And so back to the land of the grey skies. Seattle is a demented city, although it wasn’t when I moved here in the mid-1980s; I’ll be elaborating on Seattle and the strange horridness of living here, now that I’ve finally finished writing this travel tale, and featuring it on this website. For the moment it will suffice to say that Seattle had of course not changed a bit since I left—the buses were still as unconcerned with their departure/arrival schedules, the denizens of those buses were still as likely to need psychological observation, the weather was still as drearily noncommittal, and there was still no reason to stay there except that, as before, I had yet to find a better city in the U.S. Outside the U.S., oh, no problem on that score…but it’s those pesky work papers that complicate things so terribly.
At my desk at work, I have a coin from Switzerland which I brought back with me because it was in near-mint condition, a gorgeous silver 5-franc coin just gleaming with style, culture, excellence, and strength. When I look out my office window at the broken and just-plain-fucked-up people who pollute Occidental Park by their very presence, every day, I turn back to observe the coin and swim in its silvery waters of memory, and I tell myself “this is still just a temporary arrangement. Not much longer now….”
And that, o my friends, and o my enemies, and wives of my enemies, and everyone else who lasted through to this bitter end, has been the tale of my Yurpeen trip in early 2003, in all of its grand but completely unnecessary splendour. Thank you for reading it, and if you do go anywhere near the towns I have described herein, please do visit the restaurants I have mentioned…they really do deserve as much patronage as they can get, and if I can help keep them in business by touting them here, well then I’ve done my part to make the world a happier place.
Text © 2003 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted