seattle: good night, seattle, we love you

on saturday we drove from portland to seattle. although it's only around a two or three hour drive we had planned to go to multnomah falls and olympia for lunch so we knew we'd take a bit longer, plus it was raining so heavily on the drive that we had to take it a bit slow. still, we did stop at multnomah falls in the midst of some heavy rainfall and saw the very impressive waterfall.

we then had lunch in olympia - the capital of washington - as planned and made our way onto seattle where we arrived at the lovely amanda's place. the next day (sunday) we made our way over to fremont, a rather trendy suburb of seattle, as we'd been told that their flea market on a sunday was something of a treat. fremont flea market was a hive of activity - buzzing with adults, children and dogs. there was a plethora of different stalls and food carts. we had a great lunch consisting of sharing a huge naan bread with chicken tikka, lentil dahl, rice and mango chutney all blobbed on top! and i even had a little organic white chocolate from the chocolate stall for dessert. we also bought some postcards by a photographer whose prints we really liked - erryn rose (ErrynRose.com) - but unfortunately we couldn't afford to buy full sized prints and we were a bit concerned about transporting anything larger all the way home.

afterwards we went to washington university campus as we'd been told it was very pretty and we wanted to go to the burke museum which is based there. the museum gave us a brilliant overview of the washington area and its people.

up high on jam's wish list of things to do in seattle was the EMP museum, a 'music + sci-fi + pop culture' museum. the EMP building is impressive before you've even set foot inside with the free-flowing edges, shiny iridescent surface and monorail going through the middle - i certainly felt like i was entering into the future.

inside the museum we worked our way around the different exhibitions, from tales of seattle locals nirvana and hendrix, to the guitar gallery, fantasy and sci-fi exhibitions. we also spent plenty of time on the top floor in the 'sound lab' where we both had a go at mixing on decks, playing the drums and the electric guitar (well, jam played and i observed that one).

afterwards we went to the most amazing art gallery. it is called chihuly garden and glass, and it shows dale chihuly's glass work. it was so good, we were really glad we went. jamie has now decided he wants to have a go at glass blowing after seeing these pieces! i must admit it is rather inspiring; i'm rather tempted to try to find myself a lesson too.

as you may have spotted above, we also saw the iconic space needle.

in seattle we also had one of the best evenings out of our trip so far (thanks to jam and his prior research!) - we went to the pink door for dinner. the pink door has no signage outside and is only identifiable by its pink door. behind the door lies a treat! not only was the food really tasty (and drink - a yummy fresh pomegranate martini for me) but twice during dinner we had a trapeze artist performing above us. she was really very talented and it made for a very unique dining experience.

portland: comedy and coast

as comedy lovers, jam and i always planned to try to go to a proper american comedy club while we were in this part of the world so we were pleased that when reading a guide for portland i came across a description for the helium comedy club. the guide described the club as appealing to 'the daily show' crowd. well we've seen the daily show quite a bit and both like jon stewart so we thought we might come under that description. we opted to pop along a few nights later and were seated on a candlelit table for two with full table service (serving both food and drink) for the evening. it was quite different from the usual arts centre dash-for-a-pint-before-squeezing-into-any-vacant-seat process. there was an emcee compering the evening called zak toscani, and a support act called virgina jones, as well as the headline act, tommy johnagin. johnagin made me cry with laughter a couple of times (always a mark of success) and the other acts were also pretty good. however i have to say that, although it was nice to have service throughout the evening, not to worry about where to stand my drink and not to struggle for a place to sit, i can't help but feel that i prefer comedy clubs back home. to me the packed room, the queue at the bar and the buzz of chaos just adds to the fun.

right before we went to the comedy club we popped along to the 'lucky labrador' across the road. i must say i have been really impressed - in america in general but particularly in portland - by the number of real ales available (often brewed onsite). there's always a good list to choose from and all the bartenders have been keen to offer advice and make suggestions. in the lucky labrador i sampled a couple of pints of their moonlight ale while waiting for the gig to start.

one of my favourite days of america so far was the next day when jamie and i went to the oregon coast. we drove to astoria first which is about a two hour drive from portland. well, astoria isn't actually on the coast, it's on the columbia river, but that is where we went first. we went to the columbia river maritime museum, as it came highly recommended, where we discovered something very important: that i am better at learning to tie knots than jam.

we also learnt about the columbia river, the difficulty of crossing the columbia bar, as well as important history of oregon over the last few hundred years. our museum ticket also gave us admission to the 'columbia' ship docked outside which used to be a lightship. so we spent some time exploring the boat both on and below the deck.

the astoria column is a 125 foot tower overlooking the columbia river and was built in 1926. the column had been recommended to us an excellent place for views of astoria. driving up the steep road to the column takes you up about 600 feet and you then have the option of climbing the 164 steps to the top of the tower for the extra height. 

we made our way over to the astoria column and on paying for our car parking ticket we were asked if we'd be climbing the steps to look out from the top of astoria column and if so would we like to buy a small wooden model aeroplane for a dollar to fly from the top when we got up. i optimistically said yes and bought the model aeroplane.

jam, rather sensibly, opted to stay on the ground. i started off up the stairs quite well, albeit with children running past me on the circular staircase, however by the time i'd reached the top i'd worked myself up into such a state it was all i could do to take a couple of snaps, throw the aeroplane and run back down the stairs again! a shame really because i do think it was a lovely view!

the view from the bottom of the tower was still pretty impressive though so we made sure to grab a few snaps before heading on.

our coastal stop was cannon beach a little way down the road. we stopped in ecola state park first as we were informed that it was a good place to go for excellent views of cannon beach and the haystack rock which it is famed for.

we made our way down to cannon beach which was still pretty busy even considering it was a brisk march day.

we finished the day off with a swift pint of blackberry beauty (brewed in-house) at bill's tavern!

portland: subtly hip

portland (in oregon) is near the west coast of the usa between san francisco and seattle. i must confess that i hadn't really heard of this beautiful place until i started researching this trip but as soon as i started looking into it, it just kept sounding better and better so i knew it would be a great stop for us. it's a small city, much smaller than san francisco or los angeles where we have been previously in the US, and i believe they have a population of around 600,000. portland is known for its microbreweries, coffee, food carts, roses and the unofficial city slogan of  "keep portland weird" which you see on car bumper stickers.

we popped into the visitor information centre the first morning we were here where a very helpful volunteer piled us high with leaflets and suggestions. when we questioned her about the weather for the day (portland rains a lot), she replied with a wry smile, "i was born on the oregon coast... if it rains you'll just get wet", which, from what i gather, pretty much sums up most portlander attitudes to the rain. she also gave us a map of all the public art in the city, apparently all funded by local transport companies, which we spent some time hunting out. here is a small selection, the total must run into hundreds.

one of portland's biggest attractions for us has always been powell's city of books. the bookshop claims to be the largest independent book shop in the world. it is crazy huge and just amazing. we've been twice so far (and i'm sure we'll go again!) and spent hours in there just browsing the books and sitting reading in the coffee shop. it's a book lover's heaven - we haven't found one title we were looking for to not be on the shelf.

we took advantage of the fact that they both buy and sell books by both buying and selling. we sold four books that we had both read and bought four books that we hadn't read! so we weren't too out of pocket but we do have to lose 3kg each before we fly home so we might have to read them all in the next month! we also nipped into the amazing clothes exchange shop, where i could have easily spent a whole day, and bought a funky second hand daisy necklace at a bargain price.

top on jamie's list of portland things to do was to visit ground kontrol, a games arcade specialising in vintage games. here is jam's round-up of his number one attraction:

the ground kontrol arcade is a nostalgic geek's dream. although there are neon signs around the outside, the inside is very dim and relies heavily on the glow of a hundred classic arcade games and pinball machines to light the slightly dingy area. the first thing you encounter is a machine to convert your dollar bills to quarters, which every machine takes. playing with quarters is a rewarding experience, and not just in a wistfully sentimental way; in essence it means the better you are, the cheaper it is to play. experts could conceivably play for an hour or two for under a dollar, others (i.e. me) might be out of practice and require approximately 7 dollars. but it was worth every cent to play some of the classic games from the late 1970s and early 80s that i've never had a chance to play in their original joystick glory. during our time there i managed to play frogger, house of the dead, tron, q*bert, teenage mutant ninja turtles, gauntlet: dark legacy, and my personal favourite: asteroids. even a trip to the restroom was entertaining, with pacman and ms. pacman (of course!) indicating the respective gendered doors, pacman pellets painted on the floor leading the way to the urinal, and bright flashing lights around the sink. genius.

we also paid a visit to the locally acclaimed 'voodoo donuts' of portland who are known for the range of weird and wonderful doughnuts sold 24 hours a day in their shop. the photo below demonstrates our purchases but in the range of doughnuts available i even saw one with streaks of bacon on top (brad pitt's favourite according to our guide book)! 

the kennedy school is not, as it might sound, a school. it used to be but now it is a hotel, restaurant and bar complex. keeping the school theme, the classroom's original names have been kept above the doors but they have been replaced by bars, hotel rooms and the old cafeteria is now the large, family friendly, courtyard restaurant. we went into three of the four bars: the boiler room, the cypress room, and the honours bar. the only room we didn't venture into was detention as they were smoking cigars in there and we didn't fancy the second-hand smoke. they also have a brewery on-site and i can certainly recommended their ruby ale. walking the corridors between the various rooms certainly allowed us to imagine the building in its previous incarnation.

two things that i forgot to mention so far: there is a radio station dedicated entirely to pearl jam here (= very happy jamie) and everywhere seems to sell something they describe as 'mexican coke'. we weren't sure what mexican coke was so we asked and on enquiry we were informed that the mexican version is still made with cane sugar whereas regular coke is now made with corn syrup in the USA. therefore mexican coke is more desirable. jamie's curiosity was piqued, so he indulged but said he couldn't tell the difference between it and regular coke except that it was a tiny bit less sweeter than usual.

lake tahoe: snow way

when we arrived in LA we picked up our first rental car, the one we drove to san francisco in, and it was a great car. the boot was big enough to fit both our cases flat in and i, in the passenger's seat, could lay my legs completely flat out without bending them. it was so nice - i thought, gosh! cars in america are great! i should add at this point that we've consistently rented economy cars, the cheapest ones available always. and we've shopped about for good deals. anyway, when we got to SF we returned that car as there was no point having a car in a city where it would cost us more than the rental price to park it. so, when we left on saturday we planned to pick up a new car which we would drive all the way to vancouver and keep for three weeks until we fly to new york. jamie went to pick up this car on saturday morning and i waited with our luggage. then he turned up in what i can only call 'the smallest car in america'. i mean it is tiny. we had to lay all the back seats down to fit our cases in.

it's fine. it's very economical so i'm told (and better for the environment). it was just hilarious as i haven't seen one car this small over here and our other car was so big! it's probably the same size as my car at home. so in this beast, amongst the traffic of the 4 x 4's, we set over to the snowy mountains of lake tahoe. it only took about 3 hours - we stopped for lunch in sacramento - and was such a beautiful drive. it was crazy to see snow! our fist snow of the trip! we arrived at our accommodation, a lovely little wooden cabin surrounded by trees with freshly chopped wood outside and a warning to be 'bear aware' inside!

we set ourselves up for a cosy night in on saturday night and then on sunday got up bright and early for a massive breakfast at the fire sign cafe. we had to wait for a table a little while as it is a very popular place but they had supplied games for those waiting so jamie taught me how to play draughts. we had to abandon our game when our table was ready but i'm pretty sure i would have won. after lunch we took a walk around a very tiny portion of lake tahoe.

the very helpful lady in the visitor's information centre told us about eagle rock, apparently a local's favourite, where a short hike to the top rewarded you with excellent panoramic views of the lake. now, the day we were there we didn't have the best weather, but we thought we'd give it a go anyway. as we climbed up (around 200ft i think) it got really snowy and icy, my trainers have pretty good grip on them so i was okay but jamie was sliding around in his skater shoes! 

even on this drizzly, overcast day the views at the top were still incredible and getting up there was really fun (despite our slips and trips!).

we even managed to throw a few snowballs! thankfully jamie didn't throw this in my direction or i'd have been flat out!

we stayed in sunday night and had ourselves a little oscars party for two! they started at 4pm on the west coast so we snuggled ourselves in for the night and enjoyed seeing the academy awards be given out. bright and early monday morning we got up to start our longest drive of the whole trip - nine hours from lake tahoe to portland. we actually took 14, arriving at 9pm at night, as we built in loads of stops and got to see some lovely places along the way. and our little car was just dandy the whole way.

san francisco: the beat goes on

as a huge fan of jack kerouac (especially 'on the road'), and other beat writers, one of the things i really wanted to do in san francisco was see city lights bookshop and explore the history of the beatniks in the area. city lights is a haven for book lovers with a whole floor dedicated to the beat writers and poets as well as an impressive history itself. although on a strict budget (and weight limit!) we did pick up a few treats including, rather appropriately, allen ginsberg's howl and, the rather unique, graphic history of the beats. 

we also popped to the beat museum just across the road, easily recognisable with it's picture of jack kerouac and neal cassady outside.

the beat museum was really interesting and we spent a good few hours inside enjoying the exhibition and watching the 90 minute film about kerouac. something i found quite interesting was this information on what authors were on the bookshelves of the famous beat writers. 

we also had a drink in the vesuvio cafe, a historic bar next door to city lights bookshop (on the aptly named kerouac alley), famous for its previous clientele. it was beautiful inside, really neat and charming. we delighted in having a drink at this slice of north beach history.

the next day we went to mama's in north beach for breakfast. mama's is famous in san francisco for its breakfasts and we had already been forewarned that we would be waiting for at least 30 minutes outside for a table. we actually waited for an hour and a quarter (in the rain!) to get our table for two. it was worth it though. jamie had french toast and i had eggs benedict. the rather exciting photo below is demonstrating the queue! the door is where the stop sign is.

and here is jam's chocolate french toast. 

one of the great things about san francisco is how diverse it is. especially considering the size. the city is seven miles by seven, 49 miles square, so it is pretty compact but within it there are all these different districts and areas - chinatown, north beach (little italy), nob hill, russian hill, fisherman's wharf, soma, haight-ashbury and japantown. the list goes on. japantown was actually our last stop in san francisco as we went to the sundance cinema there to see dallas buyer's club (flippin' brilliant). after the cinema we went to a japanese bbq restaurant for dinner. they actually bring out the food raw to you (meat and veg!) and you cook on a bbq grill it at your table. it was so much fun and one of my favourite dinners in the whole time we've been travelling.

i did ask our waitress if anyone has ever burnt their table down. she laughed and turned down our grill.