Letter from North America: Part 1: Seattle

INSIDE SEATTLE LIBRARY
I had thought when we left Faro for a holiday in North America that I would not put up any further blogs until our return. But memories, like our pictures, are now piling one on another. So here is an interim account of our travels.

A useful place to begin is early on Wednesday May 20. We were at Calgary airport, heading for Seattle after enjoying the overnight hospitality of my brother, Kevin, and his wife, Ann, at their newly-finished home on the outskirts of the city. The pair are in the process of settling down again in Canada after spending several years in Chicago. They have taken great pains with the design and construction of the house in the Frank Lloyd Wright style. Of this, more later.

Kevin had fetched us from the airport on our arrival from Europe the previous afternoon and he ran us back in equally good humour. We took an Air Canada Airbus to Vancouver and, after clearing US customs and immigration there, a small Dash 8 on the short hop south to Seattle.

This is a 50-seater, high-wing, propeller-driven twin that made a welcome break from the big impersonal jets in which we’d spent most of the previous day.

It was Jones who had suggested a visit to Seattle. I'm very pleased that she did. Like Vancouver a little further up the west coast, Seattle boasts mountains, calm seas, lakes, stunning architecture and a temperate climate. The descent into Seattle airport brings great views of the city. We took a bus ride from the airport into town. A large woman driver slung our suitcases into the bus's cargo hold.


Really large people were much in evidence. One feels as though one has just arrived, not just in a different country, but on a completely different planet. I’m not knocking the gravitationally challenged - my own silhouette is not what it used to be - but I do like a seat all to myself.

We’d reserved a room at a Best Western hotel, a chain in which we'd stayed before. It was a surprise to find the entrance décor and public carpets distinctly shabby although the room itself was fine. We were later to discover at a much slicker (and more expensive) Best Western in Vancouver that each hotel in the chain is run independently, like a franchise.

To get to know Seattle, we booked ourselves on a three-hour tour of the city. Our driver and guide was Jim - late 30s and a bit loud.


JIM WITH HIS TOUR GROUP
He had about ten passengers including two Koreans, one of whom – Barbara said – hardly opened his eyes. The bus was built on a truck body with a rear suspension designed for carrying cement rather than people.

Every jolt went straight up my spine. Moving to a forward seat helped - a bit. Jim, an ex-taxi driver, was by his own admission new to the job. He had been working hard on his patter and found interruptions off-putting. Still, he knew his city and gave us a good introduction to it.

Jim’s declared aim - there was a sign at the front of the bus - was to coax generous tips out of his passengers. He declined to take our ($44) fares until the end of the tour, giving him time to demonstrate his worth. Bus drivers on subsequent tours that we took in Vancouver we equally concerned with their tips. Each left a biscuit tin prominently placed for the purpose, with a hopeful collection of coins and notes. In North America, tipping is a serious business. We got a run-down on rates for different services from an official at the tourist centre. Fifteen per cent is not considered excessive.


The following day we walked to the places that interested us most. One way and another, where-ever we went, we did a lot of walking.


TERRY AND RACHEL
The first of these was Seattle’s famous Pike Street market, a vast, throbbing food, handicrafts and what-have-you affair that sprawls across several storeys and streets. At the entrance to the market stands a brass statue of Rachel, the pig, named after a large porker who had done something distinguished. (I forget what.)



I bought a small, wooden "magic box" from a woman who made them and said she motored up 200 miles from her home town to sell them at the market. And she sold as many as she made.

INSIDE THE FIRST STARBUCKS
The numerous coffee shops in the area included the original Starbucks. We peered inside. I had planned to take coffee there but so had lots of other people so we found another coffee shop nearby instead.

This one was clearly patronised by jazz and art afficionados, as well as people who wanted to use the internet. I really like this picture of Jones framed against the pictures on the wall.

Our next stop was Seattle’s library. This is housed in a building, like the concert hall in Porto – designed by the same architect, Rem Koolhaas - that must be seen to be believed. The steel and glass structure rises at impossible angles like a contorted three-dimensional mirror. Visitors are welcome. We paused to support a fund-raising campaign by library volunteers (I got a t-shirt) and to admire the auditorium funded by Bill Gates - before taking a series of escalators to the top of the building.

Visitors to the upper floors of the library have the impression that they have been swallowed up by a vast meccano monster.(If you don't know what meccano is, you're too young.) The construction is tied together by a lacework of beams that is as much a work of art as engineering.

Our final stop was the art gallery, one of the best I’ve visited. We were lucky enough to arrive in time to join a guided tour of an exhibition of early American art. For the rest we just wandered. The gallery has an eclectic collection of all kinds of stuff, the overall effect of which is strangely uplifting. I just loved the place and was happy to go back inside when Jones wanted to point out something that I’d missed.

Our return to Canada was via a ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Long queues awaited us when we arrived at the ferry terminal at 6.30 on a Friday morning. We were able to avoid the worst of them, grateful that we’d been able to check-in the previous day when we dropped by to confirm our bookings. To our disappointment, the ferry was a smallish, high-speed catamaran, quite unlikely the large boat on which we’d made a memorable trip up the inner passage to Prince Rupert the previous year.

While the boat was comfortable, it offered little opportunity for passengers to move around or go on deck. The only deck space available was a section a few metres square at the stern where the wind soon drove the adventurous back to their seats. Our ferry was full because it was a long weekend and Seattleites were making the most of it. There wasn’t a seat to spare.

We were fortunate to be upstairs (away from the school groups below) and sitting opposite a young high-tech couple (Meave and Jean-Claude) with whom we fell into conversation and whose excellent company helped to speed the trip by. It was, they confessed, the first anniversary of their meeting via an online dating site. And thus ends the first part.