my ride fell through so i took the train. that was a bane for my plan to bring gifts of booze to my hosts across the border since a backpack doesn't fit very many cases of beer on top of enough clothes for a long weekend, and the train doesn't stop at duty free. alas. i'd be empty handed and at the mercy of british columbia's sobering excise taxes. the train does, however, afford travelers the sense that they are traveling, a unique sense of time and distance that goes unexperienced in the air or on the highway. maybe it's just the amtrak cascades line, which takes passengers from portland, or through the evergreen forests of southern washington and then along the pacific coast from seattle to vancouver, bc. rain or shine (my trip afforded me a taste of both before night fell outside of bellingham), the pacific northwest is specially majestic or mystical -- sometimes depending only on whether it's a coffee or a beer in your hand -- quietly happy with its misty isolation from the other geographies of north america.
still, though, without whatever particular scene outside its windows, a train makes a journey. pack what you can carry (a large backpack, a shoulder bag and a bicycle for me); take your time; enjoy the ride. it'll probably be a while. this train could be any train, just a sensory device for gradually transitioning one place into another. i spent most of my time on the ride to vancouver reading, and outside the force of the passing northwest vistas, i let myself lapse into a limbo of just travel. although the quarters weren't always this plush, i could have been headed back to budapest or varanasi or nagano. i even remembered a long trip that i took on all local lines from osaka to tokyo during which i tried my best to have, for lack of a better term and eschewing a more descriptive explanation, a mind-only orgasm: i'm almost sure that the woman across from me who was headed to homer, ak was masturbating under the pillow on her lap.
i read completely through patrik ouředník's case closed, described in the publisher's jacket copy as "a wily and sophisticated parable about the dangers of language itself." it's also a cop drama and a thriller of sorts. i don't think i got it. or i hope that i didn't. if there weren't clues that i missed or, for that matter, a solvable mystery at all, then ouředník's book is, albeit well-written/translated (but aren't they all?), dissapointingly just another book about itself: "by now our readers have definitively understood that they definitively understand nothing: what could be a more sensible conclusion to our novel than that?" rereading the section in which that passage appears in a less enchanted mood, i give up hope of finding more clues and let case closed succumb to the dangers it exposes. that's the point, and that's the experience. but the meta- and the meta-meta- are wearing on me, i hate to say. the mise en abyme and james franco. i don't think i can stand to read another author executing them so well -- again -- anytime soon. but back to the train.
literally, in fact, because i finished ouředník's book just before the train stopped at king st. station in seattle and i disembarked then reembarked after a brief leg stretcher. i dawdled over two other volumes until we crossed into canada, at which point i was sure that we'd arrive well ahead of the one and a half hours still budgeted for the train to roll into pacific central station, vancouver. not so, for better and worse. we stopped to wait for a bridge to be lowered past some river traffic with a view of the city lights in the distance. for a while i fancied that i might be fine with never arriving, just savoring having left portland and being on the edge of arriving somewhere else. the world is wide; and portland, or is not at its center, as much as we portlanders love-hate (it's a portland thing) to curl up all day (and day after day) in the blanket of our recently discovered cultural cachet. i had myself nearly up and out before i couldn't stop overhearing the conversation between the canadian man and the two women from austria sitting about five rows behind me. "i know! i love portland. they love their bicycles there, just like in amsterdam." "anything goes, really. the girls with half their heads shaved, they just don't care." which reminded me of a comment a friend had made recently: "you know you're a hipster dyke when even the straight girls start rocking your haircut." amen, jenny. amen.
the canadian man also commented on how european montreal is, and i wondered why everyone, especially actual europeans, wanted so much to make that favorable comparison. some places in europe are inevitably shit, and i couldn't have wanted more at that moment just to be at my destination in canada. the world can have its europes. i was excited about vancouver.
as it turned out, vancouver was excited for me, too. i've never been given a reason to expect otherwise, but i'm always somewhat surprised at the hero's welcome i get here. friends were at the train station waiting when my train arrived (late, even, after all that) and i passed customs. jared found me as i was leaving the station bathroom, grace was waiting in the truck. hugs and catching up, but, first, beers on the tailgate. on the ride to the house we talked mutual friends, which meant some talk of marriage, and jared recounted a dream in which he'd gotten an heirloom ring from his parents. in reality the ring was given to his brother shortly after the dream. i mentioned that since the last time i'd been to visit all of my sisters had been married (including, finally last november my younger one) and i was officially the old maid of the family. grace asked why i wasn't wearing black. i supposed i'd have to go shopping, but that was already in my plans. duly chastened, i unloaded my things from the bed of the truck. give me time, canada, it'll come back to me. in the morning.
dear portland, you may be the insouciant gamine muse of the northwest, but vancouver is a world city (and seattle, well, i'm sorry). it thinks big and in more than one language. people dress like adults. granted, there are jobs here, and there are jobs here that pay well. we can make our excuses... the mountains across the water to the north of downtown are massive. portland and seattle have hood and rainier, but the mountains here are more a presence than merely snapshots. maybe it's just that vancouver was forced to grow to the extent of its imposing environment, but here is grand, confident, and cosmopolitan.
the rain kept me from getting on my bicycle as early as i'd planned to this morning, but that meant a more enjoyable breakfast. i'm not afraid of the rain or of riding in it, but the bike is still in summer mode sans fenders, and soaking myself on morning number one was absolutely unappealing. instead, grace and i got a ride from roommate ashley to bandidas on commercial -- or, as vancouverites call it, just "the drive." bandidas (2781 commercial dr.) is an all vegetarian haute mexican joint in a sparsely decorated but cozy space. the walls are white and the lightbulbs in the ceiling fixtures are exposed, but the mismatched furniture and rustic bar help the place avoid that now all too common over-designed industrial look. (portland: think a por que no/junior's collabo at a tiny's.) i didn't venture to start drinking so early, but bandidas cocktail offerings were enticing and surprisingly reasonably priced for british columbia. the staff was friendly about my sniveling order, and my breakfast burrito "with the vegan dairy substitutions but the eggs are fine and i want guacamole" was deliciously balanced.
i didn't want to wait much longer after breakfast to get on the bike, so i resigned myself to getting wet and rode out from the house in a light mist. of course, it took only as long as it did for the water on the roads to splash up and soak my feet and bag for the sun to come out. don't rush. for as big and busy as vancouver is, it's also charmingly sleepy. i'll listen to the city next time and slow down.
my goal was to have a cup of coffee at finch's (353 west pender st.), a quaint, coffee and tea house styled a la the french provincial that also serves made-to-order baguette sandwiches. it's also only a block away from that special downtown intersection where there are visible four second hand booksellers. i'd planned to get to work on this, my introduction to vancouver, and browse the shelves, but too bad: as the handsome, tattooed man at the register in his serving blacks informed me, no wifi. i realized from there out that americans -- or maybe just portlanders -- are spoiled with an abundance of indie establishments with free internet. the man at finch's suggested i try waves, and i asked for a suggestion that wasn't a chain. nothing came to mind.
the bike shop, then. they should have a good idea or two for someone in my outfit. i've only been to super champion (245 main st.) once before to get the man who made my bicycle a t-shirt, but if not for coffee, the guys there seemed likely to know of a place with internet access that would serve me a drink. i rode up but didn't go inside, instead thinking to try my luck at solder and sons, the bookstore and cafe next door. perfect, and why had i never thought to go inside before? maybe it's newer. but they didn't have internet either, and maybe i should try waves. ironically, both the proprietor of solder and sons and his sole patron were colder and shorter with me than i would have expected from their neighbors at the all fixed gear bike shop. they were preoccupied, though, something about a book release party for a friend whose book hadn't yet found a publisher. i'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, and you won't get the pleasure of reading my slight of their party, because as i was crafting it just now i found out that the man at the counter is likely a friend of my friend paul's. and they did ultimately suggest that i try a place called jj bean.
i did try jj bean (460 railway st.), which also had no wifi. the guy with the bike pump who overheard me talking with the barista came over and suggested waves with a very friendly smile into which i, emboldened by my status as itinerant stranger, read more than he intended, i'm sure. but i was willing to stick around to let whatever might happen happen, having already decided to stay anyway after coming to the pathetic epiphany that i didn't need the internet to write so long as i could use the signal at the house later to make my post. and jj bean is at least a local micro-roaster if still a chain.
the location i chose is on a gentrified stretch of industrial spaces just east of gastown, the cobbled tourist space on the water between chinatown and downtown that hosts more than one too many gastropubs (google that word and the suggested searches are all for locations in canada) and lights up with velvet-roped night clubs after dark. the other customers at the coffee shop came all from the what looked like design or architecture firms on railway, and it was admittedly comforting to see that the creative professional uniform of dark jeans, button-ups and canvas sneakers was an international trend. but jj bean is more international than any of the coffee houses i frequent in portland. during my couple of hours there i was glad to overhear a couple of very stylish women conversing in french and another couple speaking in english but with the accent of their first language, probably something scandinavian.
i didn't need the second cup of coffee that the south asian barista gave me on the house, and definitely should have turned down the double espresso and honey blended drink she brought me (made as a mistake?). she told me that if i liked it i should order a fresca medici the next time. it has nothing on joel's affogatos, but i'm a sucker for sweets (and for sweet baristas willing to make the still wet bike kid from out of town feel comfortable, even if my eyes weren't for her). i drank it happily as the sun crawled up my side of the patio. i took the sun as an excuse to move on before finishing my work, but it was really more the caffeine jitters that got my on my bike and in search of food.
downtown traffic was picking up at 4:00, but i decided to ride through the city center to get to my next stop in kitsilano so that i could take in the view of the mountains across the inlet. my timing was much better than when i took off from the house, and the clouds had completely burned off by the time i was on the bridge descent. it was only a short jaunt from the base of the bridge to noodle box (1867 west 4th) where i met grace, who filled my stomach and helped me down off my high. noodle box started as a popular food cart in victoria now has three locations there in addition to the one in vancouver. i had a bowl of vegetables and shiitake mushrooms in black bean sauce over brown rice with a 22 ouncer of raven cream ale from vancouver based r&b brewing. i should have gotten it spicier, but my bowl had enough kick to leave a tingle in my mouth between bites, and the bean sauce was just salty enough to compliment the beer. the house was dead, and grace lamented not being able to ride back to the house with me. friday night should pick up, she reassured herself. grace apparently likes it when it's busier. i was happy with a leisurely ride along the shaded route she sent me down on 10th back toward east main and the neighborhood.
there are rumors of a bike party tonight at prospect point. down below. the beer drinking is already started. oh canada. we'll see if we make it to the party, let alone to the end of it early tomorrow morning. we'll pick up the pieces one way or another then.
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