I slept through my alarm this morning and only awoke fifteen minutes before the departure time. There was little to do but curse the fates, cancel my ticket, and bang my head against the wall. My two-night Minneapolis stay has become four nights.
I eventually finessed a solution; to take a train at 11pm tonight to Staples, Minnesota, hang around for three hours amongst the simple country folk from 1am-4am, then catch another back through this city and on to Chicago. Saves me another night in this hostel, and guarantees I'm on the train.
Today I'm spending more time in the museum and go to see a film later, for the first time outside New Zealand. Strange considering that I staying in West Hollywood for a week and in Toronto while the film festival was on.
I'm eating too much processed, sugary food and it's wiping me out. I get sleepy a lot during the day and I feel a bit like I'm floating above it all. I'm going to try to ramp up the salads and protein, and dial back on candy bars.
Sunday, 6 April 2008
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Go Twins
Finding myself with an extra day in Minneapolis, I planned to mop up all the stuff I was going to do in other places. I went to the art gallery a block from the hostel this morning, which had a great display of Frank Lloyd Wright furniture and architecture, including half a room from a Wright-designed house which had been damaged and so farmed out to collectors. There was also a good range of paintings from 1750 through to 1930, with a clear progression of all the major styles and artists.
After a hour and a half there, I went downtown to see a baseball game, which is where I am now. Games go for about three hours, of which time the ball is 'live' for about ten minutes in total. The local team the Minnesota Twins were playing the LA/Anaheim Angels, but it was fairly low-key as they are still in pre-season and the result doesn't count.
I was worried they were being a little too casual when during the first two innings (45 minutes or so) neither team even got a man as far as first base. When the teams played yesterday, the Angels won 1-0. But in the third the visitors ran in three runs and it started getting interesting.
It's the bottom of the ninth and there's two out. The Twins are down 4-5. There' a man on first and they walk power hitter Mauer. The pitcher keeps his eye on the man on second. He fakes and throws to second. And again before the next pitch. He pitches low and inside; two balls and a strike. The fourth is a foul ball, a fly that pops up into the fifteenth row. The organist is having a field day and the sugar-addled kids are screaming chants that have become unrecognizable. Another ball, pushing the batter back from the plate. Three balls and two strikes: it's a full count. Then the batter swings wildly at a ground ball and kills the game. Twins lose.
After a hour and a half there, I went downtown to see a baseball game, which is where I am now. Games go for about three hours, of which time the ball is 'live' for about ten minutes in total. The local team the Minnesota Twins were playing the LA/Anaheim Angels, but it was fairly low-key as they are still in pre-season and the result doesn't count.
I was worried they were being a little too casual when during the first two innings (45 minutes or so) neither team even got a man as far as first base. When the teams played yesterday, the Angels won 1-0. But in the third the visitors ran in three runs and it started getting interesting.
It's the bottom of the ninth and there's two out. The Twins are down 4-5. There' a man on first and they walk power hitter Mauer. The pitcher keeps his eye on the man on second. He fakes and throws to second. And again before the next pitch. He pitches low and inside; two balls and a strike. The fourth is a foul ball, a fly that pops up into the fifteenth row. The organist is having a field day and the sugar-addled kids are screaming chants that have become unrecognizable. Another ball, pushing the batter back from the plate. Three balls and two strikes: it's a full count. Then the batter swings wildly at a ground ball and kills the game. Twins lose.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Hey look, a Starbucks. Opposite another Starbucks.
I went to the biggest mall in the world today; the Mall of America. Like all malls, it reduced the exchange of goods and services to a homogenised and asinine experience, the blandest of blandishments. Apart from having several small rollercoasters tightly packed into a central warehouse area, it felt like every other mall in the world.
Walking away from the roller derby I was grabbed by an Israeli girl with huge boobs who rubbed sea salt on my hands for a few minutes, as was her custom. I didn't buy anything, but did have to spend some time washing Middle Eastern products off. I felt clean and dirty at the same time.
I was looking for some weaponry to defend myself against the citizenry. I found some mace at the As Seen On TV store, the cultural symmetry of which pleased me on a very deep level.
I noticed, with some chagrin, a swimsuit store called Kiwi Beach. The apparel on offer looked like it had been designed and fabricated in Iowa, by cautious Iowese ladies.
In other levels of contradiction, I bought candy and vitamins at the Dollar Store. I visited the Lake Woebegone Store up on the third level and purchased a duct tape wallet for $5. I grabbed a Big Gulp on the way out the door, and four hours after I entered, I took the train back downtown.
I spent the afternoon shuttling around the city, eventually ending up with my Amtrak pass. I can't get a ticket to Chicago tomorrow, so I'll dig a little deeper in these Twin Cities and see what I can fill the day with.
Walking away from the roller derby I was grabbed by an Israeli girl with huge boobs who rubbed sea salt on my hands for a few minutes, as was her custom. I didn't buy anything, but did have to spend some time washing Middle Eastern products off. I felt clean and dirty at the same time.
I was looking for some weaponry to defend myself against the citizenry. I found some mace at the As Seen On TV store, the cultural symmetry of which pleased me on a very deep level.
I noticed, with some chagrin, a swimsuit store called Kiwi Beach. The apparel on offer looked like it had been designed and fabricated in Iowa, by cautious Iowese ladies.
In other levels of contradiction, I bought candy and vitamins at the Dollar Store. I visited the Lake Woebegone Store up on the third level and purchased a duct tape wallet for $5. I grabbed a Big Gulp on the way out the door, and four hours after I entered, I took the train back downtown.
I spent the afternoon shuttling around the city, eventually ending up with my Amtrak pass. I can't get a ticket to Chicago tomorrow, so I'll dig a little deeper in these Twin Cities and see what I can fill the day with.
Welcome to America. You damn foreigner.
01apr
------
This morning I braved the staunchly-guarded border of Manitoba and North Dakota. After being told the temporary US visa (which exists in addition to my 10-year US visa) had expired, I was asked to renew it, pay $6, and that I should have turned it in to an embassy before it expired. Were I to neglect this duty again, "bad things will happen", I was told more than once.
Time taken:
Bus in order queue: 15min
In first line: 5min
In second line: 15min
Being scolded and charged: 10min
Waiting for bus member to be thoroughly searched in special holding room: 60min
Return to Canadian territory to stamp bus member's passport: 15min
Backtracking up the highway to loop around to border again: 10min
Rubber stamping: 5min
(Time since last eating: 6 hours)
Suddenly, food is half the price, and the second language is Spanish, not French. The black people came from Africa generations, not years, ago. People are fatter south of th border, and their forthright words bear no lingering residue of apology.
------
This morning I braved the staunchly-guarded border of Manitoba and North Dakota. After being told the temporary US visa (which exists in addition to my 10-year US visa) had expired, I was asked to renew it, pay $6, and that I should have turned it in to an embassy before it expired. Were I to neglect this duty again, "bad things will happen", I was told more than once.
Time taken:
Bus in order queue: 15min
In first line: 5min
In second line: 15min
Being scolded and charged: 10min
Waiting for bus member to be thoroughly searched in special holding room: 60min
Return to Canadian territory to stamp bus member's passport: 15min
Backtracking up the highway to loop around to border again: 10min
Rubber stamping: 5min
(Time since last eating: 6 hours)
Suddenly, food is half the price, and the second language is Spanish, not French. The black people came from Africa generations, not years, ago. People are fatter south of th border, and their forthright words bear no lingering residue of apology.
36 hours on a bus
31mar08
-----
The plains roll on and on. Travelling east from Calgary the gently rolling fields, bleached pale with cold, have changed in appearance once; earlier they were covered in snow, but now the grasses are a dry and blasted yellow.
We have passed through Alberta to Saskatchewan, though it was difficult to know when, as the province border was unmarked. I shift constantly in my stiff, upright seat and wedge empty drink containers into upholstered crevices.
It is as if the stumpy farmland of Morrinsville were plucked of trees, scorched by drought, and stretched for a thousand kilometres. It is punctuated occasionally with dusty towns, disappointing oases with bunker-style sheds and grimy, deathless filling stations.
Snow huddles in clumps, populating troughs of tundra. Melted but unevaporated water pools in low ground. It is covered in ice and in dust, and not even the wind will touch it.
One highway heads east, another west, and between the road and railway tracks run power poles barely three metres tall.
My busmates are similarly spent. Opposite me is a welder with too few teeth who found himself engaged, and tells me fabrications of high-school sporting glory. Behind is a tattooed teen who emanates body odour and deodorant in waves. He is opposite an ancient man with a disbelieving death-gaze, and a boy working on a training mustache. His girfriend has almost translucent skin and arms so thin you could wrap them in your thumb and forefinger.
-----
The plains roll on and on. Travelling east from Calgary the gently rolling fields, bleached pale with cold, have changed in appearance once; earlier they were covered in snow, but now the grasses are a dry and blasted yellow.
We have passed through Alberta to Saskatchewan, though it was difficult to know when, as the province border was unmarked. I shift constantly in my stiff, upright seat and wedge empty drink containers into upholstered crevices.
It is as if the stumpy farmland of Morrinsville were plucked of trees, scorched by drought, and stretched for a thousand kilometres. It is punctuated occasionally with dusty towns, disappointing oases with bunker-style sheds and grimy, deathless filling stations.
Snow huddles in clumps, populating troughs of tundra. Melted but unevaporated water pools in low ground. It is covered in ice and in dust, and not even the wind will touch it.
One highway heads east, another west, and between the road and railway tracks run power poles barely three metres tall.
My busmates are similarly spent. Opposite me is a welder with too few teeth who found himself engaged, and tells me fabrications of high-school sporting glory. Behind is a tattooed teen who emanates body odour and deodorant in waves. He is opposite an ancient man with a disbelieving death-gaze, and a boy working on a training mustache. His girfriend has almost translucent skin and arms so thin you could wrap them in your thumb and forefinger.
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