Morning broke in Newport with some fine fog, and a view from the hotel of FLo's Clam Shack. Newport's definitely a touristic town, and very typical of New England. The massive houses, nice cars, everything perfectly manicured, and everyone white as a sheet is something I've noticed as common amongst new England. This demographic seems to extend beyond the concept of a "state" per se, because it is this way as well in Massachusetts. hundreds of boats, both in the water and drydocked, are along the seaside. Although the seaside is a more practical entity than I am used to in Vancouver - because there are very few harbourfront areas, and restaurants in Newport. Mostly docks, mostly functional. It almost seems as though the Americans are afraid of putting a building too close to the water.





Of course, perhaps you can appreciate the irony as well as I can, that after trying to visit all of the most dangerous countries in the world, or at least the most unstable, I end up in Rhode Island in its main tourist town. The most dangerous thing here would be getting bored to death, even though that is unlikely, since you could gorge yourself on clams and fish for fun, I suppose. But on we went, in the rental car, to an even bigger tourist attraction, several dozen miles more along the seaside highway, even though you can barely see the sea - and to Plymouth. Every American ever born and watching television probably knows about Plymouth, the place where the English landed, and Plymouth Rock, which is somewhere around here - is it this rock? Or this other rock? Do I need to go out of my way to find this special rock? Probably not. But what the hell. The weather was nice, and it's a small, unassuming little town. I didn't think much of it, really, and if it weren't for the weather, I wouldn't have thought anything of it at all. I did think about the massive lineup extending to the outside of the fast-food lobster place, and a relative lack of anything really "classy" in plain view of the shore, but still these white people have no shortage of money. Another little thing - even though Americans are excessively rich, it seems like they just don't have the cultural know-how to translate their money into a real sophisticated style. So brand new track shoes, jeeps, polo shirts, all very expensive looking, but still - they're running shoes. There is nothing classy about running shoes. This is something very American, to be spending piles of money and flaunting dress styles such as athletic wear as something high class. If that makes any sense. It is as if the Americans are willing to spend more for mere mediocrity, even if they know it's mediocre, because it is in their blood to spend. Thus they don't care if the fast-food lobster place is considered a middle-class dive with bad food, as long as they can spend money, then it's okay? Is it?







We continued on from Plymouth, into Cape cod, over some massive bridge that seemed bigger than any other bridge I had seen before, even if it wasn't - and onto the "Cape", and some small towns. Both me and my friend Anne wondered very much about how these people live here - can they possibly make money from their seasonal antique shops, enough to live? We stopped in Westerly, another small town, with a big Fish N' Chips place, with bigger prices on top of that. Anne was baffled, as was I, that they sold alcohol in the restaurant, but in a separate part of it.... odd. Alcoholic segregation? The alcohol laws of America are very well known, and of course two months after this trip Jenna and Barbra Bush started pushing the envelope for these laws, but anyways. The Fish N' Chips was good, not cheap, even though it was essentially a greasy fast food place. Do these people have any class? Do they know what it is? Do I dare ask for some white wine with my fish? Probably not.
From Westerly we decided against continuing along Cape Cod, for no real reason aside from the fact that the scenery was looking all the same. Small houses, antique shops and Dunkin' Donuts everywhere; it's nice, but after awhile, do I need to see a hundred more miles of it? So we headed north, winding into sunset and further into Urbanity, and soon enough we were into the suburbs of Boston. The massive city sits on the shoreside, with massive freeways running through it. The buildings of Boston, it seemed, were bigger than the New York office buildings.

I couldn't get ahold of my friend Chet on our first night in the city, so we began a long journey winding around the freeway looking for something inexpensive. One woman at a hotel said, "Well first, it's marathon weekend. And second, it's still near Boston." Which means that a double room isn't any cheaper than USD$120 a night. I had no clue about this marathon - and what an idiot I was. I'd never heard of it - but apparently it's a huge deal in Boston, a venerable institution of the city to host one of the world's most prestigious marathons. We finally found a hotel on the other side of town and stomached the ridiculous price. Boston certainly feels different than New York, and my first impression is a cleaner, more manageable city. But it's still a sprawling metropolis, filled with more money than I could imagine and more crime than I would want to imagine.



Boston



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