a hui hou kakou

2005.09.29 12:09
Leaving Hawai'i again. Going back to Iceland. I don't know why. I go to learn Icelandic, I go to work all day. I want to work all day. Fall asleep and have no time for anything else.

O'ahu. My friend Devaki lives in an old residential area tucked between Manoa and Waikiki. It is so close to the university but I didn't know the neighborhood existed before. This is despite living the better part of a year in Honolulu when I began at university. It is also close to "Down to Earth" a health food store I liked while living here but couldn't really afford at the time. This again reminds me that Reykjavik doesn't have any real health food stores. It's one of those odd things. There is sort of one in a mall. But it is a bit to cute and trendy to be a health food store.

2005.10.02 14:46

The big city. Honolulu is Hawai'i and it isn't. A modern city made for cars. At least the bus system is very good. Hawai'i as a whole does pretty good as far as public transportation. The Big Island for example doesn't have a wonderful network, but for a rural place it isn't bad. Furthermore as of October 1st the buses there are free. Honolulu has a very good bus system. Unfortunately it is without a subway. That would be nice. There is a proposed light rail, however it will not be in place for several years if ever. Honolulu is an honest city. There are suburbs on O'ahu, but even these pale beside the epitome of suburbs that is California. For as long as I can remember I have found comfort in both cities and country, but in extreme suburbs I cannot find peace. All suburbs aren't the same of course. There is an infinite grading between extremes. California is always for me a picture of what suburbs are at their core. Urban masking as rural, pointless complexity, the need for cars, the strip malls and sprinklers, the attempt to create English parkland no matter the climate, desert or rainforest, or anything else. California has some wonderful places. San Francisco and the urban Bay Area might as well be another state all together. It is an honest city, with real public transportation, real parks, real living areas that don't pretend badly to be in temperate mixed grass and forestland. When I was last in San Francisco it was two years ago. I was first going to Iceland. Now I am only in the suburbs of California. Honolulu I hadn't really walked around in for several years. It was very nice to spend some time there again. Take a look at the university where I spend two semesters. It is strange I was there so long. It is the university I know the least. Somehow when I lived on O'ahu I wasn't there. I barely explored beyond the university. This time travelling I seem to meet more of my friend's friends. Watching movies until late near University and King, late night ice cream runs and walking around the city with Devaki and her friend Bobbie. One night we were walking over one of the major highways and there was a moped pulling a skateboarder along at reckless speeds. It is these sorts of sights that are something different. Do they make a city more real or less so. Who can answer that. I met one of the Marks from Honoka’a for the first time since high school graduation. I met my cousin Hugh for the first time since I was four or so. Aunt Jan said our Mexican ancestors were probably there for some time. So perhaps we are part Indian. It is peculiar how these things change. A couple generations ago the leading culture had it that being pure European was the ideal. Now it is more interesting to have exotic forebears. Honolulu is less Hawai'i. Riding the bus is like everywhere else. Ride the bus on the Big Island and it goes through all the little towns. The drivers are having a good time and people are speaking in pidgin. Well not less Hawai'i. I don't speak pidgin at least not properly.

2005.10.03 16:44
I like to visit with my Grandpa. Even if California is weird in a bad way. Perhaps the most troubling is the socio-economic structure of the state. It is geared towards the erosion of healthy middle classes, and un-sustainability. Innumerable suburbs spread across a dry landscape. They are navigated by SUV, watered from far off mountains, cleaned and gardened by cheap foreign labour. It seems to be the American ideal seen through a horror mirror. Smog filled, millions trapped in roundabouts, trapped in Hum-vees, trapped by concrete rivers snaking every direction imaginable. All rely on the serfs from Mexico. Did the Californians of the 1960's water their own lawns I wonder?

I always see California with a bit of horror. However, it also fuels a great deal of environmentalism in the United States. It makes cars operate more cleanly, makes sure organic is organic, is a place filled with vegetarians. Even so it is weird, weird, weird to me.

Visiting friends and family will always be a pleasure even in California. Grandpa and Joyce are the same as ever. Something that is always part of visiting Grandpa in San Jose is going to a flea market. We didn't get to riding bikes around this time though. I remember in childhood riding around and around his block at eight in the evening, the sun still up. How amazing it was to have daylight so late! Joyce’s granddaughter Stacy is now ten, which seems amazingly old.

I said farewell to Grandpa when my friend Lisa came up from Santa Cruz. We went to go watch some local bands. Lisa is a singer and of course they invite her up to play a few while I am in another room talking with some people. I even met some guy who was half Icelandic.

Amtrak isn’t half bad. It isn't a European train, but it is nice. It's empty, smooth, and the food is pretty good. Which is a good thing since it barely stops along the way and there isn't much of a chance to refuel. Beyond the coast, the west of North America looks very empty along these train tracks.

2005.10.04 08:49
Snow. Lots of snow. That is going to be my personal future for a while. Going towards winter. No more one layer with some slippers outside. Fur hat, socks every day.

Amtrak goes a whole lot slower than trains in Europe. The rails are linked, so no clackity clackity clack. Smooth but slow. No electrified tracks, just diesel. There is a dedicated lounge car though. This is an improvement on Europe. Plus the food.

On this trip I finally bought what I'd been meaning to but for a few years, one of those inflatable neck pillows, it really was rather nice to have, unfortunately it developed a leak after a couple hours and so now I've got no more neck pillow. Well, that is what you get for $5 at Walmart I suppose.

2005.10.05 06:39
Friends are such a wonderful thing to have. In the last 12 hours I got to see two friends that I hadn't seen since South Africa. Brandy met me in Denver and we got to hang out for all of forty minutes! She drove me to a grocery store. We realized I had to get back to the train so we left before buying anything and I had to run to catch the train. Brandy wants to sell her coffee bar and start travelling again. In Omaha Kate was waiting for the train that was forty minutes late. I only got to see her for about 5-10 minutes. She is working with monkeys now, which is nicer but doesn't pay as much as working with blood. Saying goodbye to Kate I had to find a conductor to let me back on the train as the doors had closed. Friends are so bloody wonderful ain't they?

On the food side of things the train has run out of gardenburgers. Largely because that is all I was eating. Seems they would have more than that but maybe they aren't a popular item. I think eating when you are hungry is a nice thing to do. Plus I am not a student right now so I should stop living like one!

The train toilets here in the U.S. are relatively large compared to Europe. The water doesn't say many times that it isn't potable, and it appears that the raw sewage isn't emptied onto the tracks! This in a place much more sparsely peopled than Europe. Sometimes I feel I have become too much of a europhile, but there are things that the U.S. definitely does better. One seems to be the train bathroom.

2005.10.06 08:40
The train from Chicago to New York feels more like European trains. There isn't a lounge car and it moves quite a bit faster than the western train.

Chicago is great. It is like New York in a lot of ways. The people are rushing around blindly, so packed and lively. It is amazing and I feel like a country bumpkin. In Chicago Tinna and Oli picked me up and we had dinner and coffee. It was a perfect opportunity to practice Icelandic but of course it is easier to speak in English. Argh! At some point the Icelandic has to be spoken, regardless of bad grammar.

12:23

Wyoming looked pretty poor. The cars were all old as an old lady pointed out. In the west most of the train denizens were old. Here in the east it is a much more normal distribution. Families and middle aged and young. There are so many more people in the east, more trees too.

Something that is very American are water towers, thousands of little towns proclaiming proudly their names on water towers. Sometimes you can see several water towers in one view. These last hours in upstate New York I haven't seen a single one. A lot of forest here though, still green, but with golds, yellows, and reds, of autumn. It seems on this rail trip I keep talking to P's. Pat, Peggy and Pete.

2005.10.08 21:44
My final visit on this meandering way across the states was visiting my friend Stan in New Jersey. The food is nice there. It is like New York. Cheesy goodness. Then today walking around New York city in the rain. My shoes are wet now, wet and cold. Chicago really isn’t New York after all, nothing is New York. Oy vey! I had more cheesy food, and fudge. I don’t think I’ve had fudge since visiting Kate two years ago on the way to Iceland. That fudge was without compare.

Finally I've left. I'm on a plane. Going to Iceland. It is really very scary. It is easier in a way to keep going to new places, getting to know them a little bit and then living somewhere else. Now I will learn Icelandic, now I will work. Iceland is a good place. I've got a couple good friends there who helped me get back there quicker than I would have. Ian and Eddie are good folks. I’ll be living in a backpackers while I find a real apartment. It is good to decide on a home. But scary, scary, scary, and lonely. Tomorrow I start work! I am happy to be home.

Appendix I: Travel Timetable

United States-Hilo(ITO)-Honolulu(HNL)-San Jose(SJC)-Santa Cruz-San Jose-Emeryville-Denver-Omaha-Chicago--New York-Edison-New York(JFK) Sunday September 25th 10:44-11:30 (Aloha Air 247, $79) H, Thursday September 29th 13:25-21:30 (Hawaiian Air HA 44, $107.70) S, Saturday October 1st (Car) S, Monday October 3rd 05:25-06:22 (Bus 6922, Amtrak total= $150.20 confirmation 144188) S, 07:15-09:00 (Bus 6106) E, 09:15-18:58 (Amtrak California Zephyr 6) D, Tuesday October 4th 19:25-05:29 (Amtrak California Zephyr 6) O, Wednedsay October 5th 05:44-15:25 (Amtrak California Zephyr 6) C, 19:55-15:25 (Amtrak Lakeshore Limited 48) N, Thursday October 6th 15:56-16:52 (Trenton Train, $9) E, Saturday October 8th 14:40-15:38 (Penn. Sta. Train, $9) N, 15:45-16:36 (Subway A, $2, Long Term Parking Lot Bus, yellow white blue) J, 20:50-06:20 (Icelandair FI 614) K,

Iceland-Keflavik(KEF)-Reykjavik Sunday October 9th (Flybus)

Appendix II: Exchange Rates (2005.10.01) Code USD/1 Unit Units/1 USD Currency EUR 1.20220 0.83200 Euro GBP 1.76410 0.56700 British Pound ISK 0.01638 61.12000 Iceland Krona

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