Explorations in the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, Seattle and Portland once more

The end of March to the beginning of April has been mostly on the road traveling through the region that makes up the Pacific Northwest. 

Vancouver
 
My first stop was in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (as opposed to the Vancouver over the river from Portland). 

I'd never been to Canada and everyone i know who's been has raved about how great a city Vancouver is. I'd met many Canadians whilst in Hawaii and several of them had invited me to come stay. So i hopped on a bus that took me across the border and said a shechechiyanu for a country i'd never been to before.

I was staying with Bridget and Shayne who'd id met at a hostel in Mauiu, we'd gone out hiking together, who are students at the University of British Columbia which is an absolutely stunning campus right on the coast.

They wanted to give me the ultimate UBC experience so we started out going to a dance show with all the student dance societies, followed by food and drink in the new snazzy students' union building (yeah i was totally comparing it to SUs in the UK), they had a nap pod and a climbing wall in the SU, We clearly missed a trick not suggesting these to the campus master-plan last year. It's always great to see vibrant campuses but especially ones which are so diverse as the majority of student leadership appeared to be from either Asian, international and First nations backgrounds, with white students actually being in a minority, with UBC being one of the top schools in Canada this was really impressive.

Shayne and Bridget are keen outdoors people and run the Women's outdoors club at UBC which encourages women and girls to get outside and have adventures. I got to take part in their launch event which was a huge scavenger hunt in the nearby national park, it was super fun and I met a lot of bad ass women! 

My last day In Vancouver I got a proper tour around downtown from Rowen who i'd also met in Hawaii, although the plan was to go round and see all the sights when we sat down we uncovered the fact that we both share an interest in postcolonial thought, feminist and critical theory which was amazing, so in the end we mostly ended up drinking beer and chatting about politics and the world. I did get to see great parts of downtown though and explore the beautiful Stanley Park.

Rowen also used to work for a sea plane company so managed to hook me up with a free 30 minute sea plane tour where i sat in the cockpit and chatted to the pilot about how the plane worked, oddly this was actually less scary considering my huge dislike of flying.

Seattle

4 hours each way from Portland and Vancouver lies Seattle, the main city in Washington State. A Port city known for its proximity to military bases, Defense industry, Microsoft and most recently Amazon.(See picture to the left - Amazon has bought up the entire area surrounding this lake, people have no nicknamed it Lake Amazon...)

However industry is only really a small part of Seattle's identity. Set between the stunning mountain ranges of the Olympics to the West and the Cascades to the East, with the ever visible Mount Rainer looming over the city, Seattle is a friendly and laid back northwestern city, the Portland before it was Portland perhaps? or the place you move if you can't deal with over the top Americanisms and don't mind the rain (There are certainly quite a few Brits here who say it feels like home). 

This was not my first time in Seattle as I have family here who I have visited on two previous occasions. My cousin Rachel (on my dad's side), her husband David and their daughter Maia live in the southwestern part of Seattle, I don't get to see them very often to it feels great when I have the opportunity to visit. Rachel and

David are both actors and it's always fab to hear about their projects, including a recent performance of Titus Andronicus that David directed and Rachel performed in! Whilst Maia is just about to start high school, and I really loved getting to know her interests, whether about twins, feminism or her upcoming trip to Peru. We talked lots of politics, especially Bernie Sanders and managed to get out for some lovely walks. I also saw my cousin Michael who is a slightly more distant cousin from the UK, we took a great hike out to little Si which was quite the hike with fantastic views.

I also managed to catch up with my friend Nozomi from the UK who moved to the US and Canada about 5 years ago, she's a drummer but has decided that a career in the sciences might be more useful so is getting a degree in chemistry. She took me out in Capitol Hill area which is the kind of queer alternative area, with rainbow zebra crossings which was fab.

A return to Portland

All the way along this trip I've been trying not to plan too far ahead, leaving space to go with recommendations and stay when i find somewhere I like, this is certainly been the case with Portland. During my first stay in Portland I went to a couchsurfing meetup and got chatting to lots of excellent people there. One of them was Brandi, who despite only having a brief conversation, invited me to come and stay at theirs when i passed through Portland again. Her house are regular couchsurfing hosts and have created a wonderful vibe for the house and guests. I feel like I should probably write a whole blog on how amazing couchsurfing is so I won't go into a huge amount of detail here. 

Portland 2.0 involved meeting more excellent people; Rachel, a woman with ALS who myself and Brandi cooked dinner for one evening, Julie an eccentric old hippy who gave us a tour of the Kennedy School (an old school that's been turned into a bar/movie theatre/ hotel/ hot pools/ restaurant etc), or Alice who I met at a party who works in a feminist non-profit which works to empower women of colour.

I also made it out to Forest Park, Tabor Mountain as well as the cable car with a pretty fab view over the city. I was also taken to buy Oregon weed which is fully legal... so it was a pretty strange experience walking into a store, showing your ID and then asking what kind of high you would like by two dudes who'd walked straight out of Harold and Kumar. Portland you have stolen my heart and I will be, without a doubt, returning as soon as possible.

Trains and Winter Rains

There probably is no more a fitting way to leave the pacific northwest than on a 17 hour train journey through the Oregon mountains, with the sun setting a providing an incredible view of mountains, lakes and forests.