America's Pastime

I was going to write up a post about the baseball games I got to see a while ago, but then I forgot, then some more time passed, and here we are now, with me getting back to it: baseball, the great American Pastime! Not quite as great (or popular) as the NFL these days perhaps, but a nice relaxing way to spend an evening or an afternoon.

I've been to a good number of baseball games before - from San Diego to Seattle to Philadelphia to a lot of places in between (The new Giants Stadium in San Francisco is the best. Though Seattle's very own Safeco Field is up there too), but I had never seen either of the two oldest, venerable, most famous stadiums in the major leagues: Boston's Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play, and Wrigley Field, on the North side of Chicago, home of the green ivy and your favorite lovable losers, the Cubs. So, off I went planning my advance across North America, keeping famous baseball stadiums in mind:

Of course, my first North American stop was New York City

And they've got a fairly famous baseball team here too - something called the Yankees, at the New Yankee Stadium, shown here. I would've actually been more excited to see the old, more historic Yankee Stadium, but that had been replaced by this shining new stadium last year, so that's what we get. I would have been really, really excited to catch a game here (or even at the new Mets Stadium in Queens), but I happened to be in New York during baseball's All Star break, so no games for you! In fact, I even missed the hours for the tour of the stadium... So, enough with the Yankees then - on to Boston!

Boston, the city, I had visited on a number of occasions before, so I wasn't really inclined to do much sight-seeing, I did catch up with Mary Catherine (of Lake Baikal fame) here briefly, but really, my main raison d'etre in Boston was to catch a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, so on a beautiful summer evening, around 7 o'clock, I arrived at my Fenway seat and settled in to watch the Red Sox take on the Texas Rangers

Welcome to Fenway Park! Every game is sold out...

The Green Monster under the lights. I thought you'd be a little bigger, a little more monstrous actually, Green Monster? ('Green Monster' is what they call that big green wall over there, Mom)

My seats weren't very far from the Red Sox bullpen, so here's an action shot of the warm-ups

Unfortunately, the beautiful summer evening did not last, and around the fourth inning, the game was paused indefinitely due to rain. This was all a part of my Egypt hangover month of travel, where each new city I'd arrive in would greet me with rain and clouds after the interminable heat and sunshine that was everywhere in Egypt: Tunis, Naples, Rome, Paris, Bristol, London (of course), New York, Boston, Montreal, Buffalo... they each got me a taste of overcast skies and rain. I stuck with it though, waited out the delay, taking a chance to explore the stadium, and sample the local bratwurst offerings.

An hour later, the action resumed, and we all trooped back to our seats. Sadly, the weather didn't get the memo that we were all back, while the umpires were clearly inclined to try and get the game finished, so we were experiencing a little more New England drizzle than I felt I had really signed up for

The skies continuing to look ominous over Fenway

I put up with the rain for about another inning, and promptly packed up and headed out of the stadium - I'm all for catching a Sox game at Fenway, but getting soaked wasn't part of the plan. Fenway itself was really cool to see - it's certainly very small, very cozy, distinctly old school. The fans used to be known as the most knowledgeable baseball fans in America - as the ticket prices have risen sharply, the most die-hard, most knowledgeable fans have stopped being able to afford tickets, so while there still isn't an empty seat to be found in the house, I didn't necessarily think the makeup of the crowd was any different than what you'd expect at a baseball game anywhere else around the country.

And speaking of anywhere else around the country, a couple of weeks later, after a detour through Canada, I reached Chicago, home of the Cubs. I was once again here for just a single night, staying with Ellen, a new couch-surfing buddy, and we headed off towards Wrigley Field to catch an evening game against the St. Louis Cardinals (somewhat ironically, last time I had been in St. Louis, I caught a game there against the Cubs...).

Approaching Wrigley!

Ellen and I over by our 'seats' - all the games at Wrigley are sold out too, so we ended up with standing room seats, which was actually just fine by us!

National League MVP Albert Pujols taking a swing

'Beyond the Ivy' seats - Wrigley Field feels really small! Part of the reason is that the outfield seats don't go up very high, so the houses beyond the stadium, across Waveland Avenue, get a clear look onto the action

I accessorized in some St. Patrick's Day Cubbies attire and got a picture with Ernie Banks

We once again didn't make it all the way through the game... no rain this time, it's just that it went into extra innings, and we had a visit to Al Capone's old jazz club still ahead of us (which was awesome, by the way). Wrigley Field, I enjoyed even more than Fenway - they are both small, cozy and somehow feel closer and more genuine than most of the gigantic, new, corporate-sponsored stadiums, but Wrigley has a little more of a quiet, relaxed vibe to it than does Fenway. Maybe it's just the ivy on the outfield walls, or maybe it's because the Cubs are the lovable losers (last championship in 1908, next one does not currently appear to be imminent), while the Red Sox have become all smug, corporate, and expensive(!) after breaking through their own curse (read: cheapness of a former owner) and winning a pair of World Series titles in the past ten years.

And that, in short, was my America's Pastime baseball experience. Some day, catching a game at the two New York stadiums needs to happen, but I've gotten the two venues that I really wanted to see out of the way: Fenway and Wrigley! Oh, and I did pass by some other baseball venues along the way, but I wasn't quite so inclined to catch a game at either one of these:

Some fun decorations on the side of the Rogers Stadium in downtown Toronto - generally regarded as a particularly unattractive stadium... At least, I imagine, the CN Tower makes for a nice background

Seeing a game at Denver's Coors Field would be pretty cool actually (and ironically enough, the very same Chicago Cubs were apparently arriving in town just as I was taking off), but I didn't have the time - Seattle was calling by now!

And now that I'm back here in Seattle and not really traveling anymore, a whole new American Pastime has come calling: The Burning Man Festival in the Nevada Desert.


No, I've never been before, and I can't really describe it all that well - if you are not familiar with this particular form of insanity, you are best off just looking at their website and waiting for my blog posts afterward (no, not during!). Irina has gone the past two years, and she seems to absolutely love it, so this year I've decided to join her (and 50,000 of our fellow 'burners') - if she and I made it through Colombia, Israel, and Egypt unscathed, this is bound to go well too, right!?

Dotting the i's, Crossing the t's

Ever since Sicily, my trip's been taking me to places that I've visited previously - sure Pisa and Switzerland and Quebec and Ontario were all new, but they don't feel quite as radically new as, say, finally reaching Africa and seeing the Pyramids in Egypt. It's more like going through and picking up the pieces that I'd missed before. But before that all starts sounding boring and mundane, never fear - the particular pieces I've been picking to see are pretty damn appealing in their own right - so...

I'd been to Paris several times before (most recently to buy a certain mini automobile), and I've seen all the big museums - Louvre, d'Orsay, Rodin, Versaille, but never the Center George Pompidou, perhaps the premier modern art collection in the world:

June 2010, Check!

The collection the Pompidou houses is certainly amazing and huge - I appear to have developed a greater degree of appreciation for modern art lately, but even I found some of the French exhibits a bit too weird for my tastes...

Moving on - There's lots of bridges around the world, I've seen some interesting and famous ones - some more famous than others. So, I couldn't leave New York this time without having walked the Brooklyn Bridge

consider yourself crossed, t!

In a similar vein, it was about time I finally caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty!

There are some crazy, crazy, weird statues all over the world (especially in South and SE Asia), so I can't possibly be going home without having seen what is arguably the best known statue in the Western World. Certainly in North America...

I didn't go to Easter Island. But I really want to go! So, instead I went to see an exhibit dedicated to it at the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History

The CN Tower of Toronto, Ontario rises to a fairly mind-boggling height of 553 meters above ground

I've seen some of the tallest buildings in the world, but I hadn't seen what, until recently, used to be the tallest of them all (Burj Dubai surpassed it earlier this year) - Toronto's CN Tower is certainly the grandest (and tallest) of the city's landmarks. Unrivaled in height, probably rivaled in appeal by all the restaurants Toronto has to offer...

Hockey - Canada's national past time. And the Stanley Cup, the prize for becoming the champion of the National Hockey League

Sports I've gone to see along the way: muay thai (Thailand), rugby (Fiji), footie (a.k.a. Australian Rules Football), sumo wrestling (Japan), tennis (Argentina), football/soccer (Bolivia), cycling (Bolivia), horse racing (Hong Kong), baseball (USA). I went horse back riding in a few places too, but that hardly looks like a sport when I'm the one doing it... So, what I really should have done is catch a hockey game while in Canada, but it's the NHL's off-season during the summer, so I settled for a visit to the hockey Hall of Fame here in Toronto for a glimpse at all the glory and history of the game...

Moving right along... waterfalls! The Iguazu falls in Argentina are undoubtedly the most awesome waterfall (or a collection of falls rather) in the world. I should see the Victoria Falls in South Africa before making these assertions (Venezuela's Angel Falls too...), but I'm pretty confident. After all, I did go to Buffalo, New York to see the Niagara Falls, the greatest waterfall North America has to offer, and while I wasn't disappointed (was mightily impressed, in fact), Niagara surely pales in comparison to Iguazu!

I recruited Amie to come play my local tour guide... Last time we hung out was back in January, on the beaches of Koh Tao in Thailand - six months later, Buffalo and Niagara Falls! Apparently she now has a job too...

Speaking of big tall buildings, the skyscraper was invented in Chicago, and the city is home to American's tallest building - the Willis Tower (which used to be known as the Sears Tower, until apparently the Sears corporation started running out of money).

I felt Ok about the Sears Tower though, since I'd seen it before...

The locals in Chicago, however, apparently prefer the John Hancock Tower (merely the sixth tallest building in the US), so I made my over to see it.

Actually I met Cynthia for lunch at the Signature Room on the 95th floor, with its amazing views of the Lake Michigan shorelines - the best part about "crossing the t's and dotting the i's" is that traveling in civilized places like Europe and North America, you get to meet up with lots of friends wherever you go!

Canada's Full of Hippies!

Welcome to Montreal!

After some Greyhound bus-related mis-adventures in Vermont, I finally made it to Montreal. (At about 3 in the morning - Greyhound is not your friend!) What did I know about Montreal prior to arriving? They speak French a lot, and I have friends to visit there - that's about it. The last guidebook I had been traveling with was for Egypt, so I'd become rather open-minded about the places I was getting to these days. So, the following day, having met up with Goose and Sara (at 3 the previous morning), I headed off to explore this new Franco-English speaking land. And the first thing I found along the way? Well, apparently, hippies - proper, frisbee throwing, hacky sack playing, tambourine drumming, weed offering hippies! You'd think you were in San Francisco or Seattle again - I figured I could get along with the people here! No matter which language they spoke...

First stop was the Parque Mont Royal, which, as their website describes, hosts a popular activity called the "Montreal Tam Tam Jam:"

It consists of lots of people drumming away on these hand drums ("tam-tams" in French).

And of others dancing to the rhythms

This was kind of crazy, kind of cool, but it gets better! I headed deeper into the forest (park), in search of Sunday's star attraction - the 'fighting geeks,' as Sara and Goose described them. They aren't hard to find - quite an audience had gathered, so pretty soon I was in a large-ish clearing, watching the following spectacle:




These guys, sadly, do not have a website explaining what it is that they are all about (that I know of - in reality they likely do). But how much of an explanation do we really need? It's a collection of twenty to fifty guys (and girls) who go at each other, utilizing plastic pikes and swords, wrapped in foam! Pretty straightforward, makes for quite a spectacle. While some of it certainly looks like vaguely organized mayhem, quite a few of the participants looked to have a fair bit of actual fencing background - a 'noob' couldn't even touch me, man! On Halloween a couple of years ago, they did apparently get attacked by a crowd of zombies though... I do ever so wish I had been there to witness that battle!

Moving on from the semi-, vaguely-serious to the purely comedic, The Just for Laughs Festival was just finishing up in town that Sunday too. I watched a magician do his act, all in French... still entertaining...

The whole crowd may have been a little high by the time the evening parade rolled around!

As for the rest of Montreal, it's interesting and eclectic - there's a properly French-looking old town, and a nicely preserved old port is on the banks of the river. Montreal used to be Canada's primary Atlantic port as the lakes and rivers connect it all the way to the ocean, but the major ports have moved even further inland along the Great Lakes these days. Apparently, at the turn of the last century, it was also a significant manufacturing and shipping hub - a fact you won't be able to miss while gazing at some of the architecture that highlights the Old Port area:



Then again, they might just all be hippies, so they like having all these grain silos still around!

I mean somebody had to have designed this housing complex, and I'm fairly certain they were high! I liked it a lot though - enough so to pedal all the way out there to get some up-close shots of it

There's also a Biosphere... which, of course, only makes me think of Pauley Shore and the less renowned Baldwin brother (Stephen), who had both stared in the similarly titled movie Bio-Dome

And you can feed raccoons on the street!

As for the friends I was visiting with here in Montreal, they might not be hippies, but they seem to be fitting in pretty well. I got to see just about the entire town thanks to them - from biking past a sprawling amusement park under the Jacques Cartier Bridge to the Cirque du Soleil studios further afield (where Pavel, whom I know going all the way back to Moscow, now works)

Pavel and Olga, at their apartment in the Old City

Goose and Sara, along with Talya and Baby Mireille, after a frisbee game. They apparently needed subs, so I got to play - now looking forward to getting back to Seattle and maybe actually getting some exercise...

On to Toronto, where I was off to hang out with Whelena, Vera, and Tim

Toronto is a bit more serious and buttoned down - I went to see the Provincial Legislature, the CN Tower, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the wineries in the nearby Niagara Valley... joined by hordes of other tourists once again. But Canada's still Canada, so that evening, we were off to see indie rock at a club nearby.

This was Elliot Brood, the opening act. Calexico were the headliners, but everyone seemed to enjoy Elliot Brood better - maybe it's just because they're local and Calexico are Americans, or maybe because they were just better?

Actually, the best part of Toronto was all the all the food and drink we had. I was staying with Tim, with whom I had previously met up traveling in Mendoza, Argentina (wine tasting) and Hong Kong (Chinese food! No, not the tourist crap, good Chinese food). Toronto was sort of a combination of the two - from ethnically diverse including Indian and Chinese Dim Sum, to Cora's for breakfast, to trout and goat cheese mashed potatoes Tim and Whelena had collaborated on (btw, goat cheese + mashed potatoes = really good) to wine tastings along with local cheese in the Niagara Valley... But I'm trying to keep a theme here, so we're focusing on the indie music at this point! I'll have to get back to the Toronto attractions like the CN Tower in another post... Montreal, by the way, does quite well on the culinary front itself, chiming in with poutine - I have now come to accept french fries with gravy, cheese curds, and a variety of additional toppings as a very worthwhile addition to the culinary world from the nation of Canada...

Actually both Montreal and Toronto have some claims to dining fame - Toronto is often described as having the most diverse choice of cuisines available in any city in North America, if not the whole world, while Montreal is said to have the most restaurants per capita. Having witnessed them both, I'm not about to argue with either of these claims!