Travels: North America
The Droool lord and I went on a three week odyssey
across north america, and i've finally gotten around to scanning the pics
from the voyage.
Enjoy!
This would be the first leg of the voyage... If you
can see, there's a small cut on my leg, as a result of punkrock bingo at the
cobalt in Vancouver. Before taking off to Halifax we spent a couple nights
in Van, and got to go clubbing with lori. She took us to the Cobalt (now closed
due to health department issues). Thursday was punkrock bingo. If you win,
you get a free pitcher of beer, if you fuck up, you get to ride a tricycle
around the bar. I won, and by god lori shrieked her lungs out screaming bingo,
but the announcer still said he couldn't hear us. One of the punk band members
vouched that he heard the shrill cry, so i won my beer, but still had to
ride the bike. It was soooo small, i got this nasty scratch on my leg. After
that we went to Luv Affair, which was a really awesome scene.
This is from Chinatown in Vancouver. The koi
in this pond seem almost as long as I am tall. We also got a chance to visit
the vancouver art gallery, doing an exhibit on cyborgs at the time. Afterward
on the top floor of the gallery we got to build our own cyborg sculptures
with barbie doll appendages.
The great and wonderful DROOOL outside of NSCD, the
best art school in the country. Yes, we did finally get to Halifax, but it
was so cold and wet, we borrowed a line from spirit of the west and spent
most of the time in the bars. The fog was pretty though....
Firsts for me in Hali: -Being in a real goth bar situation at shadowplay
in the Marquee.
-Staying
in a youth hostel the first night there, cause my sister wasn't home
(off at her boyfriends).
-Going to
a gay bar (reflections) with robyn and dealing with a girl high on E. Robyn
introduces me to
Smirnoff ice, more to come on that....
-Listening to my sister play guitar drunkenly at 2 am.
-Having
the best pizza of my life while very drunk in the basement of the Marquee.
Stop #2: Ottawa.
After a week in Halifax, it was time to move on. I got to meet andrew's
childhood friends, and we chilled out in the spots. This is a shot of the
library -part of the parliament building of canada. I like the gargoyles
on that building, there's all these creepy little cats curled around the
edges and some neat almost greenman like faces.
This was my favorite stop in Ottawa, the art gallery
of Canada. We did end up getting all dressed up fancy and going to the national
arts center to see the symphony, and then going for drinks at Zoes in the
Chateau Laurier. But, the art gallery was my die hard three. The works there
were amazing, and the architecture was thrilling, if a little '80s.
Two examples of some of the trippy architecture inside
the gallery. This garden is so very controlled, i had to stop and examine
its flawlessness from all angles.
from somewhere in Ottawa. We walked down an alley
way and there was this gigantic bear just asking to be danced with, so andrew
took a picture.
(there's a free spirit born every minute. it's not just me)
This is from my trip to quebec, that lasted all of
30 minutes. As has been an ottawa tradition for decades, when the beer and
wine stores closed in ontario, we took the trip to hull to get our hands on
more beer, joining the endless droves of 18 year olds looking to get into
bars. It was awesome, the only stop we made was to get beer, we had to speak
no french, and there were some kids getting arrested w/ their stolen car
in the parking lot.
The bars in Ottawa were fun. Hanging with andrew's friends was super cool,
and i ended up going to a strip club for the first time. One of the stripers
invited me onstage but i just pulled an adam, blushing and sinking down in
my chair, then one of the other women walked by me and flipped my hair. It
made me giggle. That night i'd taken a page from Robyn's book and ordered
a smirnoff ice, but droool's friends kept ordering round after round, and
next thing i knew there were three open bottles in front of me that needed
to be finished. That was my last night being able to drink smirnoff
ice. <bleh>
Stop #3 DC. The security in that city was intense,
there were metal detectors just to get into the malls. Everyone says Canada
is multicultural, but i don't think i've seen so many non white people in
one place anywhere in Canada, though Halifax and Victoria (the two places
I've spent most of my life) are pretty segregated. Anyway, yeah, this is
the white house, all i can think of to say is a little something that came
back to me on canada day by the arrogant worms... "and it burned burned burned
and we're the ones who did it."
Amusingly, there were fences all around the whithouse, so i had to stick
my camera between the metal poles to get this picture. Andrew opted to partially
try to climb the fence to get a good shot, but then all these men in black
with sunglasses (agent smith from the matrix type clones) came rushing up
to the edge of the roof, and pointed binoculars at us trying to figure out
if we were hopping the fence.
These are the protesters across the street from the
white house. They've been on 24 hour vigil since 1987 protesting nuclear weapons
and suchlike. It's a pretty sweet place to protest, safe what with all the
secret service people running around, temperate, and there are soooo many
fire flies in that park at night.
This is a building right next to the white house (i think it may be on pennsylvania
avenue) that's just all with the super neat architecture. I had to take a
couple photos out of appreciation.
(...refraining from making comments about andrew pickin
his ass)
There's the Droool man again, picking the nose of one
of the 100 donkeys around DC. It was this huge outdoor public sculpture thing,
100 donkeys and 100 elephants to decorate the city. Each one was decorated
a different way. My favorite was the periodic table of elephants painted on
one of the elephants... it was all grided out and a little picture of an
elephant demonstrating each element to go with... the einsteinium one was
particularly cute, but elephants shouldn't have that much frizzy hair.
The IRS, the most evil building in DC
This is the beautiful ceiling of the Old Post Office,
one of the oldest buildings in the city, with one of the coolest views from
the clock tower.
This is just a squirrel that came to say hi while
andrew and I were taking a break from walking back and forth across the mall.
I almost got heat stroke it was soooo hot the first day we were there. After
visiting the great phallic symbol of the US (below) we retired to our hotel
room for the rest of the day, then tackled the city again at night, when it
was still 25 degrees out.
\
The lincoln monument and the bug filled scum smelling
reflection pool. I sort of wanted to go swimming in it, but it just smelled
SO rank. The lincoln monument rocked, but i didn't get a chance to ski down
the front steps like Jon Cryer in Morgan Stewart's Coming Home. The
fire flies were cool, though.
Andrew's rock balancing sculptures left behind
in the national art gallery of the US. Between these art galleries and the
smithsonian art galleries I got to see soooo much art work, including the
first Van Gogh I'd ever seen in person, for real. Plus picasso, mattise, monet,
manet, the list goes on...
Outside the Smithsonian of Modern art is a really neato sculpture garden.
I liked this pensive rabbit.
I don't usually like spiders, but this one was really neat.
After hooking up with andrew's uncle and his family,
I got a chance to go to the DC Zoo. Andrew didn't want to go, but i was insistent
because i hadn't been to a zoo since I was 6. Despite seeing wolves up close,
I did end up feeling sort of sad. Andrew put it beautifully, it's like having
an 8 year old and keeping him locked indoors all summer and not allowed out
to play with his friends. All of this wildness and energy, all locked inside
of habitats that are just way too small. The wolves looked overheated, but
the lions looked happy and comfy sleeping 24 hours a day like they would in
the wild anyway. I caught this picture of an Orang Utan out of appreciation
for Terry Pratchet and his disc world librarian.
Andrew's uncle also took us to these gorgeous
waterfalls with the whole family. It was really intense, but there were people
out and kayaking down these white rappids.
Our last night there we spent in andrew's uncle's back yard, eating vanila
ice cream with blue berries and catching fireflies. It rocked.
so yeah, that was the trip. it was good to sleep in my own bed, and andrew
and I didn't hate each other after 3 weeks in each others company. thanks
to everyone who provided beds for us along the way, it was the second greatest
voyage of my life. Next year, europe!
