Weekend 7: Barbecue Bus Adventure

Weekend 7 involved a fair amount of wine.  Many of my weekends here have done so, to be honest.  But this was special because it involved not only drinking but a visit to Napa where most of the Californian vineyards are.

One of the San Francisco partners, relatively new to the firm, very kindly hosted a barbecue at his weekend house in Napa, north of San Francisco, for all associates and their other halves from both the San Francisco and Palo Alto offices.  Two buses were arranged ("coaches" here are people who wear tracksuits), one from each office, to take us up to Napa on a Saturday afternoon.

But first came Friday, which began as a pleasant evening of eating takeaway pizza with a colleague and her family.  Looking back my mistake was perhaps bringing my ipad to show her daughter some more family photos (she'd previously shown an interest) because it was a short jump from family photos to you-tube videos, and from there to loud music and drunken dancing.  By the next morning we were all feeling pretty rough, and one four year old was particularly keen for me to return because I was apparently a personal friend of Taylor Swift.  (I'm not, by the way, in case you were wondering, I just met her once at Justin Bieber's house.)

So by the time I arrived back at the office on Saturday to board the "fun bus", I was not at my most alert.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, neither was the bus driver.  She looked the part, with a mannish looking cap, but in the cut throat world of professional bus driving that is not enough.

The first problem was that loads of people decided to either skip the barbecue or drive themselves, so the coach only had six passengers.  The second problem was that the San Francisco bus had been cancelled through lack of demand, so our bus was rerouted via the City Centre to collect just two additional people.

The bus was late in leaving and took three hours to get from Palo Alto to Napa, arriving at 3.30pm.  The barbecue was at a house on the appropriately named "Money Street", an address which demonstrates the subtlety and modesty for which Americans are famous.  Unfortunately the bus driver passed the house where the barbecue was being held and then tried to turn round in the drive of a house further down the street.  After making a complete circuit of the turning circle in the front garden, she attempted to do a hard right between two concrete posts, forgetting that she was in a bus rather than a Ford Fiesta, and contrived to wedge the bus fast between the two posts.  Because we were kind and the driver was on the verge of tears we resisted the urge to photograph the bus, and walked back to the party, which was lovely - good food, good company, good wine, but sadly brief, because the bus was due to depart at 6.30pm.  So we had had a three hour journey there, a three hour party and now had a further three hour journey to lok forward to.

Meanwhile our driver had been shouted at by the occupants of the house whose drive she was now blocking, and thanks to a tow truck driver managed to extricate her bus from the driveway and turn it back in the right direction.

Our kind host agreed however to letting us take some of the opened but undrunk bottles of wine with us for the coach.  We did not however take account of the fact that our emotional driver, keen for her day from hell to end, was heavy on both gas and brake, resulting in a less than smooth ride.  Although we would have liked to sleep on the bus, we couldn't because we each had to hold these full but open bottles of wine very carefully all the way back to ensure they didn't spill.

So what did I learn this weekend?

(1) Red wine gives you a terrible hangover, but sometimes it is definitely worth it.

(2) Never take more wine than you can drink if the bottles are already open.

(3) Napa is gorgeous and well worth a visit, although better to go for more than three hours.

(4)  If a German lady starts talking about her dirndl, it might sound like dildo, but is actually something completely different.  If you are going to mention what you thought she said, make sure she has had plenty of wine first.

Random Triggers

Not a post about gun control, but about the strange ways my mind responds to certain words in American English.

I have already mentioned that "San José" and "downtown" start me humming Dionne Warwick and Petula Clarke respectively, and that is hardly surprising to anybody who knows me and the way my mind makes connections to random song lyrics.  But there is so much other weird stuff hidden in my sub-conscious that is being released by the words I see and hear in America.

For instance the first time I saw a car labelled "California Highway Patrol" I was immediately taken back to my earliest childhood.  I don't think I ever watched an entire episode of CHiPs, I was about 3, but I do remember the plastic action figures, although I am sure I never had one.  I expect Michael Macari over the road had one, what with his Dad being a famous footballer (back in the days when famous footballers lived in normal 1930s houses in Sale instead of Alderley Edge.)
 

There are several words that take me straight back to Sesame Street: "trash can" because of Oscar the grouch, "mailman" and "neighborhood" (when pronounced in an American accent) because of that ridiculous song "Who are the people in the neighborhood?", and of course uevos rancheros, because Maria made it for Big Bird.  Am I the only person who remembers this kind of stuff and files it away to be triggered by the sound of US English?

Even the names of some of the States themselves, and some US cities trigger weird and random mental pictures.  Some don't of course, California, DC, Florida, New York appear so frequently in popular culture that I had a slightly more nuanced view even before I came.  But some of the others trigger a single association:

Oklahoma - the musical (obviously)

Kansas - Judy Garland in black and white (unlike Oz)

Maine - Stephen King and Jessica Fletcher

Arkansas - Hilary Clinton, and Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell singing "A Little Girl from Little Rock"

Ohio - Glee club

Idaho -narcolepsy 
Dallas - Dallas
Denver - Dynasty
Dakota - Doris Day singing about the Black Hills

(Rereading that list, it is probably the gayest list of US State associations ever.  Thank goodness Stephen King's in there.)  Chicago, perhaps suprisingly, doesn't make me think of Chicago the musical, the mental picture that comes to mind more readily is the car chase at the end of the Blues Brothers.  The weirdest association of all is Tulsa: I don't even know where it is, but I know Gene Pitney was 24 hours away from it.  (Which probably covers a huge area, I wonder if anybody has ever drawn a circle on a map showing all the places that are 24 hours from Tulsa?)

One final observation about the whole "you say tomato but I say tomato" debate (other than the fact that everybody, everywhere, as far as I am aware, pronounces potato to rhyme with an American tomato, even Dan Quayle who famously couldn't spell it.)  You don't necessarily know what is peculiarly British until you say it and an American comments (or misunderstands).  For example, Americans consider "bits and bobs" to be a quaint British expression, only use "diary" to mean a journal (like Adrian Mole) but not a calendar of appointments, only rent cars, never hire them, etc.  I had a pretty good idea of some of the things they said, but I never knew all the things they didn't.  I could be saying all kinds of weird stuff, and they might just be too polite to mention it.

 

Weekend 6: Seattle = California in a coat

I have recently returned from a great weekend in Seattle.  I know I am beginning to sound like Michael McIntyre - every city I visit is my new favourite - but I do like Seattle!  Could be because it is a north west city with a reputation for rain, much like my beloved Manchester?  Possibly, but it was also another city where I felt I could live as well as enjoy a visit.

The climate did have something to do with it.  It didn't actually rain much if at all while I was there, it was in fact glorious sunshine for part of the weekend, but there was a proper damp chill to the air, it felt like a real October for the first time since I have been in the USA.  I actually got to wear a coat, which is very handy when you have loads of stuff in your pockets.  And it is so green - there are trees everywhere, dripping with moisture and smelling fresh.

I stayed in a fabulous B&B called the Gatewood, which was family run and had just four guest bedrooms.  It was a traditional wooden house, built against a hill, with a balcony around the entrance level on the first floor. (Which is to say the first floor above the ground floor, I haven't gone native to that extent just yet).  The inside was warm and comfortable with wooden beams and soft chairs, the bedroom was cool, but with a thick soft duvet.  I slept better in a cooler climate than I have in weeks in California.

On Friday night I wandered out after arrival to find something to eat, and managed to get quite lost.  I felt quite alone and homesick at first, missing the familiarity of California as well as my family back in England.  Eventually however I discovered a supermarket where I could buy a sandwich, and once fed and watered began to feel more positive.  On Saturday I knew I had to finish some slides for a presentation I was giving on Tuesday, so I headed into town to visit our Seattle office.  I decided I would get a bus and a water taxi from West Seattle where the B&B was based, to Downtown (which I am learning to say without even thinking about Petula, although I don't always quite manage it).

Finding the bus was a struggle.  Public transport here is not wonderful.  I got a Caltrain from San Francisco to Palo Alto one evening last week and realised that it is impossible to see the names of the stations in the dark as you pull in, which makes it difficult not to miss your stop.  But that is nothing compared to the lack of information about the bus shuttle connecting to the water taxi.  I walked a couple of miles towards the main road where I was told I would find it, past bus stops that announced the shuttle was free but gave no indication of whether it actually stopped there (it didn't) or when.  Eventually, by asking everybody I could find, I was pointed towards a stop where a shuttle bus was waiting.  The driver was incomprehensible, and pretty rude to some passengers.  I only arrived half way through a confusing conversation, but as far as I could tell he was explaining that some of the passengers had got on to a bus going in the wrong direction and they should have waited on the other side of the road, however there was only one bus (him) and it was a circular route, so the only advantage of waiting on the correct side of the road would have been to wait longer to board exactly the same bus rather than sitting on it while it made a bit of a loop.

So I got chatting to three young people on the bus, and one mentioned that he had stayed in the Lake District for a year.  It turned out that he had been to Capenwray, the Bible school which sent a group of young people to our local church to run a week long mission last year.  It was great to meet somebody with whom I felt such an immediate connection, even though he had not actually been in the group that came to Sale.  I rode with the three of them to the waterside, where the water taxi ticketing system was even more incomprehensible than the bus system, and eventually the four of us made it onto the water taxi.

I should say that a Seattle water taxi is nothing like a Venetian water taxi (the only other place I have ever heard the term used) and is certainly not a gondola (the mind boggles!), if anything it is more like a water bus (vaporetto perhaps) but it most closely resembles a small passenger ferry.  It is public transport run to a timetable, and probably slower than the normal buses that run between West Seattle and Downtown (via a road bridge).  It does however provide an impressive view of the city as you approach from the water, and I would recommend it to anybody visiting Seattle.

Once in Downtown, I decided to walk to the office.  Seattle is built on an approximate grid system, with some very straight streets running up some pretty steep hills, very much like San Francisco.  The comparisons don't stop there, it feels very much like San Francisco too with its liberal attitudes, bohemian feel and young vibe.  However the climate is much more like Manchester, which felt like a plus to me.

I was blessed on this trip by the foresight of a colleague in Seattle, who was looking out for me because she is English even though we had not yet met.  This guardian angel not only found me the B&B, but also sent me a visitor's pass to allow me access to the office at the weekend "just in case", and taxi vouchers meaning I could get around and charge my travel to the firm's account.  She also gave me the wise advice not to pay to go up the Space Needle because the office was higher and had a better view.  As it turned out, the office pass was an absolute boon, because I could not only check out in advance where I would be on Monday, but also had somewhere to finish the work I had to do on Saturday, somewhere on the 70th floor with a fabulous view over the water and across to the hills.

After finishing my slides (and feeling a lot happier about the presentation) I followed a friend's recommendation and went on a tour of the Seattle underground.  This was probably the most amusing, entertaining and informative historical tour I have ever been on.  It turns out that when the oldest part of Seattle burnt down in the nineteenth century, the local council took advantage of the opportunity to raise the level of the streets which were very prone to flooding with raw sewage.  But because they could not agree on who should bear the full cost of this, they raised up the level of the actual roadways by building retaining walls down each side, putting the traffic one storey above the pavement, and forcing local people to cross the road using ladders.  (Who'd have thought that an argument about American government finance would lead to a situation of such total absurdity?).  Eventually they resolved the disagreement and put beams across the gap between the buildings and the retaining wall of the raised up streets to support a new sidewalk, turning the upstairs of the existing buildings into the downstairs, and the ground floor into a basement, and creating a network of tunnels under the pavements.

On Sunday I met some Seattle colleagues for brunch, although by the time we got fed it was more like lunch.  The original choice of restaurant kept us waiting so long we decamped to the Mexican one next door, so it was tortillas for me again, but it didn't matter, it was just good to relax with friends.  After that my guardian angel took me on a tour of the famous Seattle fish market, and then across to the EMP museum by mono-rail to see exhibitions of science fiction icons and popular culture.  I finished the day wandering the park around the EMP museum, watching small children getting soaked by a very entertaining water musical feature, and then visiting a gallery of glass sculptures.

So apart from discovering that I love yet another American city, what else have I learned?

(1) Forks is a real place, about four hours away from Seattle.  I have yet to discover whether Bon Temps also exists.  I am pretty sure that vampires don't actually exist in either place.

(2) Seattle is named after a local Red Indian chief.

(3) The street grid system which is so common over here is in fact two grid systems in Seattle, one at 45º to the other, and this is due to disagreement between two of the city's founding fathers who owned different parts of the land.  I have been wondering why roads are laid out in this grid pattern regardless of the gradient, but I suppose I have been approaching the question all wrong: why would you choose to lay out a city in any other way if you were starting from scratch?

(4) I like to watch small children falling over and being soaked by fountains of cold water.  Does this make me a bad person? 

(5) There is a famously colourful wall in Seattle covered in different pieces of chewing gum.  I didn't however add to it.

(6) American young people can be terribly polite, and on at least two occasions this weekend called me "sir".  I actually quite like this, but I hope it doesn't mean they think I am old.

(7) It is widely known that Americans call jam "jelly" and jelly "jello"', but who'd have imagined the consequences for a popular fictional character?  Over here Roger Hargreaves' Mr Jelly is known as Mr Nervous.

(8) It is possible to write about Seattle without using the word "sleepless", but I've just blown it.

Weekend 5: Asian Babes, barbecue and blocks

So, at the end of the visit to the English pub referred to previously I had a choice: go back to one colleague's house to eat Thai takeout with her and her husband, or to stay "out out" with a couple of the lads from the office.  Like a fool, I chose to go out with the lads.

We jumped into cars and drove at high speed down the freeway to a part of San José known for its nightlife, where one of my colleagues had an apartment.  What rapidly became apparent however was that they were out on the pull, and were targeting Korean girls in particular.  On reflection, I probably should have realised when they took me to the Korean Bar Association dinner.  It was not really my kind of night: the bars were heaving, the music was loud and tuneless, nobody was really dancing other than as a way of get physically close to potential sexual partners, and then I realised that I was one of several older men standing on the edge of the dance floor watching the younger girls dance!  I decided I definitely didn't want to be one of those men.  So I made my excuses and left.  The taxi home wasn't cheap, but my lift showed no signs of being ready to leave (he eventually stayed until 5am) and seemed to be drinking more than perhaps the designated driver should, so I think it was the right move.  

I had previously said I wanted to go out clubbing and dancing for a laugh one weekend, so they probably think I am an ungrateful wretch.  But I guess I wasn't specific enough about the required level of cheesiness.  I've decided I probably need a GBF to take me somewhere where I can conga through the Castro dressed as a nun to seventies disco without expecting any sexual favours in return.  If any of my readers knows such a person please send me his address.

Saturday began with a hangover, naturally, and I didn't do much other than catch up on my ironing until it was time to go to my next social engagement, a barbecue at another colleague's house.  I was expecting this to be a works thing, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was only one of two colleagues at the barbecue, and that most of the guests were real people rather than lawyers.  This was barbecue as we understand it in the UK - food cooked outdoors by men who normally leave the cooking to their wives.  A pleasant evening of sitting in the garden, chatting by the fire, drinking home made sangria.

Sunday began with church, where I got chatting to a very pregnant Zimbabwean lady after the service.  It turned out that she had been intending to move to Boston because her husband's work contract was up and she wanted to stay with her parents there once the baby arrived, whilst he looked for another contract somewhere else in the States.  However the airlines will not allow pregnant mothers to travel during the last few weeks on the pregnancy, so they had started out to Boston with a two year old daughter in a car.  They'd got as far as Los Angeles and decided it was too difficult, turned around and come back.  Another problem with living in a country this big that I had never considered.  Initially I thought that LA seemed the wrong direction, but realised that in fact you can't drive across the northern part of the USA, it is too mountainous, so following the road south and then across Texas is the only way to drive to Boston.  Other church friends were then very surprised to see them.  In the end I went for lunch with them and another couple after the service: both had young toddlers which was fun, we ended up with Thai food all over the table but the children seemed to enjoy themselves.

On Sunday afternoon I had yet another social engagement, this time a block party in a colleague's neighbourhood.  This was a street party like none I had ever been to.  There was a bouncy castle (here they are bouncy houses), a jazz quartet, and great food including a large paella cooked in a giant pan.  

Lots of children playing, and adults chatting, including a Jewish grandmother who wanted to talk about her favourite English actors, and an elderly couple who had lived in Palo Alto since the days when it was all fields.  Well not quite all of it, they lived in a house.  

So by the end of the weekend I was ready for a sit down and a nice cup of tea, and to reflect on what I had learnt.

(1) It is quite difficult to avoid drinking and driving in California.  People live all spreadout from each other and public transport is poor.  Walking to a pub is impractical for most people, friends live some distance apart.  I'm not saying it is OK, but I can see why it happens.  Apparently it is worse in places like LA, because they don't really have many taxis or even sidewalks.

(2) Target are still my favourite shop over here.  They exchanged my broken kettle even though I had no receipt by simply checking the product code and my credit card into their system.  Target is like BHS with good customer service, we should have them in the UK too.

(3) Korean women don't do it for me.  No offence ladies, but there's only one girl for me and as at the time of writing her visit is only two weeks away!

Peaches, Pizza and Pub

My fifth week in California began to feel like I was in a routine of work and TV.  I have discovered that the secret to TV here is to regularly review the schedules, identify programmes I recognise or might like and then set them to series record.  As a result I have a huge back catalogue of Big Bang Theory episodes to watch, along with hidden treasures like Hetty Wainthrop and series 1 of Scott and Bailey, and I can whizz through the adverts.

Wednesday was Italian speakers' group as normal, but this time we went out for pizza.  It was pretty strange being in a pizzeria, talking Italian to the rest of the table but with English speaking waiters, it was completely the wrong way round.  Wonderful though to be able to use the language I love and to feel less foreign - when everybody speaks Italian my Englishness blends in!  The food however was not entirely traditional Italian fare, I had a bacon and peach flavoured pizza.

On Thursday I got to have lunch with real clients!  So I was in a pretty good mood when Friday came and I was taken out for a Happy Hour, which over here means a work trip to the pub, whether or not you are happy and usually for considerably longer than an hour.  I managed to avoid getting the Housemartins in my head.

We started in Palo Alto's English pub, the Rose and Crown.  I was expecting a grotesque pastiche, but it was actually quite a pleasant pub.  Dark wood inside and loads of tat on the walls, but that only added to the air of authenticity.  They served draft Dry Blackthorne (in smaller US pints) and passable bangers and mash.  I met a random Portugeuse man who beat me at darts (mainly because I kept missing the board).

I am not sure I have learnt much this week, in fact I still have many unanswered questions about the USA:

(1) Why do they not use Chip and Pin technology here?  Instead I am frequently asked to sign some sort of digital pad with my finger when using a credit card.  I can't imagine a scrawl produce by my fat digits will prove anything if there is a credit card fraud investigation.  And why do they always want you to enter your zip code at the pump when buying "gas" (which is not gaseous, even at Californian temperatures: if your gas isn't liquid you're probably dead). It just inconveniences anyone whose credit card is registered to a foreign address, although I guess inconveniencing foreigners has been official US policy since before Woodrow Wilson.

(2) Why do they keep trailing new late night comedy chat shows seemingly weeks in advance on TV, by showing the new "star" being totally unfunny?  For instance there's a guy called Pete Holmes who claims (in his trailer) to love adjectives but mixes them up with adverbs.  Why is that even slightly funny?  And why do they think it will make me want to watch his new show?  He might be hysterical, but if that's the best he can do, I doubt it some how.  You might well say that humour is different over here, and that may be true, but there is plenty of US comedy that I do get.  There's another trailer that claims to have "the entire cast of Breaking Bad together for the first time on one late night talk show" - but surely they've been on TV together before?  On Breaking Bad for instance?

(3) Why do they advertise prescription drugs on TV?  Do they really think people will go to their GP and say "Hey doc, this bloke on TV described all my symptoms, seemed like a reasonable and objective kind of guy, can you prescribe me the particular drug he's pushing?"  Particularly when you consider that the advert is given over in large part to setting out the risks and side-effects at such great length that I would be terrified to take the drug even if it came with glowing personal endorsements from Emma Willert, John Vincent and every single one of the other 19 doctors I know personally because I go to a church in a middle-class area?  For example, see this advert for a male hormone replacement product - do they really think that the beautiful scenery and his lovely sports car will distract us from the dire warning that his medicine might give his teenage daughter chest hair? 

(4) Whose crazy idea was peach and bacon pizza?  Who'd have thought it would be so delicious?

(5) And what on earth is going on with Congress?  How can they let the government shut down, stop paying people's wages, stop funding vital services (and close National Parks that foreigners want to vist, although that is more understandable given the standing policy referred to above)?  I struggle to understand many US politicians at the best of times (right wing nutters mainly) but right now I don't understand any of it.  I can't think of anything funny to say, the US Congress is a joke.