Posted 14:52 by Rich
Thursday
Headed into town for some shopping. Bought a Swiss Tool on special near Pike St Market. Then caught the bus up to Broadway and picked yet another Cowboy Junkies CD and had a coffee at Seattle's Best Coffee. Then i walked down to REI's flagship store, which features a climbing wall and mountain bike track. Picked up some socks and gloves for biking in the winter. Then I headed down to Seattle Center. I was going to do the Space Needle but the price and queues put me off. I tried to find the statue of Chief Seattle but no-one seemed to know where on earth it was. Eventually got there. Bused home, packed and started the journey home to Wellington.

It took 24 hours to get back to Wellington. I was met by Ma and Pa. My bags continued on to Christchurch and have yet to turn up. So the trip is finished and so is this story.

THE END

Posted 18:22 by Rich
Wednesday
Had nearly the perfect day. We headed southeast to Mt Rainier National Park. It was very pleasant drive on the Mather Parkway and up to Sunrise - a visitor center at 6,400 feet on the slopes of the volcano. Didn't stay there long as we had a long day ahead. The views there are amazing - it reminded me of Switzerland - combinations of snow-covered mountain tops, trees, meadows and roads. Back down the road and around the mountain to Paradise, less parking, more cars and paved trails. We had our picnic and I headed up for a view of some falls. Saw a deer on the way down. It was time to head home so we started out. Further down the mountain we stopped to look at a waterfall. I was nearly killed by a deer leaping across the trail in front of me.

We drove back through the crazy traffic of Seattle and headed for Woodland Zoo. We saw David Wilcox and Suzanne Vega in concert in a park - a large version of the free concerts in the Wellington botanic gardens, but bigger names and even bigger ticket prices. I saw a bald eagle fly overhead while I lay on our blanket looking skyward.

Tuesday
Spent most of the morning hanging at home with Brynnen and Ezra. Then I caught the bus down to the Pike Street market. Looked around this locale of tourism central and headed for some late lunch at a turkish place. I sat overlooking the waterfront and facing the mountains. I then crossed the street to the very first Starbucks. It was crowded and there was nowhere to sit so went a few doors down for a milkshake.

Posted 15:05 by Rich
I had my first full day sightseeing in Seattle today. Started with a walk down through the International District to Elliott Bay Books. Fantastic place. I managed to escape with buying only one book. Then headed through the pioneer to have lunch in a random café near the waterfront. I went on n Argosy Cruise through the locks to Union Lake. Past the floating house that features in Sleepless in Seattle.

After the cruise I walked to Seattle Center and the Experience Music Center, founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. It is over rated. It is not a history of rock and roll since it ignores the British contribution. It also ignores rockabilly ans country and modern house and trance. I'm not really sure what's going on. There are some neat interactive displays though. Afterwards I caught the monorail into the downtown area and headed back home for dinner. It was a combined community meal but we choose to eat at home. After dinner I went out to see Legally Blonde 2 - bad movie but one can't fail to like Elle Woods, the main character. walked around the downtown area past the market and the very first Starbucks. Will head back there in daylight hours. There seem to be lots of homeless people in Seattle asking for money. Many more than I've seen elsewhere.

Sunday we went to Quaker worship and then in the afternoon headed up to Volunteer park for a walk around. Great views of the area from the water tower there. Also walked on Broadway which has lots of cafés, bookshops and clothes shops. That evening I met up with laura (who I met in Philadelphia) and went for the drink down by Lake Washington near Madison Park.

Posted 10:51 by Rich
I made it to Seattle this afternoon.

Last night after cleaning and packing all day I checked into the hotel for my final night in Dayton. Natalia and I went out for a beer and meal. After that we said goodbye in the lobby. It was a bit sad for both of us - knowing that we were the last fellows we'd see for some time.

Got to the airport ok this morning but nearlt got in trouble for having my Swiss army knife in my carry-on luggage. But I remebered in time and and was able to put into my checked bags. But when I got to Chicago I realised that I'd lost my debit card!! I called the bank immediately and cancelled it. They will send a replacement to NZ. Luckily I have a travellers cheque and some cash and another credit card.

The view coming in to land in Seattle was amazing - this is a really beautiful place! Lots of snow on the mountains and water everywhere. The sun is shining too.

My friend Jonathan was here to meet me and I met his son Ezra (8 months old). They have a nice house in a co-housing unit with lots of others. Out the window is the headquarters of Amazon.com.

Posted 05:49 by Rich
The farewells continue. Had lunch with Anne and Juilet at Hooters.

Posted 04:52 by Rich
Into my last week here at the Kettering Foundation. Dropped Catalina at the airport this morning. Mpho also gone. Working hard packing and writing papers while I have a chance.

Posted 02:45 by Rich
Had my final weekend in Dayton. Friday night I went to the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Airforce Base with Catalina and Natalia for a blimp meet. This was part of the Inventing Flight celebration here in Dayton. It was supposed to the largest gathering of blimps in the world since World War Two. I counted three and I'm sure I didn't miss any. We tired of this rather quickly so we drove to Cincinnati to see Whale Rider. It was more powerful the second time around. it made me think that the same man cannot see the same movie twice - because he changes between viewings.

Saturday night we had a farewell/welcome party. Three new fellows have arrived (from Nigeria, Romania and South Africa) and we four are leaving. A few drinks and some music and shared food. My downstairs neighbour called the cops. He was too shy to come up and tell us to quiet down. He was also too shy to come to the door when the cop arrived. It was 9pm.

Posted 11:44 by Rich
Workshop Week

Went straight ito workshop week when I got back from Boston. It was great to meet Marianne from Wellington, NZ. She brought me some goodies - yeah!! The next batch of Fellows arrived too and I know Gheorghe from Romania from three years ago in Washington. My workshop was on reporting out from deliberative forums.

Independence Day Weekend

On the 3rd of July 100,000 people visited downtown Dayton and saw the fireworks from the bridge. It was very impressive. They managed to do star and stripes fireworks.

My First 4th of July Experience. Spent a lot of time in bed but managed to get out to a catered dinner at Maxine's place by the lake in Jamestown. Had a little cruise on the small lake just before a thunderstorm drove everyone inside and washed out the fireworks.

Pittsburgh

Catalina and I visited Pittsburgh. We rented a car and left early Saturday morning. It was about a 5 hour drive and we headed straight for the Warhol museum. This is the largest museum in the world devoted to a single artist. We started with lunch in the café and then headed to the top floor to start our tour. I bought a book on the religious art of Warhol.

We drove around and were generally impressed by the architecture and liveliness of the streets. We went to Station Square and had a drink at a bar overlooking the rivers. We decided on a sightseeing cruise on a steamer. It was dusk and the lighting on the river was great. Afterwards we headed up one the inclines on the steep hill behind station square. The view was great. There are no hills in Ohio so it was a change to have a view.

Finding the hotel was a nightmare and we went around in circles. We had never seen so many roadsigns on one post. Next day we tried to find somewhere for brunch but got on the wrong road again and started heading in the wrong direction. Eventually we ended up in a small town at a country café. Very American. Our mission for the day was to visit two Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses, Falling Water and Kentuck Knob.

With inadequate maps and time running out we eventually joined the queue at the gates of Falling Water and were soon on the tour. The house is very impressive and blends well into the landscape - as Wright intended. The house is great to visit but I wanted to know more and if we'd had the time the intensive tour would have better - especially for Catalina who was desperate to take photos inside (which we, on the standard tour were not permitted to do). We took loads of photos on Catalina's digital camera. Then we left quickly for the next house.

Kentuck Knob was 7 miles away so whipped up there. A much less visited site it is quite different being on top of a hill. This house was one of the hundreds of commissions Wright had after the success of Falling Water. The drive home to Dayton was long. We found a wonderful little diner in the hills of the panhandle of West and sat in the warm country air eating our grub. The drive was pretty but slow until we hit the freeway and then it was the heaviest rain I've ever seen making driving slow.

Posted 11:40 by Rich

Boston To Princeton

Saturday (21 June)
Flew to Boston. I arrived later than expected since I had to go via New York due to a lost connection. I caught the boat from Boston airport into the city. A pleasant way to get in but not a fast or cheap as the train or bus. I walked through the city to the Boston Common to start a full day sightseeing. I walked the Freedom Trail though central Boston. The trail has navigate around the Big Dig the biggest roadworks project ever in the USA. The trail was a fine walk, following a red line on the road and sidewalk from Boston Common to Beacon Hill. After the walk I met up Prof Richard Pierard. He was a visiting scholar at Otago and old drinking buddy. He is also quite a comedian and I was lucky to be able to stay with him and Charlene, his wife for two nights.

Sunday (22 June)
The Pierard's took me to church and then we drove over that part of Massachusetts. I realized that I had not seen the sea since I landed in LA back in January.We visited Rockport and Salem Salem is famous of the witch trials in 1692. The hysteria only lasted a few months but the legacy lasts hundreds of years and they are milking it for all it is worth.

Monday (23 June)
Dick drove me to Princeton on his way to Philadelphia. It was pleasant drive through the countryside. Missed a turn off and ended up in gridlock on Manhattan Island near the George Washington Bridge. Eventually made it to Princeton. It's a pretty little commuter and university town. People commute from there to New York and Philadelphia. I had a look around Princeton and got a feed. That night saw the Kiwi film Whale Rider before getting a taxi to the hotel.

Tuesday (24 June)
Next morning I toured Princeton University. For a school with a large reputation it is quite small. The place is continually under construction as they bring the buildings up to date with new technology required in universities these days. The art gallery there is very good - some masters and modern with new exhibitions all the time and it s free. outside they have some Henry Moore and Picasso sculptures. I got the train to New York City. The train is a pleasant ride, which disappear underground for the last 20 mins or so. Then you are the bottom on Penn station. Then you just pop up into one of the busiest cities in the world - New York.

Posted 11:40 by Rich

New York

Tuesday (24 June) cont..
Emergin into the streets of New York was quite strange. I had to just stand back and watch for a bit - just to get my bearings and catch my breath. I walked around a bit, saw Union Station the Chrysler Building and made it over to my hotel. The Carlton Arms Hotel was very basic but fun. I had the choice of three rooms, all decorated differently. I went for a pink and red room decorated with gods of Asia. Thankfully the lighting was subdued. That night I decided to go to the Empire State Building at dusk, a strategy that had worked in Vegas and Chicago. The line was incredibely long, making a lie of those movies (like Sleepless in Seattle) where they just pop up to meet someone at five mins notice. Three lines and two elevators (lifts) later i was on the top of New York (now the the World Trade Center towers were destroyed. I got an audio tour guide. Not something I ususally do but it drowbed out the noice of the crwod up there and gave some good info otherwise lost. The view is good but obscured by smog. Got a cheap dinner nearby and went to bed.

Wednesday (25 June)
Next morning I walked out and down through the green market and through the campus of New York University to Greenwich Village, trying to look bohmeian I found a cafe for breakfst and read my book. I then headed to a book store to try to find a copy of "Radical Walking tours of New York. No luck there so carried on to downtown (that's south manhattan). Saw Ground Zero. I remember the day clearly when I was woken by radio alarm to news that the towers has collapsed. I lept out of bed and turned on BBC on TV (had cable then). But is wan't until i saw the immense site and photos that show TWO towers more than twice the size of any thing nearby that it struck me what had happened. now the site is surrounded by a fence as the replcement buildings and memorials are being built. This hole in the ground is a majorr attraction and there is a list of the names of the 'heroes' of 911, although I wasn't sure what they did to be heores and whather they had died or survived. it was quite moving. Local and tourists were writing messages on onme plywood fence nearby like: "God Bless America" and such like. I moved on and found a large cchain bookstore that had the walking tour book. I then grabbed this and did the Wall Street tour. Like so much else in the USA these days the NYSE is closed until further notice. I started to get annoyed by having so many attractions shut down. Another one closed is the Statue of Liberty, which i saw from the Staten Island Ferry. Quite a few tourists (myself included) went there anbd tfund the outward bound ferry was not returing and another one would take us back. We all ran over to the next dock to board the return ferry. It is possible to go the island where the Statue is, but you cannot go inside any more. . I got the subway for the first time up to my new accomodations (in USA they add an 's' to this word). This was Hephzibah House, a guest house for church workers and missionaries and a mission base for their evangelism work. I had a large room to myself and even though it lacked aircon it was very pleasant. Went to see a new documentary on the life and trials of lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer entitled simply Bonhoeffer. It was the standard footage of the Nazis, but interesting for me was the fact he worked in New York and was transformed by the his experience of the Black churches of Harlem. It was good preparation for going to UTS and Riverside Chuch the next day. Grabbed a pizza

Thursday (26 June)
After some brekkie I did the self-guided radical walking tour of Central Park. I'd love to do the real thing with the guide because apparently he gets heckled by other other tour guides! Central Park is amazing but also not quite I expected. I expected no traffic andd more paths, but is amazing to have this park in the middle of such a city. I headed for the Guhggenheim museum. This was closed and it said it was closed in my guide book, so I'm not sure why I went. But the outside itself is a masterpiece of Frank Lloyd Wright. Had an early lunch in the cafe (the art stops at the cafe door) and wrote some postcards. Back into the park and acroos to the St Johns Cathedral, the unfinished Gothic monster. Had a brief look there and corrsed the street into Columbia University. Then went to Union Theological Seminary (where Margaret Mayman, now at St Andrew's, Wellington did her PhD). Bought a book from the bookstore and had a little look around.

Caught the bus to the United Nations Headquarters and visited with Initiatives of Change before my tour of the UN. Most people on the tour were from the USA. As we headed toward the General Assembly hall we passed a corridor with several items on display. The first was the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). This was explained as inspiring international law, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (19XX). I commented to the guide that the USA hasn't signed this. She said "Yes, the only one." In fact it is the USA and Somalia who haven't signed this Convention. Further down the corridor we saw a pictorrial representation of the world's military expenditure agist the money needed to solve the world's major problems, such as adequate housing, food and health, which is, or course a mere fraction of the military expenditure. I thought that guide ccould have mentioend that nearly half this military budget is spent by the USA. Finally, we came to a display of landmines and efforts by the UN to eradicate this scourge. Once again I felt that the tour guide could have pointed out the USA is still using landmines and has not signed the landmines treaty. And of course the guide didn't mention that the USA does always pay its way in the UN either. This is serious since the UN is mainly an operational body, and many Americans think it irrelevant due to the power of the USA to ignore it when it wishes to invade another country.

Got the bus to Chelsea to meet up with Erin. We went to Trailer Park - a 'white trash' themed diner for some drinks and food. Then it was back for the tour of her apartment - very small and very cheap and still incredibly expensive.

Friday
Started the day posting some heavy stuff back to the Foundation. Caught the bus down to the Rockfeller Centre, New York Public Library, St Patrick's Catherdral, Museum of the Moving Image Also checked out Revolution Books in 19th street.

Friday night I went out with Derek (colleague from the Foundation), his partner and two of her friends. Dined in Chinatown at a Caught the subway to Brooklyn. Went to neighborhood bar there, which remineded me a little of the Matterhodn in Wellington. I then stayed at his place in Brooklyn.

Posted 11:40 by Rich

Boston Again

Saturday(22 June)
I got up eary and headed back on the subway to Chinatown to get a bus to Boston. The Chinatown buses are a phenomen. My ride on Lucky Star Bus was only $10, and yes the driver spoke English and didn't crash. Much better deal than $60 for the train. Got to Boston about 1:30pm and headed straight for Harvard Sqaure. I arrived two intues before a Harvard University campus tour so neglected my hunger and took the tour. It was quite good. Then looked around for a cafe, forgetting that USA doesn't have them and found a bagel joint instead. Since I had posted some books home I was feeling a bit light in that department so pickled up two books at the Coop. Saw some comic book shops Got the subway to the hostel and was planning to see a movie but went to the pub instead and had a meal and beer.

Sunday (29 June)
I got an unfeasilbly early flight back to Dayton via Pittsburgh and returned to a week long workshop.