Well, it's now the second un-jetlagged day of my trip to the Pacific North-West - something I never got around to announcing at "Ideas From the North". Oh well - here I am now, and ready to blog away.
Only, I'm not exactly sure what to say. I don't think I've ever blogged from another country before, and have always had trouble knowing what to write when I return. Hence, I think, the one fairly uninformative post I wrote after getting back from China this time last year, despite promising more. The floods of tear-filled complaints I received from all my readers were quite chastening and I swore to give you more on this trip, but travel fills your mind with so many complex and wordless impressions that it can be very difficult to distill them into a post on a blog.
I could talk, I suppose, about how travelling by myself for the first time in my life has been a challenge. I could talk about the highs (heading as far as I could from the beaten track of Bainbridge Island, and finding the magnificent, unspoilt part of the waterfront before they threaten to develop it; the incredible beauty of Northern Washington viewed from the Amtrak coach), the lows (being quietly told off for forgetting to tip in a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver's Chinatown - my first meal in the country); the quirky moments (seeing a man talking to his parrot Venus at the rummage table of Pike Place Markets - "That's what I think too, Venus. Just what I was about to say myself"). I could also talk about the cultural differences, the similarities, the ideas it all gives me about culture, and inclusion and exclusion...
But that would be too much to talk about here, and I haven't had enough time to think it through. I'll do my best to say more as it comes to me, but for now I think I'll just say that, highs, lows and quirks all considered, I'm happy to be here.
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