I have had two early mornings over the last two nights. On Tuesday morning Stephen Phayre dropped me down to the local port to catch the commuter ferry to Seattle. An enjoyable cruise during which I filled in my Canadian customs form (2%) and slept (98%). There were some thoughts of breakfast but with my dicky stomach of the last three days, I wasn't sure I was quite ready to test the waters (pardon pun) quite yet, at least not before the customs shed at the border. I got a taxi to the bus station - not in the mood for adventure at 7.30 in the morning - keeping an eye out for a post box to post Sheila's map back to her in Connecticut. I still had it in my bag having forgotten to give it back to her the week earlier in NYC. The taxi decision was made easier by the fact that my bag now felt like lead, this extra weight caused by two bottles of ranch dressing bought the previous day at Walmart in Silverdale Washington. I'm not sure how two small bottles of the stuff can have made so much difference but I wasn't up for deliberating. I had some dollars and I had the ranch dressing and although I had plenty of time to walk, the combination of the previous two made a compelling argument. Taxi. !!!!
I didn't have a post office though and I made a mental note to find one in Vancouver rather than wander off to find one now.
The bus journey was mercifully uneventful. A rather giddy young lady who had spent a week in Spokane on a new chapter in her life only to decide it didn't suit her and come home was waiting in Seattle having waited in Spokane for eight hours for the bus and then four hours in Seattle - what is a 5 1/2 hour drive eventually took her 23 hours. This is the strange way greyhound works sometimes. Her level of excitement became more pronounced wit each stop.
We passed through the town (city ?) of Bellingham Washington which claims to harbour the Alaska Ferry - I'm not quite sure that this is true or, if it is, who would get a ferry from Washington State to Alaska. Maybe I missed something.
Apparently the Canadian border officials have got meaner recently and now they're trying to be more American than the American border guards. Having never been to Canada my only experience of the Canadian border was the Graham Nash song "Immigration Man" and they seemed pretty mean in that. It's quite unbecoming of them - my advice is that they should stick to what they're good at and be nice Canadian border guards. That said, the procedure was fairly painless. We all piled off the bus, collected our bags including my "boulder" with the ranch dressing and queued up to be asked difficult questions. My interviewer was rather confused about how long I was staying but seemed to finally understand or, at least accept, the odd eccentricity that made up Josh's Itinerary and sent me on my way. We all piled back onto the bus and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. It turns out there was a Chinese dude being investigated. There's always one. I guess there has to be just to make sure you don't think it's too easy getting into Canada. Those pesky Canadians.
My reason for visiting Vancouver was, in fact, very logical. Vancouver is right there at the border. You're looking at the map and you could skip from Seattle to Vancouver. By the looks of the map, you'd think the border crossing was right there in downtown Vancouver. Which made it only right that, as I had got this far, it was only right that I should visit another almost-cousin Siobhaun and her husband Greg, as well as Kath O'Kelly whose family grew up at the top of our road (and we grew up at the bottom of theirs) and who now lives in Vancouver with Andrew and their four kids. When they moved out west a few years back, we put them in touch with Siobhaun and Greg and their daughter Addie and the two families are now great friends. This was a great opportunity to meet more than one group of friends at a time and The Last Supper was planned - no connection between this and the more famous Last Supper is intended, certainly not linking the two events' guests of honor.
The investigations into the Chinese dude knocked us back a bit in schedule but that was fine because Vancouver is, like, right on the border, right ? Wrong. But eventually I got there and Siobhaun, having put off at least one meeting to make it, met me at the station in, apparently, one of the city's dodger districts (they always seem to be in the dodgy neighborhoods) armed with pizza. She drove, I ate and then she dropped me downtown. I spent the afternoon walking around Vancouver, posting the envelope, and drinking hot chocolate in Starbucks (again - I was dead set against this place but I'm coming around to its merits now) before meeting up with Siobhaun, Greg, Kath, Andrew and all he children.
Yesterday started early again - my first flight of two was at 6am and Andrew very kindly dropped me to the airport at 4. The high excitement of the evening before had meant their youngest had been up all night with a temperature so Andrew had not slept all night. I, meanwhile, had slept like a log. Vancouver Airport is very nice, for an airport. I did USA immigration again and was in plenty of time for my flight. For some reason, I was unaware Chicago was on the side of a lake - it looked great in the morning sunshine as we flew in to wait for the transfer to Dublin. In fact,even with the large complicated bulk of that airport to manouevre about, I still had a six hour wait at my gate - a good lunch break. Irish planes always seem to be thrown in the mankiest terminals several miles from the best restaurants (or, in fact, the best anything) but I found some lunch, found my gate and waited patiently.
Another harmless but pretty boring film and a few meals later and I was back in Dublin. My dad broke his rule of not picking anybody up from the airport and we went home to his place for breakfast. The jet lag hit at about 5 that evening but hasn't been too bad. I've discovered various things missing from my suitcase but nothing major and I definitely managed to survive the bus rides unscathed and with all property intact. I just tend to leave things in different places.
And normal service has resumed, although accompanied by nicer weather than when I departed. The buskers on grafton street seem to be noisier but otherwise it seems to be business as usual. The Spanish students have begun to invade the buses again and I've been rehearsing music with junior and leaving cert music practical students. I already have a few gigs in the book for the next few weeks and the organ restoration fun(d) continues in the church in earnest. No rest for the wicked !!!
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Most of the last three paragraphs were written a few days after the first half of the post which is when I'm writing here too. I'm on a different kind of bus now - a more familiar Dublin Bus double-decker No. 7 heading to Dun Laoghaire to see the Irish Jungmanns in Killiney having worked my way around the United States of America visiting most of the rest of Scott's family. Emilie Conway asked me yesterday by text; "u miss America ?" I replied; "no, I found it. Straight through mayo, next land, you can't miss it". I don't miss it yet. There are lots of reasons I love living in Ireland and lots of reasons I love my new house in Kilmainham but I would expect that I would want to go exploring the States again. Might not happen for a while but it's there in the back of my mind for sure. It's given me some ideas - for work, for song lyrics, for future holiday opportunities, for contacts - but on the wider question of what to do next, I've not had a eurekA moment this time although a lot of people have given me advice and I've taken it all in, I hope. I'm in a little bit of a rut on this one but I'm staying as positive as I can and trying to address faults as I see them - too lazy being the main one - so as to address improving On them. Kath O'Kelly and I chated about a book called "The Artists Way" and I want her to know that I used my new iPad toy to download it at Vancouver Airport and am working my way into it. It seems an interesting course and I am looking forward to working through it over the next few months. I've read the introduction so far so it's early days. It suggests writing morning pages every day - the Description of them sounds very like what I've been doing in this blog but neither you nor I am supposed to read these notes. I hope I have the discipline to stick to it. Bits of it sound a bit hippy but if they work for unlocking stuff then I'm up for giving it a go. About to miss my stop - will let you know how it goes.
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