! Once again I am a week behind on this thing, if only I'd have less fun and spend more time writing about it!

So Philadelphia is America's 5th largest city (I'm assuming population), it is clean and very pretty and has some really beautiful architecture. It has reinforced my beleif that some of the most interesting buildings (and prettiest) are train stations. I could say the same about most municipal buildings but train stations appeals to me, and yes a lot of it is because I am a tree hugger. Oops tangent. Through Philadelphia runs the Schlollklykl (yes it is mis-spelt but only slightly, Tim some help) River, despite it's ugly ugly name it is very pretty. It is only an hour and a half by train from New York and passes through New Jersey (I have now officially been in 7 stares in America, 8 if you count going to Dulles Airport twice). Pennsylvania is old, well ok only compared to Australian Eurpoean occupation  but shmeh. It has some of the most expensive rreal estate in America... Maybe because the houses are enormous and really pretty -  in a capitalist I shit in the face of poverty way. it is also very green and has woods everywhere and I saw the first squirrel of this trip there!! Yay! It also contains the liberty bell, which I ignored and didn't see.

I checked out the Art Gallery which was spectacular, the building is beautiful and the collection impressive. It does reinforce my belief that all curators are mad, this may have been helped by the fact that  I failed to acquire a map/giude thingy. I thoroughly enjoyed the modern art and they had some of my Eorpean favourites; Manet, Renoir et al.

While enjoying Pennsylvania's capital, the birthplace of modern Americam City of Brotherly Love etc, I also made room for some more liver punishment. Apart from Wayne Beef & Ale there was non trivia Wednseday. We went to the bar expecting trivia, there was no one else there apart fom the bartender, who informed us the dud who runs trivia hadn't shown up or called or answered his cell. All was not lost though, 2 of Tim's friends came down and the bartender proceeded to pour shots for everyone on the house, then Tim's friend was behind the bar with the list of shots doing requests... Then my liver tried to crawl away but I caught it and punished it suitably.

Cow beer and boobs

Movies Shuffleboard beer

Acultural fusion

So on Tuesday I jumped on a train down to Pennsylvania to see my friend Timothy Lezgus who moved down there 3 weeks ago. After an uneventful trip (see the photo of the giant inflatable pig for the only interesting feature) I arrived in Philadelphia where I was met by aforementioned friend - who for those who know him, is extremely well and selling wind, much better then gas - and we set off to see a friend of his band play.

We adjourned our walk at the art gallery for a brief sojourn where Tim told me about the Rocky statue controversy. Yes that is right folks the Philadelphia Musem of Art has a bronze statue of Sylvester Stallone in Rocky, the controversy arose when they dared to move it to the West side of the art gallery. Hmmm. There was so much backlash the statue is now safely back in its original setting. Thank God for that hey? if only people cared so much about the environment.

So I learnt a lot that day, including the fact that the county I was staying was called.... Wayne. I am truly lost for words to describe how funny I find this.

Anyway after seeing this band, which BTW were spectacular (Paper Trigger), we moved onto a pub and then finished our journeys at 'Wayne Beef & Ale (pronounced Wayne Beef 'n' el). This was my first encounter with the bar that I would become very well acquainted with. That evening when we rocked in there was a movie playing, a dreadful movie about baseball and socially retarded adults playing in a children's league, all the other patrons were totally into it, all 4 of them. Tim and I paid $1 to play a computer game in which women took their clothes off if you win at cards.

Wednesday after an evening of non-trivia, Tim and I planned on finding ourselves once more inside the happiness that is WAyne Beef & Ale. How could we stay away with Tim living 175 metres away, the possibility of stupid movies, girls who take there clothes off for a dollar (onscreen images from Penthouse, woo hoo) and the saltiest deep fried food you gave ever tasted? However the train we were on took so long getting back to Wayne (mainly due to the police removing someone from the train) we had instead to go to Waa Waas. Non trivia and Waa Waas will both be explained in more depth later.

We returned to Wayne Beef & Ale on Thursday after Tim's soccer team had finished runnning around in the rain. To everyone else's delight it was free buffalo wings (deep fried chicken wings) with every pitcher of beer (jug), so many chickens had to die for that evening, our guestimate was at least 30. 

The evening of the chicken slaughter I also played my first game of shuffleboard; a thoroughly entertaining game that involves sliding puck like things down a very long table with sand on it, love it, too much fun.

I did more then just this in Philadelphia, but that will be another entry, Wayne Beef & Ale deserves to stand alone.

Compassion swells

Flimsy planes glide over steel walls

Remember the cause

On Monday the 11th of September I happened to be in New York for the 5th anniversary of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks. I didn't really want to go to Ground Zero but I did. I went to the Speigel Tent (yep same one guys), which is this amazing 100+ year old tent with a bar and wooden floors and stain glass windows, extremely cool, where I saw Reverned Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping http://www.revbilly.com/ 

It was a very moving performance he and his choir sung about peace love and hope. Then Reverend Billy preached about the need to look not at events of 9/11 but the motivations behind them; why was it the financial hub of America rather then the Statue of Liberty if truly it is the USA's freedom that inspires such hatred. It was excellent, I enjoyed it immensely and wanted to go back. He also made the point that if their is no reason for evil, then there is no reason for good. So to deny any reasonig behind the attacks makes retribution an equally unreasonable thing.

After the show he lead a procession to Ground Zero where we all launched paper areoplanes with the last words of people who were inside the towers written on them. We sailed them into the site, the choir sung of constituional rights, it was really beautiful. In fact it is the only I could see myself going anywhere near the area on that date.

I like any healthy normal person hate airports; I'd like if I may to share some anecdotes about my travels...

I was in Dulles airport in Washington, hungry and angry (mainly because there was NO vegetarian food in that place at all, unless you count the $9 pizza the size of my hand), when an alarm sounded, this caused many people to look around fearfully (it being September 10th and all), what they saw was remarkable; a couple of dudes (plain clothes, slightly overweight and a Japanese tourist resplendent with camera and all other  stereotypes) casually strolling in off the tarmac through security doors. Admittedly they looked sheepish but after the 4th time this had happened I did start to wonder why they bothered taking my water and lip balm off me (I should have known better but I was slightly inebriated from the previous night) if they couldn't even secure the doors to the runway. Who these people were and were they coming from/going to remains a mystery.

Also in Dulles airport Washington; a smoking room, yes that is right after x-raying everything (including everyone's shoes) and metal detecting the hell out of everything, there was a little fishbowl of smokers puffing away. I wondered to myself how it was that they had lit their cigarettes since no matches or lighters are allowed in your carry on luggage, or on your person or in your checked baggage.

I am also a little confused by the fact that the further away from Australia I travel physically, the closer I get in time. WTF? Now I may not be an astrophysicist but that makes no sense to me. I know there is a date line involved blah blah but my head hurts every time I try and think about it... In San Francisco I was 17 hours behind Sydney, now in Philadelphia (all the way over on the East coast of America ie very far away) I am only 14 hours behind.... OW!

I would also like to note here that United Airlines has a class called Economy Plus (or as I have dubbed it 'Geneva Convention Compliant'). This marvellous class has seats 1.5 times the size of it's poorer more socially awkward brother; ecomony and LEG ROOM!!! It is a revelation in flying comfort. I have had the good fortune to be in this class every flight I have had within the States, I don't know why this has happened but, I love it!! I have also been on virtually empty flights with most of them, therefore having no annoying neighbours in the seat next to me! Victory is mine!!!

If ever you need to fly out of Seattle Airport (even at 7:45am) arrive at least 3.5 hours before your flight and yes I'm including domestic travel. I got there 2 hours before and got to queue jump the 17 5342 people in front of me and then had to run with a security escort to get my flight.... I have never seen such lines, even the frozen alcohol drink lines at Big Day Out pale in comparison.

Amidst rubble

A party still rages on

Music beer and life

Just a quick note about photos... I have many more snaps of Seattle but they are too big to fit on this site, if anyone knows a way to bring them under 3MB let me know because they are stunningly beautiful and I would love to share, meanwhile enjoy the Burning Man shots.

New Orleans is a party city, it is called the Big Easy because everything is so laid back, easy going and anything you may want; wine women and song is plentiful. It is a bsolutely heart breaking to see the devestation that is sitll there. So little has been done to clean up, rebuild or relocate people back into their homes. 3/4 of the homes you see are abandonded and falling down, they still bear the marks of the rescuers who searched for bodies. It is extemely sad to see a city of 150 000 survivors whree once there was 500 000 party animals living.

That said the spirit of New Orleans is still burning strong. It is so much fun!! The music amazing, the French Quarter needs to be seen to be understood, the food, I'll get to that, there is a fantastic energy and a spirit of fun through the french quarter. the hostel I stayed at was really cool, there were quite a fw natives living there and they showed me the places to go.

I went out every night and found fantastic music and cool bars. I watched an awesome jazz band over breakfast. Everywhere i went the music was spectacular. If you love blues and jazz like I do then New Orleans is your city. I have no idea of the names of any of the bands I saw sorry... I wanted to see Marva Wright and the POW's on my Dad's reccommendations but they played the night I left, bummer.

The hostel (India House on Lopez) had one of the coolest features of any hostel I have ever been to... a vending maching that sold beer, and for the princely sum of $1. Too perfect. If anyone makes it to the states - or you live here - New Orleans should be visited. They need the tourism and you will not regret it. It is really sad to see how little has been done to rebuild, but the best thing you can do to help is go and party!

I appear to have developed an annoying habit of getting on planes having not slept the night before (and possibly still intoxicated from the previous hours activities). I do not reccommend it, it makes packing hard (I am currently trying to get my glasses couriered from NeW Orleans to NewYork), it makes airport food even harder to take and it generally leads to drooling on oneself in public, which is alwasy classy. I have had so many flights early in the morning that every single one of my flgiths in the states has been a messy ordeal.....

So after arriving at San Francisco airport at 4am straight from the burn, filthy, tired, dusty, hungry, filthy, thirsty, dusty, messy and did I mention FILTHY (no shower for 5 days, had been in a desert dancing for 4 days). I spent an hour in the bathroom with some baby wipes, and at 8:20am jumped on a plane to Seattle a shadow of my former glory.

My beautiful friends Sonya and Robert picked me up from the airport and took care of me. They didn't mention the odour, or the lapses of brain function, they ignored the filth and loved me anyway, bless their little cotton socks. After the longest shower in the world we went to West Seattle and checked out an Indian festival, ate REAL food, for the first time in September and I was a shabby shabby mess.

Seattle is an awesome city, it is a twisting maze of streets, lanes and tunnels, with architecture from all eras and a musicians on every corner. Pike Place Markets is the lomgest running marketplace in the states and it is extremely cool. It has beautiful fresh produce, flowers, jewellery and a random assortment of art, curiosities and other ways to spend time.

Seattle is so green. It was a complete shock to the system, it is on a harbour and surrounded by mountains and lakes. Having come from Sydney, San Francisco (dry summer wet winters, andi was there at the end of summer), to the desert; Seattle was mind blowing.... I had forgotten what green looks like.

I stayed with a lovely friend of  Roberts and went to 50th birthday party and got pissed at the local, great times. I met back up with Claire (hey Claire, I'm in New Orleans!) and we did the sight seeing thing, had a night on the town and now I am in New Orleans (which is obviously another post, watch this space kids!).

I didn't have enough time in Seattle, so when I come back next year for Burning Man, I am going to leave from there and get more time in that pumping city, so much amazing music, so much to do, so friendly and relaxed. I did not see a single person in a suit the entire time I was in Seattle. Very cool place, oh but to discourage people from moving there I am supposed to tell you all it rains all the time and is cold (31 degrees every day I was there).

Stayed tuned for Meg's adventures in New Orleans and photos... Eventually.