Finishing in Finland

I made my way from Stockholm to Finland by overnight ferry. Although it's not quick, it's a very popular mode of transport between the two countries. For starters it's cheap - especially if like me you don't book a cabin. It's still comfortable enough without a cabin as some airplane-style seating is available, but with much more space to spread out and recline than on a plane. And then of course you can wander freely, take in the view on deck (including the stunning Stockholm archipelago - if I ever win the Lottery, my first purchase would be one of the many thousands of summer holiday homes on islands in the archipelago), have proper meals in the restaurant or canteen, use your laptop with free wi-fi and charging points, and so on. I'm never going to be the biggest fan of air travel, so I rather relished this in comparison. The ferries are apparently also famous for raucous debauchery, although to be honest I saw minimal evidence of that (probably the relatively short crossing to Turku on a Monday night isn't peak party time). The other reason for the popularity of the ferries is that duty-free shopping is available. If that sounds strange, it's because they always make an intermediate stop in the Åland Islands, which are part of Finland but largely autonomous and granted concessions in their EU membership terms - including the continuation of duty free. One way and another, I'd recommend the ferry to anyone wanting to do a trip taking in both Sweden and Finland.

Turku isn't exactly a name that's likely to roll off the tongues of most Brits as a familiar tourism destination (or familiar place full stop, come to that) - but that's quite a shame really because it's genuinely lovely. I think pretty much anyone who came here in summer would agree. and I don't think this is just my bias towards Scandinavia talking. The population is only a couple of hundred thousand - Finland is an expansive land containing only 5 million people after all - and Turku is the... well, it's more polite not to apply the label of either "second city" or "third city" because Turku is forever locked in a ferocious rivalry with the city of Tampere, to which it's a very similar size. I went to Tampere last summer and while it was nice, I definitely prefer Turku. Anyway, while you wouldn't exactly imagine you're in a mega-metropolis and you don't seem to have to walk very far to find a deserted street, on summer evenings at least there's quite a buzz to be found along the highly picturesque river in the city centre. As well as nice riverside restaurants, there are a number of large moored boats whose decks function as public bars - some of them with live music and an edgy feel. You also have rather endearing authentic wooden houses dotted around the city. There are some lovely historic buildings in Vanha Suurtori, the old town square, and the nearby Cathedral was consecrated in 1300 (albeit it's been through several rebuildings since). Additionally there's a large open-air museum in the main concentrated area of wooden housing that has survived fires down the ages, where you can watch various traditional industries operating, such as sewing, barrel-making, pottery, printing presses and so on - described by Lonely Planet as Finland's best museum. And there's a huge castle dating from the 13th Century, one of the most charming I've come across and, like Turku in general seemingly, less than flooded with other tourists (quite refreshing and novel after some of the earlier stops on my travels!). I also managed an easy and very pleasant day trip to the smallish town of Rauma, Finland's largest preserved wooden town and a World Heritage Site.

Turku Castle 

I was going to be couchsurfing for the whole of my week in Finland, but without actually needing to log back into the Couchsurfing website at all. My lovely host in Helsinki on my previous visit last year, Jenny, had very kindly not only offered to host me again, but had also put me in direct contact with her friend in Turku, Annu, who was looking to dip a first toe into the whole couchsurfing thing. When Annu realised after this was arranged that she was actually going to be out of town after my first night, without being asked (which I wouldn't have dreamed of doing) she found one of her local friends Eini to put me up instead for my remaining two nights. By my reckoning that made Eini a friend of a friend of a friend - how's that for degrees of separation? It all worked out beautifully, as so often with Couchsurfing. I also got an invite to a house party for Eini's fellow students (none of them all that much younger than me, because the length of university courses in Finland is much more flexible and it's common to mix part-time studying with part-time paid work), and ended up that night in a student bar drinking shots of an apparently notoriously lethal Finnish concoction that tasted like aniseed cough syrup. The best bit was, the whole smallish group seemed perfectly happy to mostly speak English all night solely for my benefit; when I mentioned how good of them this was, they said, "No no, we are grateful for the opportunity to practise our English"! It's been a tad shaming a number of times on my trip to be a native speaker of the world's global language, getting away with being essentially monoglot when in countries like Finland pretty much everyone speaks English well as a second language. That night I also got some more of the "I love your accent!" that I seem to get more in Finland than anywhere else I've travelled...

The Finnish people are probably a little infamous for having particular difficulty with depression during their long, dark, cold winters - but on the flipside it sounds like they go a bit crazy during their lovely daylight-saturated summers. I was told that they are pretty much always outdoors on summer evenings - drinking outside in bars (although Finns have the reputation of drinking a lot in winter as a way of coping, apparently they drink even more in summer), going to open-air theatres that seem to be commonplace, or just enjoying the copious parkland that's to be found in Turku in particular. I was absolutely astounded, when Annu took me for an evening walk incorporating a couple of said parks, to see a small group of young casually dressed Finns drinking beer from cans while playing... croquet! Apparently croquet is a popular Finnish summertime park pursuit, usually a very casual one. It was news to me that croquet is played anywhere outside the British Commonwealth, let alone in a casual way by young people. 

In one of the parks, Annu and I thought we saw a few brown leaves on one of the trees - while autumn certainly arruives earlier in Scandinavia than further south, in the first week of August this was surprising to us both. When I mentioned this to Anna when we met the next day, she froze and stared at me with a real horror in her eyes, saying, "No don't say that, autumn can't be coming already!!" And I thought I dislike the end of summer in the UK...

In Turku and in Helsinki, all street names and many other signs are in both Finnish and Swedish. Finland is officially a bilingual country, and there is a substantial Swedish-speaking population across much of the west of the country and in Helsinki, with their own schools, cultural centres, cinemas and so on. The status of Swedish is often contentious among the Finnish-speaking majority; they are forced to learn Swedish at school, but many resent being made to spend this time they perceive they could be devoting to a "more useful" language instead. Seemingly may Finns are not keen to use the Swedish they have learnt (although in customer service jobs in places like Turku they're expected to be prepared to), and one of my Swedish friends in Stockholm who's visited Helsinki a number of times told me that he considers it more "polite" to speak English there. The difficulty is probably connected with the fact that it's because Sweden was the former colonial power in Finland (before Russia that is) that Swedish ever took root there. However opinions amongst Finnish-speaking Finns do seem to vary, as a debate on the subject of whether they should learn Swedish broke out at the house party I attended, with one guy arguing strongly that they should.

Helsinki was every bit as lovely on this, my second visit, as on my first a year earlier. I would grudgingly accept that it's a city you'll either take to or you won't - staying in a hostel for part of my stay last year, I met two Turkish backpackers who complained of being bored and labelled Helsinki a "half-day city", and if you don't like it then that's not necessarily completely unfair, since essential 'sights' are relatively few. I would say that everyone should see Temppeliaukio Church, a 1960s construction hewn into solid rock, remarkably stylishly and tastefully, with striking natural light and 22km of copper tubing covering the ceiling. And Suomenlinna, a short ferry hop from the city, is an 18th century fortess island fantastic for exploring both military and civilian installations, and taking in the views - its attractions recognised with World Heritage Site
status.

But while overall the city is not quite as dramatic as Stockholm, and considerably smaller too, I've found that it's a city that's exceptionally good to just potter around - especially anywhere near the highly impressive landmark of Senate Square, Esplanad Park, the grand and very characterful railway station and the large square outside, around the open-air Kauppatori (fish market) where you can buy a reindeer burger for lunch, the island of Katajanokka with its imposing, towering cathedral, and the waterline all around the port area including probably my favourite park anywhere, the stunning Kaivopuisto Park. Actually that's quite a lot, I now realise as I write this. Add to that that in summer people are sitting outside eating and/or drinking everywhere, creating a great buzz. Overall the city is compact, stylish, likeable and very welcoming. 

A gay mecca it isn't, but it has one very decent full-time gay club, apparently the largest in Scandinavia, which I liked a lot even before I got to go there on their monthly Eurovision night upstairs. Enough said!

Thanks to Jenny's willingness to act as tour guide, I spent a lot of my time this time by waterfronts well outside the city centre, including one of the main city beaches. While I'm no expert on waterfront scenery of the world - having seen disgracefully little of the coastline of my own country - there is something really bewitching about a number of the waterside views I've seen in Scandinavia. I hope this comes across in my Facebook photos but actually I'm not too sure that it will. There's just a calm, exceptionally pure beauty that exerts a hugely strong emotional pull on me. The beach was busy on this warm sunny Sunday, so it's not just me; the scene was only spoilt slightly by a real haziness and thickness in the air - this was the weekend of the rampant forest fires in western Russia, which were clearly having an impact even this substantial distance away. 

At the coast in Helsinki

After the lovely Sunday afternoon at the beach, also shared with Jenny's friend Jani, Jani had invited us both back to his apartment block for a shared sauna. Saunas are an essential part of life for practically all Finns - they will take a sauna with family and/or friends typically at least weekly, often more. They're always taken completely naked. There are public saunas - although very few of them since virtually everyone has good access to a private sauna in their home or apartment block - and these are gender segregated (I went to one in Tampere last year, certainly a memorable experience). However when at a private sauna with family or friends, mixing of genders is the norm. Undressing, sitting in the sauna naked and showering together with a female friend was certainly an entirely new experience for this Brit - but then really, what should the problem be? The relaxed attitude of Scandinavia towards nudity is surely yet another attribute to be commended. And just in case you were wondering, Finnish saunas are always completely non-sexual environments.

And then the next day it was all over. Time to fly home to London from the typically pleasant and efficient Helsinki Airport, and end my five-month journey and adventure. With very mixed feelings about leaving Scandinavia and generally about coming to the end of my travelling. But rather than try to be philosophical here I'll expand in one further blog post.  

Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393968&id=61207375&l=73afa19a55

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393971&id=61207375&l=289ed17a7d

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393973&id=61207375&l=79bacf025d 

Stockholm and proud!

So it was back to Europe and back for my seventh visit overall (second on this trip!) to what is still very much my favourite place in the world, Stockholm, for Pride week, which I'd first sampled last year. Yes, it lasts a whole week, with cultural and political events and entertainments all over the city, and four days at the Pride Park. One of the things I most love about it is that it's clearly something in which a large proportion of the whole city's population participates to a greater or lesser extent - my straight male friend in Stockholm has told me it's around one-third of the city. Touchingly, every bus in the city flies rainbow flags at the front all week. 

At the Pride Parade

As far as I've ever been able to tell, homophobia doesn't really exist all that much in Sweden's big cities; straight men seem by and large to construct their sense of masculinity a bit differently to what we expect in the Anglo-Saxon world, so that they're just not threatened by gay men in the way that still isn't uncommon to a greater or lesser (often unspoken) extent even in English cities. Officially gay venues in Stockholm are actually fairly few and far between; there are however a number of mixed 'gay-straight' venues, and I've been told more than once (albeit judgments do seem to vary a bit on this) that in most non-gay venues, it's pretty safe for a gay guy to try coming on to any guy he likes the look of - because if he isn't gay, he'll most likely just quietly let you know and won't be bothered by it at all. If you've paid for a Pride Park ticket for the whole week, you have to keep on all week the distinctive orange wristband they give you. When last year I joked to my straight male friend that my contingent maybe found it just a little uncomfortable to wander round the city all week wearing a garish marker that we're gay, he genuinely didn't seem to understand what I meant - because of (a) the number of straight people that buy tickets too, and (b) the sheer unlikeliness of any homophobia taking place anywhere.

Once again in Stockholm I was able to hook up with fellow schlager fans from London (Joe, Rob, Dushyan and Leyton... and of course Karl who lives here now) - see my March postings from Stockholm for more explanation of the whole schlager thing if you need it. For those who know Leyton, going out partying with him while on holiday is quite an education, hehe (love you chicken!)...

On the Wednesday night, we went to a club called Ambassadeurs which really fitted the stereotype of a gorgeous (and eye-wateringly expensive... 180 SEK [£16] admission anyone?) club full of gorgeous people. If the stereotypical Scandinavian look is even slightly your type (and as I made very clear in my March postings, it is totally my type), whether you like boys or girls, you like me would have been looking around constantly in a dazed state, trying not to actually drool too much. Really, it was quite incredible. In fairness, none of the Stockholm clubs I'm more familiar with (i.e. Paradise/Kolingsborg, Zipper, Patricia) are really like that - i.e. they certainly have more than their fair share of attractive people but overall the crowd feels more normal - making me conclude that a swanky place like Ambassadeurs must be self-selecting. If you're not in the league of the gorgeous people who frequent it, you're going to feel pretty intimidated and down on yourself quite quickly, and probably hence go somewhere else instead. One thing I really did notice however this time in Stockholm is that while blueish eyes are very common amongst Swedes, naturally blond hair is not as common as the stereotype goes - a lot of gay boys (as well as women) are blond only with the help of a bottle. There also seems to be a slightly peculiar hairstyle (to my eyes) very much in fashion amongst Stockholm gay boys at the moment, involving very short cropped back and sides (probably a number 1) but with quite longish hair on top.

Anyway, I digress. The show at Ambassadeurs that night was Miss Transsexual Sweden which overall was surprisingly entertaining and good fun, with a generally high standard of participants warmly received by the packed crowd. The interval act was a certain Eric Saade. Eric is now a major star in Sweden, yet we'd rocked up at the last minute and managed without any trouble whatsoever to watch his performance all of about 4 feet away from the stage - and this is after I'd met him and got a photo, an autograph and a friendly chat with him (and several other stars) in March. I love the fact that Swedish popstars just seem to be far more accessible, open and down-to-earth, and not at all up themselves about their celebrity status, compared to British and American stars.

Mr Eric Saade, up close at Ambassadeurs :)

The main draw for me and my friends at the Pride Park was the Thursday night which is devoted to schlager, and you can rely on a number of big-name acts appearing. This year's selection (for those who are interested) included Shirley Clamp, Nanne Grönvall, Christer Sjögren, Blond (Melodifestivalen winners in 1997 with the fabulous "Bara hon älskar mig"), Jill Johnson, and Björn Skifs in the opening "classic" section; then in the "contemporary" section after the interval, Elin Lanto, Sofia (yawn), Chiara (an unannounced surprise... wearing an enormous dress with rainbow stripes... they say that vertical stripes are slimming but I couldn't say she looked thin!), Sibel, Jenny Silver (no less peculiar than ever and still wearing that glove), Neo, Hanna Lindblad, Linda Pritchard, Didrik Solli-Tangen, Anna Bergendahl (mutter mutter... I still don't rate her, but she got a rapturous reception), Hera Björk (yay!), and as a final big surprise, Lena Meyer-Landrut, the winner for Germany of Eurovision 2010, who I was particularly delighted to see as I felt it had been a very deserving Eurovision winner. We all had a fantastic time as you might expect. There had been a serious amount of rain on Wednesday night into Thursday, which had turned the Pride Park into a bit of a quagmire. I observed to my posse during schlager night that it was just like being at Glastonbury, but I swear it wasn't me that added, "Yes, but with much better music!" The night was topped off with the packed-out "World's Biggest Schlager After-Party" till 4am in an, erm, museum next to the Pride Park - actually a great venue except that they need to sort out better ventilation - with live PAs by Sarah Dawn Finer and the particularly fabulous Linda Bengtzing.

A little damp but very happy during schlager night at the Pride Park

Other acts at the Pride Park on other nights included Hazell Dean (a bit of an old favourite of mine - she's looking very good for her age if I can say that respectfully, and she's still good at what she does, even if there was clearly limited interest from the sparse Swedish crowd), Emilia, Jessica Folcker, Rednex (whose set seemed to last about three hours... YAWN), Sash!, the Vengaboys (YAY! I still can't believe their comeback single is actually called "A Rocket to Uranus"), Darin, Rebound, Therese, Love Generation and Le Kid. Overall pretty stellar for any Europop fan, so we all enjoyed ourselves a lot.

We were out clubbing till stupidly late every night - that's what we do in Stockholm. In Scandinavia in July, that means that you're walking home in broad daylight. I've always loved this, but it does mess up my body clock something chronic - it's difficult to say the least to get to sleep straight after an eyeful of daylight at 4am or 5am. But then, in Stockholm in Pride week in the summer with schlager on top, I don't really need as much sleep as all that to keep going and energised. Oh and by the way, after my bitching in March about Swedish boys, I'd like to put it on the record that I now know there is at least one attractive Swedish gay boy who is incredibly sweet. :-)

If it seems a bit peculiar to the uninitiated that I'm talking about my favourite city in the world and I'm only talking about clubbing and ridiculous music, well I have done pretty much all of Stockholm's sightseeing in my previous six visits. But every time I go, I do still try to get myself to:

• Riddarholmen, possibly my favourite spot in the world to sit and contemplate - it's a tiny island with a massive church and government buildings but no permanent population, but a truly heart-tuggingly stunning view across the water;
• Monteliusvägen, the highest spot in the city on Södermalm, offering fantastic views back over the water across Gamla Stan, Norrmalm and Kungsholmen;
• Gamla Stan, the wonderful medieval old city, the largest preserved one in Europe, complete with narrow streets it's great to let yourself get lost in; and
• the waterfront in the heart of the city all around the Kungsträdgården area - this is where I first really fell in love with the city on my first visit, and that passion hasn't gone away.

Oh, and as I was travelling on from Stockholm to Finland by ferry, I also got another look at the start of the ferry sailing at the incredible beauty of the Stockholm archipelago, a collection of some 24,000 small islands covering the 60km to Stockholm's east in the Baltic Sea. Yes I'm running out of superlatives, but sailing through is captivating, wonderful and bewitching.

 Sunset in the Stockholm Archipelago... Not much matches this. 

Those brief written descriptions aren't going to effectively convey a lot of the city's appeal to me - it's hard to explain really. Do try to look at some decent photos sometime (I didn't take many this time). The ubiquity of water in the city, which is built across some 14 different islands, has a lot to do with it, especially as it gives a sense of calmness and serenity at various points (such as Riddarholmen) even in the centre. The general beauty of the buildings (albeit there are a few real horrors around as well) also has a lot to do with it, as does the general sense of good organisation... and of style. The Swedes are surely the world leaders in interior design (probably a lot to do with the climate... they're not exactly out of doors a lot in the winter) and right up there in the fashion stakes as well (guess which are my favourite international chains for inexpensive furniture and fashion respectively?!). But I guess that leaves a lot of "je ne sais quoi", and beauty in the eye of the beholder - talking to friends and acquaintances who've also visited Stockholm but aren't schlager freaks, I can tell that they generally think it's nice but are surprised that I'm so passionately insistent it's the number one place in the world. Obviously, I can only plead with everyone reading this to come for a long weekend, try to understand a little of what it is I bang on constantly about, and make up your own minds. I do recommend coming in the summer, preferably within six weeks or so either side of midsummer so that you get the magical effect of the long summer evenings when it barely gets dark at all.

Am I rambling on? Probably, but hopefully that in itself at least conveys a little of how I feel. Anyway, with Stockholm coming straight after the wonderful Canada, you could say that I was feeling pretty good with the world when the time came to move on for the final week of my trip to Finland.

Photos (mainly singers and Pride floats, plus some of the archipelago at the end): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393908&id=61207375&l=f8119f351b

The British national pastime...

Only once in my round-the-world journey did I fly British Airways. Only once in my round-the-world journey did I have any significantly unpleasant experience with the airline. Guess which flight it was?

I feel like I now belong to the club that can join in the British national pastime of bitching about British Airways. I had to queue for an hour and a quarter to check in at Montreal Airport because BA only had two check-in staff. And when trying to disembark at Heathrow Terminal 5 (I was just changing planes in London en route to Stockholm), we must have been left waiting on the plane for a good 15 minutes - because the taxiing spot was next to a section of the terminal building that's still being built, and they didn't have enough buses to ferry us to the distant part of the terminal that is actually open. You could say I wasn't impressed...

Parlez-vous anglais?

After more than six weeks in the rest of North America, getting to Quebec and to Montreal was a little bit strange. It just feels very different here to the rest of the continent, both in terms of the cityscape and the people.


Obviously, Quebec is French-speaking, and you'll rarely see a word of English on signage anywhere in Montreal. The Francophone world is of course well known for being very protective of its language. I'm reliably told that in Quebec this is actually reinforced by laws which make it compulsory for shop staff to greet you in French first, and which specify (this does slightly beggar belief) what percentage smaller the text of any English translation on a sign must be than the original French. The recorded announcements on the Metro pronounce every station name French-style, even the substantial number of names that are obviously of English language origin such as "Monk" and "Atwater". (That does distract you a little from how strangely juddery the Metro is, on the trains which all have, er, rubber tyres.)


And start to wander round the old city in Montreal and you'll be almost immediately struck by just how, well, European it is. There are narrow, pedestrianised alleyways with cafe tables outside the pretty period, very un-North American buildings. Not to mention far more people smoking than anywhere else in Canada (apparently Quebec has been dubbed "Canada's smoking section"). To be fair, downtown does feel much more like the other big Canadian cities in terms of architecture and vibe though, although there are far fewer tall skyscrapers.

Which continent?? 

Montreal seems to have a fairly extraordinary number of festivals, which seem to be a fairly defining feature of city life. With the help of my local friends old and new (made through Couchsurfing), I was able to sample three of them. L'International des Feux Loto-Québec is a fireworks festival that runs throughout the summer - actually not just a festival, but an international competition. A fireworks competition was a new concept to me, but seemingly companies which stage fireworks displays are only too keen to compete against each other. They compete as countries, a different one each Saturday night, and it was the turn of Canada when I was there. As I mentioned in my New York musings, I'm no connoisseur of big fireworks displays, but it was breathtaking, not to mention surely hugely expensive (I didn't work out who was paying), with crowds of many thousands watching from various vantage points - seemingly summer Saturday nights out in Montreal often start by watching the fireworks. And how cool is that??

The Piknic Électronique is another weekly happening through the summer. Like the name suggests, it's a giant Sunday afternoon picnic on one of Montreal's rather attractive islands, with music provided by a string of big-name electro DJs, often from Europe. There is a charge to get in, but you're allowed to bring picnic food in with you. There's a lively, very relaxed and friendly and rather cool vibe (and yes for once, when I mention 'music' and 'cool' approvingly in the same sentence I'm not being tongue-in-cheek or deluded) with a range of electro music from the poppy to the fairly hardcore. Slightly disturbingly, the festival had been temporarily shunted from its usual location in favour of a one-off heavy metal festival on the other island which was being given higher billing (what were they thinking of??), but apparently in its usual larger location there's a designated gay area, and as you'd perhaps expect with electronic music there was definitely a polysexual crowd. It was a great thing to experience and I found myself very impressed with a city that can put things like these on every single weekend through the summer.

The third festival was the month-long Juste Pour Rire Festival, apparently the largest street comedy festival in the world. I saw the huge finale evening, featuring more fireworks, children singing songs from The Sound of Music in French ("Doh Ray Me" translated into French sounds more than a little peculiar...), incredible displays by an acrobatic company dangling high in the air suspended by a huge crane, jugglers on stilts, and a 15-foot tall inflatable green monster with red horns, and his pink girlfriend (I'm afraid their names escape me). It was all a bit peculiar at times but once again huge with a crowd to match, fun and deeply impressive. Seriously, this city knows how to enjoy itself.


One daytime I took a trip out to the Olympic Park used for the 1976 summer games, and did the guided tour. Although the park covers a substantial area with lots of grass, the structures are very, er, concrete - if you didn't know when it was all designed and built you'd probably guess right to within about 5 years. Well, I say "all built", but actually due to drawn-out industrial action during preparation for the Games, they didn't manage to complete the roof or tower until... 1987. This is glossed over somewhat in the official tour! The tower is the most impressive feature, being the tallest angled tower in the world. I found seeing the stadium itself a little underwhelming, since there were two major changes which make it somewhat difficult to imagine as an athletics stadium: (a) it now has a permanent, non-retractable roof, and (b) all the seats were removed from one side of the stadium sometime after the Games to accommodate the belated building of the tower. But still, it's the third Olympic stadium I've seen the inside of (after Helsinki and the old Wembley... Stratford next no doubt) and I can see it becoming a bit of a mission to see more if and when I go to other Olympic host cities. Outside the stadium is a circle of flags honouring all the countries which won gold medals at the Games. Sadly this didn't include Canada (oops... can you just imagine if GB wins nothing in 2012??), but it did include East Germany and the USSR - so there's at least one place in the world where those two flags will continue to fly in perpetuity. It's well known that financially the Montreal Games were a bit of a disaster, with the city only managing to finally pay off its debts in 2006 - better late than never! In trying to plug the financial black hole, someone in the provincial government clearly had a sense of humour, since the main method of raising the revenue was a tax on... tobacco. I found the idea of a sporting event being paid for mostly by smokers quite amusing.

The Olympic Stadium and Tower

The gay scene in Montreal is concentrated on a long (and I mean long) stretch of a single street, Rue Ste-Catherine. The Metro station on this stretch has a rainbow-coloured entrance. That's only the start of the unsubtleness of the area - I think it's the first place I've seen where a number of bathhouses (i.e. gay saunas) are on the main gay strip just dotted around the bars and clubs, and where the signage and pictures on the front of the bathhouses makes extremely clear exactly what they are. Nonetheless the general feel of the area was definitely both lively and friendly. However I was pretty underwhelmed by the club, called Sky, that my host David and his friends took me to on Saturday night, but there are at least three big clubs and word of mouth suggested the others might be better - I got to one of the others, Parking, on the Monday night but it was too empty to make much of a judgment.

My overriding impression of the three major cities in Canada is of cities that have fantastic nature on their doorsteps. I think it's something that I'll now always find a little frustrating about London, the fact that there's very little real nature available in, or anywhere close to, the city. In Montreal there is Mont-Royal, more a hill than a mountain really, but it's a reasonably energetic walk - starting virtually in downtown - up secluded tree-lined paths to get to the top. From the top you get a fairly impressive view over part of the city. Just outside the city, within walking distance from the place of my Couchsurfing host David, are the very attractive Lachine Rapids (Montreal is actually situated on a smallish island) on the St Lawrence River - I could easily have spent at least half a day relaxing in this beautiful, totally secluded area in the hot summer sunshine, and not for the first time I found myself distinctly jealous of city-dwellers who have easy access to such attractive unspoilt nature.

Mont-Royal

Really, I didn't entirely want to leave Canada. That's high praise indeed coming from me considering that I was heading straight from there to Stockholm for Pride week there. I was feeling a strong attachment towards Canada and vowing to myself that I'll be back when resources permit. Lonely Planet says that it's an impossible country to dislike, and I'd have to agree with that. If you've ever been tempted to go, please please do it.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393841&id=61207375&l=288b820acd

Ottawa

After Toronto, I made a brief one-night stop in Canada's federal capital Ottawa en route to Montreal. Ottawa, like Canberra, is a compromise capital - it was chosen by Queen Victoria largely because it's right on the border between English-speaking Ontario and French-speaking Quebec. However today it's a city of over 800,000 people - bigger than Washington DC and a lot more like a real city too.

It's a bilingual city, where shop staff will greet you "Hello, bonjour" or (slightly amusingly to my ears) "Bonjour, hi". However a French Canadian friend later told me that there is a strong element of keeping up appearances here - the Canadian government is very keen to make its capital look bilingual so this has filtered through into a requirement for tourist-facing jobs, but apparently a lot of the population that tourists won't see barely speak a word of French. There is a substantial French-speaking population, but they mostly don't technically live in Ottawa - if you cross one of the bridges over the river literally 10 or 15 minutes from Downtown, you are into Quebec and the town of Gatineau, which is effectively a suburb of Ottawa (which houses the Museum of Civilisation) but definitely French-speaking.

My accommodation here was unusual to say the least - the Hostelling International premises here are a converted, er, jail, known as the "Jail Hostel". It was a working jail until the early 1970s and reopened as a hostel within a couple of years of the last inmates moving out. My dorm was a cell now housing 6 beds. If that sounds like it might be cramped and uncomfortable, to be honest it is a little bit - lighting, air conditioning and availability of power points all leave a bit to be desired. But for my one-night stay it was a fairly memorable, and bearable, curiosity.

One of the more interesting places I stayed...

My day exploring the city had to start on Parliament Hill. Frankly, one look at the Canadian Parliament building and you're reminded that you're in a former British colony, because the architectural similarities to the Palace of Westminster are considerable - not least the clock tower and the clock face itself. As you might therefore expect it's a pleasant and impressive building, with a very nice large lawn to the front, and with very low-key security you can wander all around the outside of the building which is a nice touch. The contrast with Capitol Hill in the US is quite considerable in terms of architecture and atmosphere. The building is not quite on the overall scale of Westminster (presumably deliberately on the part of the colonial powers?) but it's well worth a lingering look and wander. To the front of the lawn is a fountain marking 100 years of Canada as an united entity, with, er, a flame burning literally in the middle of the water fountain (thanks to very high-powered shots of gas emitted from a pipeline at the surface of the water) - a clever and striking effect I don't think I've ever seen before. With a bit more time in the city I'd probably have taken up the opportunity to go inside the Parliament building for one of the frequent tours.

Parliament Hill

However I was there for the daily 10am changing of the guard, which mostly made me think "how very British"! An extraordinarily large number of soldiers, decked out in red tunics and furry black busbies, march around the (slightly muddy) front lawn to familiar military music from the brass band, and then a lot of them stand around for a long time, occasionally taking peculiar rapid little sidesteps. The whole process was a bit incomprehensible and delightfully absurd, and lasted nearly half an hour, in front of quite a large crowd of tourists.

Ottawa or London??

There are bits and pieces of pleasant enough architecture around the remainder of the city, but the most interesting other man-made structure I found was the Notre-Dame Cathedral, an 1841 structure which catches the eye mainly for its twin spires which are plated with tin and therefore gleam in an unusual and striking way.  

There are numerous national museums in Ottawa; you could spend several days just immersing yourself in them. The one I made time to visit with my single day was the Museum of Civilisation which is a very interesting showcase for the aboriginal population of Canada, complete with information and exhibits relating to the many different peoples that live in various parts of this huge country (including the story of at least one substantial civilisation that tragically died out due to an inability to coexist with European settlers plus vulnerability to deadly European illnesses), huge and rather beautiful wood carvings, and audio examples of the charming folk stories that have been passed down by oral tradition among peoples who've never used writing. Very educative and occasionally moving, and well worth a visit for sure.

At the Museum of Civilisation

In Ottawa I had my first encounter with poutine, which is a staple fast food in Quebec and further afield in Canada. It's simply chips (oh sorry, "French fries") topped with cheese curd and covered with gravy - but it's apparently something that many Canadians abroad get homesick for. Knowing I had to try it at some point, I found an outlet of a rapidly expanding fast-food chain which sells nothing but poutine, with a menu offering various different extra toppings. It's, er, different, a bit messy, and I'm not sure it's something I'd ever start craving however much time I might spend in Canada in future - but it was pretty good.

To be honest, I didn't really manage to take to Ottawa like I have done to Vancouver and Toronto - away from the Parliament Hill area it felt a tad provincial and often not especially attractive, and it was missing that 'je ne sais quoi' vibe for me. I wouldn't advise making this a core stop in a tour round Canada. But if you do have time, especially if you're hungry for some museum action, this might still be a decent place to spend a night or two. For me it was onwards to Montreal.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393697&id=61207375&l=813df9d3ff

Toronto and Niagara Falls

My last ten days in North America took me back into Canada, on the eastern side this time. And once more I loved it.

Toronto isn't really a conventionally beautiful city, and one of my local friends there told me that it didn't have much of a tourist industry until twenty or thirty years ago. But in my book it was unquestionably a great and supremely comfortable place to walk around, explore and generally hang out.

A significant part of this appeal is because it's a hugely diverse city. In stark contrast to Australia, Canada has long had a diverse population, and the federal government specifically decided around the 1960s that in order to develop and grow it was going to become a "nation of immigrants", attracting people with pretty much open arms to resettle there from all over the world. And it's Toronto, the country's biggest city, which is the biggest hub of this global melangerie, with the second highest proportion of immigrants among all world cities but no one dominant immigrant nationality, and a 911 service offered in 150 languages (really). So you can take it as read that you're not exactly going to want for multicultural eating and shopping options anywhere, or feel out of place whoever you are.

The most famous sight in Toronto is the CN Tower, the world's tallest building for 32 years until something in Dubai (where else?!) overtook it in 2007. It looks much like other monster concrete communications towers you can see in cities such as Berlin, Prague and Stockholm, just taller. And I just wasn't prepared to pay some $23 (£14) just to go up to the observation tower.

 The CN Tower

Fortunately, as I've already mentioned, Toronto is a great city to just walk around without spending a cent. Kensington Market is certainly one of the more interesting markets you'll see anywhere. Stretching over a number of narrow streets, it's lively, multicultural and bohemian, with radical bookshops and pot smoking equipment stores, but also nice independent bakers and the like. Within walking distance is an extensive Little Italy, and slightly further from the centre and thus broadly off the tourist trail (thanks Rishi for taking me there) is the Distillery District where beautiful old warehouses have been converted into bars, restaurants, artisan shops and even a small independent theatre - a really, really nice place to explore and hang out for a while. Queen's Park is a very pleasant large park just on the edge of downtown, featuring the very ornate and moderately grand 1893 sandstone provincial legislature building for Ontario. Downtown from the same period and in a not dissimilar style is the also impressive Old City Hall. This has been superseded by City Hall round the corner, designed by a Finnish architect, an award-winning modernist structure opened in 1965. That might give you a clue as to what to expect, but actually as 1960s statement architecture goes I didn't think it was too bad at all. It's two tallish curved towers together forming roughly a circle shape, with a bit over the central lobby that looks remarkably like a white flying saucer, a large artificial lake outside complete with fountains and benches, and a ramp system to get you around the area and also give you vantage points to admire it all. I reckon 1960s concrete looks a lot better with curves than with brutalist edges and sharp angles, and overall it's definitely characterful and probably quite pleasant, with the artificial lake area seeming to be a popular lunch spot.

City Hall

Like in Vancouver, wandering around Toronto's downtown you know you are in North America because of the number of skyscrapers. But you also know you are not in the USA because they are scattered with plenty of relatively low-rise buildings in-between - and I've already commented, probably more than once, about how much of a difference, a positive and human one, this makes to the feel of the city. The skyscrapers also seem to be gleaming steel-and-glass constructions, often kind of attractive, much more than in the American cities I've seen - possibly testament to Canada's first real economic boom coming many decades after the US's.

Like in Vancouver, once you've had enough of the city, there is a fantastic piece of nature virtually on your doorstep. In Toronto this is Toronto Islands. It's worth going just for the ferry trip, because on the water you get a fantastic view back over downtown Toronto. But when you get to the islands, what you have is a very peaceful and pretty unspoilt collection of parkland and beaches, where you could easily stroll for hours or sunbathe all day (as quite a lot of locals seem to). There are some inhabitants who live in charming wooden bungalow huts, but it's all very tightly controlled by the charitable trust who own them all, so thankfully there's been no over-development. One of the beaches is an officially designated 'clothing optional' beach - my Couchsurfing host Brandon who was showing me round (thanks again!) took me there for a brief look, and slightly disturbingly the people who seem to be keenest on taking their clothes off are often those who should definitely keep them on... Anyway, I was amused to see a city council sign at the edge of the beach declaring "Municipal code #608: Clothing is required beyond this point" - amused mostly by the idea that it's specifically written into the municipal code... Nonsense aside, a ferry trip out is a really fantastic way to spend an afternoon and highly recommended if you come here.

The Toronto skyline from Toronto Island

The truly essential thing though to do while in Ontario is to go to Niagara Falls. It's an easy if not exactly cheap day trip from Toronto. And it's truly stunning. Straddling the border between Canada and the USA, there are two parts to the falls - the "bridal gown" falls which run in a straight line on the US side, and the much more breathtaking "horseshoe" falls, shaped as the name would suggest, on the Canadian side. You don't have to spend any money once there to admire the falls from various angles, and you can linger for as long as you want on the path which runs directly adjacent (surprisingly so) to the horseshoe falls. Over one million bathfuls of water course over the edge every single second, which constantly generates large quantities of mist - you can't wander round without getting quite damp, even on a warm sunny day. But you shouldn't really get too bothered by that, because you'll be too busy going 'wow' at the sheer natural power and beauty in evidence. There are several ways that the park authorities part tourists from more of their cash (in fairness, only to channel it back into the upkeep of the park); I did one of these, the Queen of the Mist, a hardy boat which takes you past the bridal gown falls up close and then heads pretty much into the crescent of the horseshoe falls. You're provided with a poncho as standard to avoid getting soaked by the mist. Unsurprisingly the boat is packed but I found it well worth it to get properly up close to the immense fury of the cascading water.

A still picture cannot possibly convey the awesome power...

Unfortunately, in the close vicinity of the falls are also truly ghastly tourist traps of every description - "tacky" does not come close, but fortunately they're concentrated on a street which runs perpendicular, not parallel, to the falls, so you can safely run away screaming and pretty much forget they're there. So mercifully, you don't need to be put off as you can pretty much concentrate on the nature.

The bus tour to Niagara Falls that I booked also featured a stop at the small town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, a deliberately quaint place full of cute colonial 19th Century buildings with traditional awnings housing hat shops, high-end chocolate and cake makers, hotels serving afternoon tea, and so on. They don't allow coaches or other heavy vehicles through the town, so the largest form of transport to be seen was numerous horse-drawn carriages. It's all a little bit artificial, but worth an hour of anyone's time to see a very creditable attempt to preserve a tiny corner of the 19th Century British Empire in Canada (in a real town of 15,000 inhabitants). The tour then concluded with a brief wine tasting stop (the Niagara area is apparently quite prolific wine country, although I'm not sure how many Europeans ever see evidence of that in their restaurants or off-licences), most interesting for the taste of ice wine which is a bit of a local speciality. Think dessert wine and then think sweeter still, and you're pretty much there. They produce it by allowing the grapes to stay on the vine after all the other grapes have been picked some time in the early autumn, until around January by which time the Canadian winter has frozen them solid. They are then picked in the middle of the night, preferably when the temperature is around -15C, and squeezed immediately. The water in the grapes will be entirely frozen, but the sugar won't be - so they get two or three drops of liquid out of each grape. Unsurprisingly this is a costly process, so ice wine is expensive, but what I tasted would certainly be very pleasant as a dessert wine in very small quantities - the bottles are small and I don't think you'd want to drink a load of it. It was mentioned also that overindulging would give you the mother of all hangovers.

Niagara-on-the-Lake

I didn't do that, but I was pretty under the weather for nearly the whole of my stay in Toronto. First I had a nasty cold virus which took an inordinately long time to clear up. Honking and hooting regularly with a tissue to your nose is not a good look, especially in the summer - but I take this as a sign that my body was run down from the various stresses of budget backpacking on my tight itinerary, such as regular long journeys, sharing a range of dorms with dodgy air conditioning, crashing with friends and Couchsurfers in sharply varying degrees of comfort and privacy, often eating less well than usual, unavailability of gym workouts, and a lack of proper solo quiet time. It's a strange anomaly that at the same time as I've been incredibly mentally relaxed, I've almost certainly got a bit physically stressed. I then had some sort of chronic (thankfully not acute) digestive upset - goodness knows where from this time. Given some of the dodgy food and catering facilities I've used over the past four and a half months, I should probably just be grateful that it was the first time it's happened since India. The net result is that although Toronto has a large gay scene - with a Pride the week before I arrived which attracts the small matter of one million (!) participants annually - alas I can't tell you very much about it except that it's clearly big, visible and confident.

In case you haven't got the idea yet, I really liked Toronto, one of those places I just felt at home, and pretty high up the list (yes yes, it's rather a long list now) of places I hope to get back to.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393691&id=61207375&l=90bc46830a

Philadelphia

Philadelphia is the murder capital of the USA. Given the frightening enough statistics nationwide for the US, that might be enough to put some people off going there. But actually, it's a surprisingly pleasant place to make a short stop between New York City and Washington DC. I gave myself one day there which was sort of enough (even though it was a not very energetic day at that due to rather brutal summer heat) but it was well worth it. It's not like tourists being touristy are often randomly murdered anywhere, is it?

There are at least two major tourist 'sights' in the city. Coming straight from Washington DC, and with the local tourist literature admitting you can expect long queues, I decided to skip Independence Hall, the site where both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were debated and adopted. However the Liberty Bell has no such queues and is easy to drop by. The former bell in the Pennsylvania State House, urban legend says that it was struck to mark the public reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The museum devoted to the bell admits that there's no evidence this is true, but never mind eh? Because nonetheless it became a great symbol of American independence and, later, of freedom across the world. Notably it became an icon of the anti-slavery movement in the US, and delegations from newly independent African nations also posed for symbolic photos with the bell. Alas the bell hasn't actually been in service since at least 1846, because of a massive crack which now runs down it rendering it useless. It was apparently beyond the powers of American engineers in this era to design a bell which this wouldn't happen to sooner or later. Since its decommissioning it has done various tours around the US, with literally millions keen to take a look. As a slightly eccentric piece of distinctly American political symbolism, the bell and its museum is a good place to spend half an hour or so.

Liberty Bell

Philadelphia is also a notably pleasant city to just go for a walk, especially if you're based (as I was) in the historic east of the city near the Delaware River, where you genuinely feel history and heritage. It's full of pretty period red-brick townhouses, many of them with ornate wooden shutters at the windows which may reflect the strong Italian influence on the city. South Street is one of the more appealing shopping streets I've seen, and here as elsewhere in the city a strong culture of massive street murals is very much in evidence. Downtown Philadelphia is probably less to write home about, but the City Hall is absolutely enormous, apparently the largest in North America, and festooned with fancy columns and classical carvings. Unfortunately unlike San Francisco City Hall but as so often with New York landmarks, the area all around is too built up for it to be easy to appreciate fully.

Philadelphia's main "culinary" claim to fame (I use the word 'culinary' very loosely) appears to be the Philly cheese steak. Available from street stalls and fast food joints everywhere, it's shavings of grilled beef steak served with melted cheese and optionally onion in a white bun. I sampled one, and while it's probably the biggest nutritional disaster you'll find this side of Glasgow, it kind of hit the spot and it's not hard to see the appeal. I think somebody told me that Philadelphia has the highest obesity rate in the USA, which may not be unrelated...

While I'd frequented a distinctly American cafe in San Francisco, it was when looking for breakfast in Philadelphia that I found one which totally fulfilled the picture I had in my head of a quintessential American cafe. No tables in sight - the only seating it had was stools at the elliptical-shape bar, from the inside of which the waitress took all orders. Having to eat breakfast on a barstool was a bit strange somehow, but a bit of authentic culture to tick off.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2393690&id=61207375&l=974458dec5

Weird and wonderful Washington DC

Washington, DC, the federal capital of the United States of America, is a slightly odd sort of place. While there were strong political reasons to create an artificial capital city out of nothing that straddled the northern and southern states, rather than use an existing city as capital, as a Londoner and a European I find it a bit peculiar. Here are all the very considerable trappings of state and of nationhood - a nation with a population in excess of 300 million, the world's only superpower... But where are all the people, the great and thronging metropolis you expect to go with that? Nowhere in sight. Step away from the government stuff, and you've got a modest, low-rise settlement of less than 600,000 people. Even around the 'sights', you can often feel like you're rattling around in them. The contrast between the full grandness of the American state and the almost smalltown provinciality of what's around it is a bit unreal, and it seems a shame for the American people that the remarkable things there are to see here are on the doorsteps of so few of them.

Yes, I did say "low rise" by the way. No skyscrapers in sight here - the Federal Government has never allowed buildings any higher than the Washington Monument. Apparently this is pretty well unique for an American city. But then the anomalies don't stop there - the District of Columbia is not a state but the possession of the Federal Government. Due to the wording of the US Constitution, this means that it gets no voting representatives in Congress, which can only be sent by states. Unsurprisingly enough this is controversial with DC's residents, and believe it or not the city authorities publish a protest on every car's official licence plate. This is "Washington DC - taxation without representation", a reference to the rallying cry of the American War of Independence of "no taxation without representation". But it's cut no ice so far.

The trappings of state are centred upon the National Mall, a fairly narrow three-mile strip which is largely grassed but contains various major landmarks. The most eminent of these is the Capitol, the home of Congress, the US legislature (i.e. parliament). It's the huge and imposing three-storey white dome, with a statue on top representing liberty, which makes this a well known sight and an externally imposing one - a bit of a 'wow' moment. To my surprise, you can normally wander up pretty much to the building's front steps, which I hadn't really expected in the post-9/11 world, even though to get in, the visitors' center is in an underground basement. From there you can take a fairly limited free tour, which centres on the famous Rotunda, underneath the building's dome. It's all about the artwork here, with the underside of the dome and a frieze along the top of the wall painstakingly painted with scenes from American history, plus huge framed paintings on the wall. It's way too crowded and noisy with sheer weight of other tourists taking the tour to be as satisfying to take in as it otherwise could be, but worth seeing nonetheless.

Next along the mall, you get to the Washington Monument. This is a huuuuge stone obelisk, apparently the tallest masonry structure in the world. It invites an obvious crude joke about which part of George Washington is being commemorated, and to me it's a rather bizarre way of commemorating an individual, but you can't fail to find it imposing and impressive, or to miss it from anywhere remotely nearby, which is quite possibly the point. Less than one-third of the way up the structure, the colour of the marble visibly changes - this is where the local quarry ran out of stone and they had to start shipping it in instead. This would drive me nuts if I had any ongoing connection to the monument, but maybe I'm just too perfectionist about these things.  

The Washington Monument in all its bizarre glory

You then reach the World War II memorial, of relatively recent and highly impressive design featuring a combination of multiple fountains, columns representing the dead of each US state, and two arches representing the two fronts of the war. European visitors might be somewhat surprised to see the dates of the war engraved as 1941-1945, but I don't want to be churlish since the monument is highly effective at evoking contemplation and respect. Past that you reach the rectangular Reflecting Pool, and then the classical temple built as the Abraham Lincoln memorial. It was on the steps of this memorial that Martin Luther King made his legendary "I have a dream" speech - the exact spot is commemorated with a (disappointingly worn away) engraving. 

 

The World War II memorial

Elsewhere in the vicinity are the national memorials to both the Korean War and the Vietnam War; the Vietnam memorial has the names engraved individually of all 44,000  American dead, while from the Korean memorial the clever and economical engraving "Freedom is not free" stayed with me. A pleasant walk round the bay takes you to the Franklyn D Roosevelt Memorial, by far the most effective memorial to an individual I've ever seen, and a fitting one to this greatest of modern US Presidents. Covering an extensive and peaceful waterside location, it features pretty fountains, 'scenes' from each term of his presidency, and a number of his great quotations carved in stone - rather than quote these, several of them are captured in my photo album.

I'd never really noticed on TV or in newspapers, but the White House is actually not that huge or that palatial to look at - certainly less so than the Capitol. It is imposing and authoritative enough though, and genuinely tasteful and attractive too. Getting a tour is impossible for a casual visitor, especially foreigners, but although the building is blocked off on three sides, you can wander up to the railings at the edge of the front lawn (with the fountain - the view you always see), hang around and snap photos to your heart's content - considerably closer to the building than I'd bargained on being able to get, which was a considerable thrill. If this isn't too random or too flippant, the detail that wil stay with me though is that the lawn was in considerably less than immaculate condition - the grass was neither especially short or neat, with unplanned splodges of daisies, and several bare patches. I found this frankly extraordinary - it looked more like my local public park maintained by Haringey Council than the one publicly accessible side of the official residence of the leader of the free world. Perhaps federal gardeners have been a victim of the credit crunch...?!

The White House

In lieu of a tour of the building, there is a White House Visitors Center in an entirely separate building a couple of blocks away - it's surprisingly small and makeshift-looking, but worth the visit even if you won't be blown away. It explains to you how the relative modesty of the construction of the White House is deliberate, because the early nation-builders of the US sought a contrast between the home of their elected president and the vast, overblown palaces of European monarchies. It has been steadily expanded, with the nerve centre of the West Wing (and the East Wing) being later additions. The President's family live on the second and third floors of the main building. I hadn't known that President Truman had to live across the road for three years while the structure was completely gutted and rebuilt, after an upstairs grand piano had fallen through the original wooden ceiling! The exhibition presses upon you though the very considerable opulence inside the building and the many events of state (domestic and international) that are held within - I hadn't entirely appreciated how much the First Lady is required to act as social secretary, leading the entertainments for VIP visitors. The one clear disadvantage in my eyes of the US not having a monarch or other figurehead Head of State is that a substantial proportion of the President's time has to be taken up  with ceremonial Head of State duties rather than the business of politics and running the nation - although unsurprisingly the White House Visitors Center portrays this work rather more positively, in fact glowingly.

Another highlight is the National Archives, where you can see the original manuscripts of the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The first and the last of these are sadly largely illegible due to fading, but being able to see some of the world's most famous pieces of paper feels like quite an honour nonetheless. (The obvious value that Americans get from their constitution also made me feel irked at the lack of a British equivalent, but that's for another day...) There are extensive other exhibits at the Archives, a lot of them focusing on the Civil War; there's certainly no attempt across DC's institutions to bury this defining element of US history. There's also a welcome sense of humour in evidence at the Archives, with some of the more harmlessly entertaining letters sent to the Federal Government on display, like the former Civil War soldier who sent one dollar to the Treasury Secretary to salve his conscience for having taken a second loaf of bread in the barracks one mealtime - some 36 years earlier.

In stark contrast to NYC, riding the Metro in DC is quite a pleasant experience - it's clean, simple to navigate and trains are comfortable, but the main point of interest is the remarkable architecture of the 1970s stations. Every station appears to be exactly the same, but if that sounds like a bad thing, the underground station platforms are cavernous and fully elliptical, with concrete ceilings uniformly decorated with a pattern like a giant ice cube tray. The effect is enhanced by distinctly funky red circular lights embedded at regular intervals into the full length of platform edges. It's instantly captivating, and I'm pretty sure it's the most attractive piece of 1960s/1970s concrete design I've ever seen. That may not be saying all that much, but it is saying something. Additionally, the overground railway hub Union Station is quite extraordinary, every bit as grand as any of the federal landmarks, with a palatial interior featuring ornate gold leaf ceilings.

The Washington DC metro... proof that 1960s concrete can be cool!

With a couple more days in DC, maybe I could have discovered the 'real' city that apparently does exist here too. To be honest though, I haven't felt any great need to do so. I'm not sure this is a place where a visitor would easily feel substantially 'at home'. But if you think it will float your boat even mildly, spending a few days here just taking in the iconography and splendour - and the slightly unreal, weird air - is definitely well worth doing. 

Photos - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2388619&id=61207375&l=8fd32a0ed3 

An Englishman in New York

After the briefest of overnight stays in Calgary - which actually from a brief wander was considerably less dull and ugly than I'd expected, and I could probably have made a whole day of - it was an early-morning flight from there to New York City. 
 
My first glimpse of the city, and of Manhattan, was from the air, flying into La Guardia Airport. It's impossible not to be awed by the sight of Manhattan from the air - I thought it looked like some sort of monster Lego creation, with its tightly packed rectangular skyscrapers - and of Liberty Island which houses the Statue of Liberty. 


For the completely uninitiated, Manhattan is an island, and only one of NYC's five boroughs, but it's often almost synonymous with the city itself, containing all the major sights, and it's perfectly possible to have an extended stay in the city without setting foot in other boroughs. I did briefly visit Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island (missing The Bronx), all of which have a completely different feel, with barely a skyscraper in sight.


I do think there's a bit of a problem with Manhattan as a sightseeing destination: for the most part you either have to get high into the air, or off the island, to be able to properly appreciate the skyline or the landmark buildings. Because there are just tightly packed skyscrapers on virtually every street in the whole lower part of the island, and because of the rectangular grid of roads, it's difficult or impossible to get a proper line of sight from a decent distance (or any further than across the street) of even the tallest buildings. Compare the fantastic views you can readily obtain in London of St Paul's Cathedral (thanks to planning regulations down the ages in that case), the Gherkin, Canary Wharf, Big Ben and so on - there isn't a lot of comparison. So amazing pieces of architecture as the Empire State Buidling, the Chrysler Building, the Municipal Building and so on undoubtedly are, it's difficult to appreciate them fully. My American ex-work colleague Sara, now settled in NYC who I was able to catch up with, tells me that estate agents have cottoned on to this issue, by plugging the best views of Manhattan as being from property in, er, Brooklyn and Queens, not from Manhattan itself. 

The Chrysler Building (up very very close!)

For this reason, the view from the 86th floor observation deck at the Empire State Building is all the more valuable and special. Although take physical stamina and a sense of humour with you, since it's very overcrowded (even though I went in the fairly late evening) and takes a long time to get in and out, and forget any thoughts of quiet contemplation at the top! The 360-degree panorama helps get you oriented, makes you realise how narrow Manhattan actually is, and thus quite how remarkable it is that 1.5 million people, as well as many thousands of businesses, call this home. There are other ways of seeing the city from on high, and it's worth doing both by night and by day to get two different experiences of the city. I was fortunate enough to get a daytime view from a 33rd floor rooftop near Columbus Circle courtesy of Couchsurfer Christian - again as with the original flypast, it almost seems fantastical, unreal, so utterly unique and incredible is the sheer quantity, density and scale of the monster skyscrapers. Another feature which allows you to see something of Manhattan is Brooklyn Bridge, which is also remarkable in its own right as an elegant and monumental piece of architecture, and which somehow looks to me more like a London landmark than a typical North American one.  

Brooklyn Bridge

You also see from the top of the Empire State Building just how dominant a physical feature Central Park is. Really, it is remarkable that such a huge swathe of park, right in the centre of Manhattan (the name couldn't be more apt), was ever created, and even more so that it survives. And it's wonderful. It's a genuine peaceful oasis, although lively in places, varied and well maintained. You could wander around exploring almost endlessly. It's seemingly the place in Manhattan to go jogging, with wide segregated paths, lots of shade, some gentle slopes and plenty of public water fountains; it's a habit I got into daily and thoroughly enjoyed. Although it's by no means the only park in Manhattan; other notable parks include Bryant Park (right on 42nd Street, the heart of everything), Madison Square Park and Union Square Park, all of which are also delightful. Without these the city could be overwhelming indeed so it all makes an enormous difference. 


If anywhere in the city is quintessentially New York, it's probably Times Square. The comparison with Piccadilly Circus in London is obvious - massive neon screens (with Coca-Cola inevitably featuring prominently in the advertising), the 'centre of everything' feel and accompanying buzz. Conveniently, there are public tables and chairs put out in pedestrianised lanes of the road, and it's a fantastic place to linger a while, just people-watching. It's something I could have done a lot more of numerous times. While sitting people-watching, I realised that the famous BBC journalist Andrew Marr was standing about 10 feet away from me with a camera crew, ludicrously over-dressed in the 33C heat in a dark suit but remarkably cheerful, doing vox pops with American passers-by about the Queen's visit to the city at that time. What opinions NYC residents were expected to have about the Queen, I'm not entirely sure, but it was a delightfully random sight. I passed through Times Square again after dark one evening, and it was remarkably bright still from the buildings and the traffic but most of all the neon - they say it always feels like daylight there and that's a very apt observation. 

 

Times Square

A compulsory stop I figure in Manhattan is Ground Zero. It goes without saying that there isn't actually much to see - it's just a massive building site. You would have thought that over eight and a half years might have been long enough to complete something new on the site, but apparently any rebirth was stalled for yonks by political wrangling. But anyway, the key word there was "massive" - the size of the hole, the scar in the middle of the most built-up metropolis on the planet, gives you just the merest hint of the enormity of what happened there. Perhaps a large bomb could have wreaked destruction over a wider area, but to have reduced to literally nothing such a huge plot of land, in what we all know was such a uniquely appalling, targeted and visually mesmerising way, without the use of explosives, still makes its uniquely awful statement. There's also a very considerable police presence on the site, unsurprisingly enough.


The Statue of Liberty is a bit of an odd landmark in my view, what with it being on an uninhabited island some distance from the Manhattan shoreline. While you can make it out clearly enough from Battery Park on said shoreline, it looks pretty small and distant from there. To actually get to Liberty Island you have to take a less-than-cheap tourist ferry. Tickets to climb inside the statue up to its 'crown' are extremely limited and were entirely booked up about two and a half months in advance when I checked online. Rather than pay just to be dumped onto the island, I decided to take the free option of riding the Staten Island Ferry. This gives a pretty decent view of the statue as well as of the Manhattan skyline, but I do place it in the "things you have to see but then quietly reflect are a bit overrated" category. I suppose if I was an immigrant to the USA from somewhere where liberty is in shorter supply, as many thousands (millions?) undoubtedly have been, I might have been more moved by its symbolism however.

While you don't have any of the trappings of national government in New York, with the capital city being Washington DC (and in fact New York City is not even the capital of New York State), what you do have there is the headquarters of the United Nations. This is not US territory, with the complex having its own UN post office, police and fire service. Tours are available; there's not absolutely as much to see as you might expect, but there's substantial narration and photo displays illustrating the nature of the UN's developmental and peacekeeping work, and the highlights are seeing the General Assembly chamber and the Security Council chamber (the latter being in a temporary location due to renovation, but an exact copy of the real thing). Fitting in with the very explicit UN objective of preventing World War III and possible further use of nuclear weapons, also on display is a statue from a Catholic church in Nagasaki close to the epicentre of the atomic strike there, which improbably survived (albeit with scorch marks on the back) when everything else around was totally destroyed. 

Inside the UN

I was in NYC for Independence Day, when a massive fireworks display takes place every year over the Hudson River. I went along, but I baulked at getting there four hours beforehand to secure the best view - therefore from where I was I couldn't actually see the river, but the display was still incredible. I've never been to a major setpiece fireworks display in London - the difference is that it was a beautfully warm summer's evening in NYC, whereas either Bonfire Night or (particularly) New Year's Eve in London are guaranteed to be freezing cold. So I can't draw comparisions, but surely by anyone's standards it was an incredible display. It went on a long time (possibly in truth just a little too long, with some drifting away before the end), on a scale large enough to cover the very large designated viewing area, and the technology involved in some of the elaborate arrangements and phasings must have been immense. The predominant colours of the display were, unsurprisingly, red, white and blue. It was a slightly odd thing for a Brit to be in the middle of, but I've been assured that Americans are waaaaay over any anti-British sentiment on their Independence Day!

Unsurprisingly NYC has a world-class arts scene; one of the major modern art galleries, the Guggenheim Museum, is famous as much for its remarkable art deco building as for the art inside. The International Center of Photography had an excellent exhibition on the history of the civil rights struggle in the US, showing through posters, newspapers and video as well as photos how in less enlightened times of segregation, black Americans were regularly either shockingly stereotyped or completely invisible in mainstream media - something which civil rights organisations latched onto the importance of tackling. This changed only slowly with 1950s depictions tending to be 'safe' and unchallenging, and the activities of the civil rights movement were often misrepresented by the media. The shocking catalogue of racist violence (some of it by the police in places such as Birmingham, Alabama) and murders however played a huge role in waking up the white population to the evils of prejudice. By the 1970s, media attitudes towards black people had substantially transformed, not entirely unconnected to the realisation that they were consumers with disposable income too. 

Perhaps the best gallery I went to however was the PS1 Contemporary Art Center, an offshoot in Queens of the Museum of Modern Art. With cheap entry, this is a huge, rambling ex-student hall of residence festooned with all sorts of distinctly contemporary art installations, many of them multimedia, by emerging artists. Much of it was excellent and it's a different experience to anywhere I'm aware of in London.

If you are coming to NYC in summer, make sure you book accommodation well in advance. Having tried quite hard but completely failed to find a Couchsurfing host (apparently a notoriously hard thing to do in NYC due to the popularity of the city combined with a small proportion of residents who actually enough space to contemplate putting anyone up), I left it late to try to book a cheap hostel bed and found very little left. I therefore had to book three nights in what turned out to be a seriously dodgy place, just a series of one-bedroom apartments converted into 'dorms' by sticking bunk beds in them, equipped only with uncomfortable and noisy air mattresses, with one farcically small Manhattan apartment kitchen and lounge designated as a 'common area' - in a rough, distant location too. With no signage anywhere, I'd bet money that it was unauthorised by either the building owner or city authorities (or both) - something that two locals told me separately is common for dodgy NYC places. It was a stressful, unsettling and time-consuming (because of the distance) start to my stay in NYC - and with the intensity and craziness of Manhattan being more than a little overwhelming for a first-timer anyway initially, that was a big deal. Fortunately the relatively well located Hostelling International (an organisation of which I'm rapidly becoming a big fan) I was able to get myself into after that felt like a home away from home.

The famous New York City Subway is a mixed bag indeed. It has some major selling points compared to other subway systems - it runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; a number of lines are four-tracked with both local and express services; and trains (although not stations) are well air conditioned. However, I found it hard to warm to for a number of reasons. It is incredibly confusing to use (and I consider myself pretty capable in such matters), with a horribly cluttered and complicated map, which isn't even readily available in pocket form, and information at stations is often appallingly sparse. Dot matrix display boards on platforms telling you which train is coming and in how long are rare (Sara tells me they're only starting to be introduced now - I remember London having them extensively when I was little in the 1980s). Train seating is uncomfortable bare plastic, and without arm rests dividing seats, locals commonly spread across two seats denying you a seat next to them. Stations are often difficult to navigate (e.g. there can be one entrance on one side of the street for one direction only, and a separate entrance on the opposite side of the street for the opposite direction only), and connections between lines seem a bit hit-and-miss (e.g. if you want to get from one side of Central Park to the other, don't even think about taking the Subway - get a bus instead). Oh, and it's dingy and dirty, with many stations in a shocking state of decay and disrepair. Allegedly it's better than it used to be, and there was evidence of the odd station being "rehabilitated" (seemingly the strange American term for "renovated"), but really it's often an unpleasant experience. But it usually does get you from A to B which I suppose is the main thing. 

People are much brusquer here than in California - New Yorkers appear to be famous in the rest of the US for their rudeness. However, I've sensed an upbeat, optimistic demeanour amongst many Americans on both coasts which is rather endearing - particularly amongst African Americans. The famous American way of parting "have a nice day" tends to have more sincerity and warmth about it than you might expect. I suppose if you're being cynical, you might link this to the fact that very substantial tipping (15%-20%) is essential everywhere, even in bars for each drink poured - this has developed as a result of service staff being atrociously paid below the legal minimum wage, which tips have to redress. Rather amusingly by the way, many North Americans are completely unable to distinguish between a British accent and an Australian one. At the NYC Couchsurfing social I went to I must have been asked at least three times whether I was Australian... 

American gay clubs have been an, er, different and interesting experience. The music is different obviously, and so is the way that boys dance, which tends to involve the pelvis and the knees more (which sort of goes with the much more rhythm- and beat-orientated American pop and R&B). In San Francisco a guy I got talking to had said he didn't need to ask where I was from because I "dance like a European"! Go-go boys pole-dancing topless are also common, as at Splash in NYC which many consider the best gay club in the city. Overall, I've not felt completely at home and have found myself looking forward (even more) to schlager clubbing in Stockholm. Pre-clubbing in NYC I did make a point of going to the Stonewall Inn, widely considered the birthplace of the gay liberation movement, as it was where gay people resisted police oppression for the first time during raids in 1967. Happily the venue is still going strong, with displays commemorating the venue's place in history, and it's quite decent for one or two drinks too. 

So what did I make of New York? Well, there's lots to love - there is an incredible buzz and energy almost anywhere you go, massive diversity in neighbourhoods and the population, great buildings, lovely parks, and generally more going on pretty well 24/7 than you can shake a particularly large stick at. For me, just being in such a huge city brings its own enjoyment, satisfaction, even thrill. But. I don't think I really felt my heart go pitter-patter, much as I wanted to love it. As I've discussed before, it's hard to put concrete reasons on emotional reactions (or lack thereof) to places. However I'll try. I would say that the primary issue is that I just didn't find the streets in the heart of Manhattan loveable - while the endless, almost unbroken tall skyscrapers, mostly laid out in a neat grid system, doubtless appeal greatly to many, they ultimately don't do it for me. My considerable dislike of the Subway was also a substantial downer I think. Add to this that I feel a limited connection overall with American people - somehow just talking to many of them seems harder work, with a greater psychological distance to bridge, than any of the other English-speaking countries I've been in. I have tried, and hope I managed to leave any preconceptions at the door.

I do strongly suspect that in principle I could find this a much better city to live in than to visit as an unconnected tourist - if I could base myself in one villagey area of Manhattan (disregarding the financial challenges of that) or maybe Brooklyn, learn how to get around optimally, find some local haunts and over time seek out like-minded people. I tried quite hard to find a Couchsurfing host and was disappointed not to manage to. But as with a number of other places I've visited, above all it was incredibly worthwhile just to see and experience a little of New York - and I'd have little hesitation in recommending a first visit to anyone else who thinks they want to see it for themselves.

Photo links:

Banff - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2385360&id=61207375&l=46d2b7f2e4

Calgary - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2388619&id=61207375&l=8fd32a0ed3

New York City - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2388651&id=61207375&l=03e937f798