New Day

The sand! The sun! The beaches! The moustaches!

Hawaii is like the scene of a 1980s cop show. It is like a 3D postcard. Full of tourists, trinkets, taxi drivers who try to rip you off, and tacky memorabilia (bobble head Obama in Hawaiian shirt, anyone?).

It is really a place where you go to get away from it all. It’s like living in a theme park, where there is this pretend kind of world you inhabit and live in as long as the money lasts.

And escapism has a lot going for it, not just in Hawaii, which could be taken idown by a large tsunami, perilously positioned as it is in the Pacific Ocean.

But escapism has a lot going for it for the country of America too: paralysed by toxic partisanship in Washington, where it failed recently to toughen gun legislation; constrained by a stuttering economic climate; and, perhaps outside parts of California, minus the palm trees and the place in the sun.

It is almost as if Americans long to hear the cry from this island paradise ‘wish you were here.’

Here in Seattle, in the home of Starbucks, you need only walk a few feet to find the eponymous coffee chain. There are six within one block of my hotel, and another six if you walk another block.

One could suggest that this endless supply of coffee reflects an anxious people. But that would be wrong. Seattle’s people might very well be cold, be wet, be depressed on account of never seeing the sun, but they are not anxious.

Here is Seattle we find entrepreneurship at its best. Planes (Boeing), computer software (Microsoft, Adobe, Google), coffee chains (Starbucks) were all invented or are currently worked on in garages, offices and basements by the geniuses of this generation. These wonder kids seek shelter from the cold and the rain and, in turn, gift the rest of the world the pleasure and delight of starting their day reading the words:

“Microsoft Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.”

But if you live in Seattle, you don’t respond by converting to Safari. No; in this evergreen state you get high with a little help from legislation that allows you to smoke marijuana at home. Suddenly the colours of Seattle’s gardens, which benefit from the months of natural irrigation, seem brighter and the world seems a better place.

If Seattle were a play the instructions to the actors would be ‘enter stage far left’. It is no surprise that the ACLU is very popular here, that same sex marriage is legal, and that Obama is considered to be a ‘conservative’ President. Washington State, of which Seattle is part, despite its deeply held reservations about Obama, is so much of a Democratic state that prospective Presidential candidates don’t even bother to campaign here.

There are other notable features of Seattle: its steep terrain, reminiscent of San Francisco; its ethnically diverse population, where Chinatown abuts Little Tokyo and Little Saigon; its water, in large lakes and ocean, making this one of the busiest ports in the USA.

Here on the water’s edge, though, coming to Seattle reveals that for all its lush gardens, its civil rights and its coffee, it is two steps ahead of the rest of the country where, as I write, there are those whose civil liberties are being forgotten or eroded, those who fear Asians but those fear blacks more, and those whose outlook doesn’t go beyond the state border, let alone to the Pacific Ocean.

In this Seattle might take to heart the plaintive words of that great philosopher Kermit the Frog: it ain’t easy being green.

“If God had intended us to fly, he wouldn’t have give us the railways” said Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. And given my experience of flying around the USA this month, I think they might well be right.

Due to the nature of the hub and spokes system of American airports (which is also the model America uses, incidentally, for its foreign policy; make of that what you will) I am travelling to more airports than to cities. Let me explain.

To arrive in Washington DC, where I landed at Dulles Airport, I flew from Auckland to San Francisco. To fly from DC to Indianapolis I didn’t fly out of any of DC’s airports. That would just be daft. Instead, we drove to Baltimore, which is in the state of Maryland (next to DC) and caught a plane from what is helpfully called Baltimore Washington Airport, even though it is not, as I have said, in Washington.

From Baltimore we fly to Atlanta, Georgia, which is in the South, thence to Indianapolis, which is in the mid West. Are you with me so far?

From Indianapolis we were due to fly to Seattle via Chicago, Illinois. However, due to the heavy rain in the mid West we find, as we go to check in, that we shall not be flying that route, or even that day.

Instead, we are scheduled to fly via Dallas, Texas, except those of us that are scheduled to fly via Minnesota, Minneapolis. There are ten of us, travelling together. So in rescheduling our flights to Seattle the airline decides, in its infinite wisdom, to route us on separate trips. Half the group are to go via Dallas, but not together. The other half, via Minnesota, but not at the same time or on the same airline, but rather, as we might say, ‘in the fullness of time’.

Clearly this won’t do. So we look at a map and realise that Seattle isn’t all that far from Indianapolis. We look at a bigger map and it seems somewhat further. I think I hear someone say it’s a five hour drive. Problem solved! Well, not quite. What they actually said was ‘five days’. They may have been referring the amount of time we had spent going nowhere in Indianapolis airport, but coincidentally that is also the amount of time it would take to drive to Canada, or Seattle if you stopped on the way.

So we leave those higher and mightier than ourselves to sort out if we are ever to leave Indiana, and when, and return to the hotel, to the same room, put away our Obama badges, change our ties to blue, and contemplate another day (possibly a lot longer) in the mid West.

Some hours later – time moves slower in the mid West – we are told of the plans to get us out. We think helicopter, private jet, possibly even horse and saddle (they are more common than you would believe). But none of those. Instead half of us will fly via Dallas and half via Minnesota. This is all starting to sound strangely familiar. We may have been here before…

But it is resolved that we will, in fact, travel as three separate groups, rather than ten separate individuals, flying the friendly skies. I and three others are to go via Minnesota, arrive in Seattle before the two groups that will go via Dallas, and wait for them. How hard can it be?

Getting to Minnesota was straight forward enough, though we had mere minutes to get our connecting flight to Seattle. And so we ran.

We got the connecting flight just in time to stand and wait with everyone else who had had flights diverted, until they boarded the plane. And we got on the plane, back row as usual, and the pilot said that we were to fly to Seattle, about which we were greatly relieved.

So we sat on the Tarmac, pulled back from the gate. The pilot said he would then take us to a “special location” to de ice the plane. I immediately thought ‘rendition’. I asked my colleague whether that “special location” would even be in America.

It turned out it was about ten minutes from the gate. The de icing, done under heavy snow and with a sound that is a lot like a car wash, took about 15 minutes. Then the pilot started the engines. At least, I am sure he planned to. But it was not to be. We returned to the gate because the plane needed a new part, but never mind because EnginesRUs was just around the corner and it would be fixed in a jiffy and we would be on our merry way.

Americans don’t really say ‘jiffy’ and the pilot actually said ‘half an hour’. But they couldn’t find the mechanic – he was on his lunch break, or in the bathroom – so we disembarked. They talk about ‘Minnesota nice’, and we began to wonder how nice it would be to spend a few days there. An hour turned into two.

The airline generously gave us a voucher to buy lunch, but not quite enough time to buy it and eat it before re boarding the plane. So we asked for our lunch ‘to go’ (American for take away) and scrambled back on to the plane, lunch in hand. My colleague and I, so hungry that we would have even eaten American food, ate our Ramen noodles so fast that we had hardly sat in our seats by the time we finished. And certainly we’d finished before the plane was air borne.

Eventually, the plane departed, and we arrived in Seattle, 12 hours after we had left the hotel in Indianapolis. There to meet us was our guide, who of course had arrived several weeks ahead of us, as she, and the others in the group, had flown on a plane with two working engines.

So we go to get a taxi. You will think I am making this next bit up, but I assure you I am not. To get a taxi from the luggage carousel, we walk to the elevators, go up three floors, walk along a connecting bridge to another building, take another elevator, go down one floor, walk along to the taxi stand, which is helpfully obscured by a large pillar, ask for two taxis – for we come laden with luggage – and are told to move, with our luggage, to the other large pillar, which only moments ago we had walked past. We stand there, briefly, only to then be told that they meant the other, other pillar, next to the elevator, and that they wouldn’t put us in two taxis but would call us a bus.

We ask ourselves what part of ‘two taxis’ sounds like ‘bus’ only to then be greeted by what was, in fact, a large yellow school bus, just for us.

The driver says to us that he’ll load the luggage, we can just get into the bus. But, we are smart people and have had a day that child charitably be described as ‘difficult’ and we think to ourselves we aren’t just going to leave our luggage sitting there for the driver to forget about as we drive on our way to the hotel and our luggage is systematically and carefully blown up by the airport security worried about this large pile of suspicious baggage by the third pillar in the vicinity of the taxi stand. Believe me, the way our day was going, this was not beyond the realms of possibility.

So we watch, eagle eyed, as the bus driver loads our bags. We get into the bus and arrive at our hotel, somewhat older than we were at the beginning of the day.

We never thought we would make it this far, this year. But we are glad we did. We are greeted by rain – it is Seattle, so what else? – and a three hour time difference that only exacerbates our tiredness. And we think to ourselves that while our next, and final, stop is Hawaii, there is a country much closer where we could seek asylum.

As they aptly start their national anthem, “Oh Canada!”

You don’t need to go too far in Indiana to find red meat. Steak houses are to Indianapolis what sushi bars are to Wellington: on every corner and everyone’s default meal option. And when you order food here it comes quickly, in large portions, and with generous, one might even say decadent, helpings of salt, butter and sauce.

Here you will also find red meat of the symbolic kind: Republicans, religion and the right to bear arms. Indiana has voted for the Republican candidate for President in every election between 1976 to 2012 except, surprisingly, in 2008, when it voted for Obama. Mentioning Obama here now, especially the so-called ‘Obamacare’, is a sure fire way to get thrown out of town.

In this, Indiana differs from its larger neighbouring state of Illinois, which Obama represented as Senator before he became President and where his first Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel is now Mayor of Chicago, Illinois’s capital, a city that tilts that state toward the Democrats. Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana, doesn’t even compare.

The military is revered here, and not just the troops currently serving abroad, of whom special mention is made more than once at their basketball games, but also of those who served in the Civil War and the War against Mexico. In the centre of town stands Lady Liberty looking toward the troops returning from the Civil War (they fought for the Union) welcoming them home. Indiana takes pride in its association with Abraham Lincoln, though he was neither born nor ran for political office in Indiana, but rather grew up here between 1816 and 1830. Thus, they might say, grasping at the nettle of history, that they helped form America’s greatest President.

Religion is as big as the steaks served here. Much of that religion is Christianity, both Catholic and Protestants, though the Freemasons also have a large presence in Indianapolis (at least in the imposing form of this building.) Unlike New Zealand, where religion is characteristically a private matter, here Hoosiers wear their faith on their sleeve, and on their billboards. Hearing someone describing themselves as ‘blessed’ is almost as common here as being called ‘honey’.

People born in Indiana hardly ever leave. It was not uncommon to speak to Hoosiers who were born, educated and still live in the state of Indiana, even if not the same city. Only thirty percent of Hoosiers hold a passport (compared to 39% for Americans nationally) and, while Indiana holds lots of conventions, most of its tourists are domestic so a Hoosier’s exposure to the rest of the world may be quite limited.

But Indiana is not unique in this regard. America is a vast and diverse country. When Americans have gone exploring they are like Lewis and Clark who went West rather than like Columbus, who got lost on the high seas (and, by chance, discovered America on the way, thus redeeming the phrase ‘lost at sea’.) It is not so much that Americans, Hoosiers especially, don’t want to travel abroad, but they don’t need to.

When the United States was established, it was with the aspiration of ‘out of many, one’. There is not ‘one’ America, of course. However, here in Indiana, with its love of country, God, basketball, steak, and the Republican Party, one gets the impression that for many Hoosiers theirs is the kind of America they like best, especially when it comes with a Budweiser and a side of fries.

There are several immediate observations one can make of Washington DC.

First, it resonates other capitals. Its broad avenues, Greek columns, grid patterned layout and large monuments remind one of London, Paris, Canberra and even, dare I say it, Beijing. Some of that is of course deliberate. Seeking to better the British at their own game, the designers of Washington sought to make things grander. I don’t necessarily think it is grander than London, but Washington DC is definitely and unapologetically grand.

Second, it memorialises a lot. The Washington Monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, the memorials to the first, second, Korean and Vietnam wars, are all in close proximity. Much of this is very well done. The Lincoln Memorial is far more majestic and over powering than photos do justice. The Vietnam memorial, though controversial when it was built, is simply evocative. The Second World War memorial is a tad ostentatious and singularly lacks any information about that war whatsoever but its columns to every State make a statement, pun intended. The Korean War memorial seems strangely salient given current tensions in that part of the world. Much of this memorialisation also ties back to America’s idealisation of itself and its history.

And the idea of America is potent here. In the way government was formed and functions, in the words and actions of those who inhabit the halls of power, America is genuinely seen as a country set apart. Looking at America from outside in, this is hard to appreciate. It appears to be hubris. But that perception doesn’t do it justice. The idea of America and what it stands for – the land of the free and the home of the brave – is its heartbeat. Take away that idea and you mortally wound America. To be sure, America has acted on that idea with terrible consequences sometimes. It has let that idea, that ideal, walk too far in front of the reality. But regardless, for better or worse, it remains robust, perhaps impenetrable, definitely resilient.

But judging any country on the basis of its capital city only risks distorting the image. Those in the Beltway tend to look at their country and the world in a bubble. So, acknowledging my assessment may need to be revisited, and with a view to a much wider horizon, tomorrow I head to a very different part of the USA, as blue as Washington DC is red, Indiana.