November 13, 2008 by Harry
We had planned to stay maybe a week in Seattle, but it turned out we would stay for 2.5 weeks… Seattle
is mostly known for Grunge, Microsoft, Boeing & coffee and it
generally considered a nice place to live. I hade been working for a
small company in Bothell, close to Seattle,
about 8 years ago and had been in the area a few times. The great thing
is that the city is huge, but spread out over several peninsulas and
islands and that the mountains and nature are never far away…
It was great to see Andy again,
after meeting in Uganda and Amsterdam before. He was very busy filming
a documentary, connected to the upcoming elections, but still he took
us out to see some live music and we went for a great hike up Mt
Pilchuk. Not a difficult climb -though it was quite icy & slippery
near the top-, but very rewarding, with nice views over the Cascade mountains. It is wonderful to live so close to the nature and especially snow-capped mountains, something I miss in Amsterdam.
On our way out we stopped for a beer in a typical loggers bar.
Neither the beer, nor the people and especially the decoration wasn’t
very tasteful 
Time flies when you’re having pain..
The days went passed quickly. We had a lot of rain, but also some
nicer days. We walked around the neighbourhoods and went for some short
rides. Only once we went out for a real ride; even though there are
some biketrails, you really have to look for them and most are not so
scenic, mostly just designated parts of the road.
We had been travelling in fall colours since the Yukon, 3000km north, and Seattle was no different. The shots that make up this image were shot in just one street, close to Andy’s place.
My back was starting to hurt again and as my diclophenac pills were
finished and I could not get more without a prescription, I switched to
an Ibuprofen-rich diet…
It was a bit depressing to see how quickly the days shortened and as
we also lost an hour in daylight savings time, we had effectively lost
2 hours of usable daylight in the weeks we were in Seattle, which would make the next parts much harder as we had not much flexibility, time wise.
Ghosts and pumpkins: Halloween time…
We felt at home and overstayed with Andy,
who had many other things on his mind. We had temporarily moved out to
stay with Nancy, a nice friend we had just met, but after returning we
got stuck in ‘daily life’: work, writing, computer/software issues. We
spent a lot of time in nearby coffee shops: relaxed places, where you
can get a hot chocolate and work on your laptop all day without anybody
bothering you..
We had noticed the pumpkins on Vancouver Island and realized that we would be in Seattle in time for Halloween! Though Andy
did only get a handful of kids ‘trick-or-treat’-ing at his door, it was
nice to see how the neighbourhoods had been slowly taken over by
ghosts, carved pumpkins, grim reapers and other ghouly stuff and
creatures.
Yes, we can. Hope for a new USA?
As time flew by so quickly, we realized that we would still be in Seattle
for the upcoming elections. Of course daily life had been influenced a
lot due to the billion dollars spent on the politician’s campaigns:
everywhere were signs, stickers, concerts, parties, telephone calls. As
Seattle is more progressive than average, Obama was clearly the favorite.
Ivana once remarked that she wondered if we would meet any McCain
supporters, so we could get a balanced overview of the political views
of the US citizens. The reply was that people not supporting Obama, are probably less likely to host strangers’/travellers like us, so we would likely not meet many republicans face to face..
The days were getting darker and darker and we felt we had to get
ready to head South. Winter was till very close, and we have a lot of
ground to cover before we would hit the warm lands of Baja/California.
Slowly but surely, we were getting lured in a daily job of work and
eating, sticking to one spot. We had to switch the delicate balance
back to our journey and start travelling again.
Voting day!
The vibe was special, even more than the weeks leading up to the actual elections. As you can see on this poll,
nobody outside the US (apparently except Albania & Venezuala?!)
would ever think of voting for McCain. Especially with the real risk of
him getting a heart attack which would put hockeymum/huntress Ms Palin
in charge, but mostly because everybody in the world feels the mess
Bush made of the world, in economics, safety and ecologically.
Still, due to the polarisation politics in the US, the difference would not so big, so it was still very exciting to see who would win.
The neighbourhood’s pastry shop was almost sold out, the Obama
cupcakes were flying out the door. We visited a voting hall and talked
to some volunteers and some voters, though we were not allowed to make
any photos or videos inside, it was very nice to see the actual ballots
and especially to see democracy at work.
Whatever you think of the candidates or the USA
in general, many countries can learn a lot from the way the power would
switch without the need of military or religious coups. Let’s just hope
that this time all votes would actually be counted…
The coffee shop next door had a ‘freedom day’, meaning you were free
to pay whatever you felt appropriate for whatever you ordered! The
atmosphere was great, positive but nervous.
We saw the outcome live on TV and felt the big ‘sigh’, nut just from
our house, but from the neighbourhood, town, city, state and the world.
Congratulations Mr President Barack Obama, for defeating the odds.
Maybe the US can once again become leader of positive change, let’s
hope it works out well and that the 300million US citizens realize that
one man alone cannot change the world, he will need a mentality change
of all citizens if he wants to succeed: No more buying stuff they do
not need with money they do not have, no more fear for strangers inside
and outside their country and realisation that we only have one world,
we need to conserve and protect it and get along with our fellow
earthlings…
We had received a nice email from a man in Bellevue, 25km east of Seattle. He had found out on Couchsurfing.com
that we were in the area and after looking at our profiles, decided we
were interesting and had invited us to stay with him and his family. As
usual, we let ourselves and our plans be guided by chance encounters
like these and so we accepted. We loaded up our bikes, did a short
video interview with Andy
and headed off under dark skies and in the rain, off to a new part in
our journey South through these continents we call America.
