Getting Sort-Of Up-To-Date In A Nutshell. A Large One. Like A Coconut's.

Well, I had written a massive piece summarising all the post-Cancun happenings, but my BlackBerry crashed and I lost it all. Scumbag phone. So I'll try again. Even briefer this time though. Here goes. So I arrived into Seattle airport around 10pm and was dreading my exchange with both immigration and customs, given all my possessions were being carried in a single Tesco bag, both tatty and stretched to breaking-point. But I put on a brave face and excentuated my British accent and they actually didn't bother me. Which made me think if I ever were to run drugs, that'd be the best way to do it. I could have had a plastic bag full of the hottest crack, smack and triple sub, yet they were satisfied with the "I was robbed in Mexico" line. Anyway, this isn't brief at all. Try harder! So had two fun days in Seattle - possibly the friendliest city anywhere - buying a new bag, underwear, a couple of T-shirts and, most essentially, fridge magnets and postcards. It's a city where the bus drivers heartily thank you as you get off, wishing you a great weekend and expressing their hopes of seeing you again. And this wasn't just one wacko driver, this was about five over the course of two days. I had to head up to Vancouver on Saturday because there wasn't a bed seemingly anywhere in the city that night. Caught a Greyhound for $30 and had to queue behind a horrendously obese man for whom the physical exertion of just standing was causing him to drip more sweat than a factory-full of children making Reeboks in south-east Asia. Arriving in Vancouver, I did some Google-mapping on my phone to find the easiest route to my hostel. Unbeknownst to me, my selected route took me through possibly the biggest collection of homeless people I've ever seen. Walking down Hastings Street is like Night of the Living Homeless, a-la South Park. Change, spare some change, CHANGE! But they all seemed unthreatening enough, so I wasn't worried. They also smoke so much pot in Vancouver, it's pretty much the default smell everywhere, so when you hit a pocket of fresh air it's a bit odd. I met a group of three very cool college Spring-Breakers from Oregon State University, and ended up hanging out with them throughout my stay, mostly drinking, yet still finding time to point at the weird products on sale at the Chinatown supermarket - predominantly the live crabs, lobsters and fish, grimacing especially at the still-beating-heart of a freshly chopped-up salmon. Walking around in the rain for hours searching for a club on, as it turned out both of our last nights, we found ourselves inside Roxy, a bit of a dive, but actually pumping out some good rocking music, with a live band playing covers very competently throughout the evening. Oh, and this was after I did four minutes of open-mike-edness at the Kingston on Richards Street, which didn't go too badly! Laura, Nick and AK gave me a ride back to Seattle which is where I am now, in my room with just over 24 hours before my flight to San Francisco I managed to bag for $58. I'm going to spend one night there, then it's that long flight back home on thursday evening. So that's about it really. This wasn't a brief summary at all. Sorry. By the way, because my train tickets were nicked in Mexico, I had to buy a new one for London to Norwich on Friday... Trouble is the only affordable one was at 22:30, yet my flight arrives at 14:30. So I have some hours to kill if anyone is around!