From a Trans-Atlantic Nomad

I arrived in Santa Fe on Saturday after a 13hr overnight bus trip on which the air conditioning made it super cold and hard to sleep. Santa Fe is a great little town. It’s law here that all the buildings must be built in the Spanish adobe style which makes all the houses look great and things like petrol stations and cinemas look mildly ridiculous.

On Saturday I went into town with a couple of guys from the hostel, Bruce and Davis, and we went to see a live band at a bar called cowgirls. It was a good night, really friendly and busy and the band were really good. They were kind enough to let me sing and play during one of their breaks which was great. I got chatting to Stephen, a New York born guy of Irish descent whom invited to play a round of golf on the Sunday, having never played golf I decided against it but we had some good banter nonetheless. I’ve found some guys here to be patriotic in a tunnel visioned kind of way and it can be hard to get beyond this. He was much more open though and we chatted a lot about the U.S. and UK.

Sunday was a pretty chilled out day. There was a Spanish market in town with lots of art, cuisine and music. It was pleasant to walk about in town and then I just hung out at the hostel that evening.

On Monday I went to catch a movie with Bruce and we grabbed a spot of lunch. Here in Santa Fe there are lots of galleries, the opera and every summer they have a Chamber music festival. Bruce and I went to see a performance of some Mozart, Brahms and a contemporary composer from Puerto Rico called Roberto Sierra. It was in a converted church building in town and I thought it was great, particularly Brahms Piano quartet No 2 in A. It really was a beautiful piece.

On Tuesday Davis and I went on a road trip round round the Jemez Mountain Scenic byway. We drove a 200 mile round trip consisting of some utterly beautiful scenery (I’ve got a few pictures you can check from the link below). We went to Tent Rocks which is this rock formation created by harder rocks protecting the softer rock they are stuck in from wind and water erosion. This leads to these tipi shaped points with harder rocks sitting precariously on top. Reading back I realise that my description is somewhat sketchy but you’ll get the jist from the photo’s.

We went on into the Jemez Pueblo reserve to see the imaginatively named red rocks. These were basically big cliff and rock formations that were filled with iron and were thus red.

Later that day we went swimming in a natural rock pool called Soda Dam. It was a great way to cool off during what was a very hot drive. We went on after that to catch a beautiful sunset over a former ranch called the Valles Caldera National Preserve. I’ve got photo’s of all this, I hope they do the scenery justice.

It really has been a quite relaxed time here, I’ve been playing my guitar quite a bit out the back of the hostel and trying to finish off a song or two. I’m enjoying reading Steinbeck’s the Grapes of Wrath as well.

I’m off to San Antonio Texas next where I expect it shall be hot hot hot again, I’m getting much more aclimatised to the heat so hopefully it shouldn’t be too bad.

Check out the Photos at

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2198260&l=50df6&id=61006708

In San Diego I did some pretty touristy stuff, went to see the USS Midway which is a decomissioned aircraft carrier you can tour. It was all very American, lots of talk of honour and military prestige by the guide who were all ex-sailors. It was interesting to see what life is like on board a navy vessel.

I went for a surfing lesson which proved to be super difficult. The waves here are huge and during four hours of trying I managed to stand up on the board once for approximately 1 second. Due to my lack of an olympian-esque physique I was aching a lot the following day, bruises, sore arms and torso. Despite the war wounds it was great fun.

I stayed at for a couple of days at the hostel which was awful, the rooms were tiny and we were crammed in. The staff were grumpy and there were tons of rules, it’s only redeeming feature was that it was close to the beach which was great. Luckily Luke and Heather, two of the students I met in San Anselmo, were visiting for a couple of days and I was kindly invited to stay at Luke’s Uncle’s house in a wee place just outside San Diego called Lemon Grove. Uncle Dale’s house had barely been altered since the sixties and it was amazing, it was like living on the set of Happy Days.

Heather, Luke and I had a great time in San Diego we went to the beach the Zoo and had a night painting the town red. The beach was great, the zoo was average and painting the town red was mildly debaucherous. We went to the beach with Erin a friend of Luke and Heather’s. On the night out I wore my kilt and got some interesting remarks. A few San Diegan boys made some unsavoury comments relating to my “nice skirt” but the girls had nicer things to say which redressed the balance a bit.

Las Vegas was ridiculous. As soon as I arrived I was waiting for my bag next to the side of the bus I felt an incredible heat which I assumed was from standing too close to the bus. Once I got out front of the terminal I realised that it wasn’t the bus at all, it was 7.30pm and it was 41 degrees Centigrade. I thought I was going to melt. It turns out to be a good thing for business though as you have to stay indoors during the hours of sunlight, and you can’t have any fun indoors in Vegas unless you’re spending money.

I spent a bit too much I think. The geeky kid in me convinced me to go to the Star Trek Experience in the Las Vegas Hilton despite it costing a small fortune. It was really good fun though like most things in Vegas, fun if you’re willing to pay for it. I gambled a little in the New York New York casino and it turns out that my Black Jack skills are up there with my surfing skills. I found it all a bit nerve wracking, I only managed to relax during the shuffle breaks. I got told off by the dealer for touching my bet after the deal but I managed to avoid getting taken outside by security though so that was a success, it wound up being the only success as managed to rapidly lose $100.

That evening the hostel had organised a night in a club called the Tryst and again it was glamorous, fun and exorbitantly expensive. It had a deck out back with a huge artificial waterfall. A drink was $12 plus tip so it wound up being a quiet time in the Tryst.

After my first full day of hedonistic fun in Vegas I decided that I should leave the following day as my wallet and my body temperature could hack it no more. I’m currently in Santa Fe which is the perfect post-Vegas tonic, its cooler, cheaper and really laid back. I’ll write some about my time here in the next post.

Check out the photos by copying the links below and pasting them into your internet browser.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2194628&l=41f56&id=61006708

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2197568&l=74597&id=61006708

I arrived in San Anselmo in Marin County on Saturday. I’m here visiting a lecturer at the seminary here called Sam Hamilton-Poore who is also an associate of the Iona Community. He and his family have been ever so hospitable. Sam and Terry (his wife) have three children, Ben, Eliza and Noah and it has been great staying in a family home after a pretty hectic week in downtown San Francisco.

 On Saturday four Students here at the Seminary took me out for dinner and to see another fellow student’s band play in a small town near-by called fairfax. On Sunday I went to a service at the aptly named St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. The preacher was trained as a baptist and we sang from the African American Hymnal so the style was very different to that of Morningside United. It was a racially mixed congregation which I’ve been told is not very common even her in liberal California. They were incredibly welcoming and they are very active on issues of social justice, in particular they help support the local homeless shelters in Marin.

After Church I was taken to wine country by Alexis, a student from the Seminary. It was incredibly hot, I haven’t felt heat like it since I was in the middle-east a few years back. It has been a very hot summer here which is part of the problem with forest fires. Since writing my first email I have discovered that it doesn’t rain in California in the summer months. Who’d have thought, it takes a wee while for a Scotsman like me to my get my head around the idea that it simply will not rain here. I’ve heard the weather in Edinburgh has been mixed so I shant mention the weather again so as not to rub it in! Anyway, Alexis and I tried a few wines and I bought a bottle as a gift for Sam and Terry and we had a lovely family meal that evening.

 On Monday Sam, Noah and I went to Muir Woods which is a beatuiful stretch of preserved forest named after Scottish born John Muir. Sam tried to convince the Ranger at the gate that I was John Muir’s great, great, great grand-nephew but she was having none of it. The Woods are filled with giant redwoods that have been preserved because during the California Gold rush most of the forests were chopped down to build San Francisco’s wooden houses. It is also that place of the first meeting of the league of nations in 1945. At the spot where it took place there is a picture of the world’s political leaders all sitting amongst these beautiful trees and wildlife. It must have been some gathering. We talked about nothing quite as important as we hiked a couple of trails, it was a great day out.

On Tuesday some students from the Seminary took me to Rodeo beach and I paddled in the Pacific for the first time. It was surprisingly cold. We had a picnic and took some guitars and djembe drums and we sang away to our hearts content. Then we hiked up some of the nearby cliffs and drove back to San Anselmo.

In the evening there was a book launch at the seminary which was interesting, I met lots of theologians, then I shared a whisky with some of the students in their student digs. I say digs rather sarchastically as the people I met live in this wonderful house called Trinity House (photo attached). It is by far and away the most beautiful student accomodation I’ve ever been in.

I have very much enjoyed myself thus far and now I’m heading south to San Diego for my final few days in California. Then its of to the bright lights of Las Vegas!

It is my last night in San Francisco (SF) and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here. I have a done a spot of “touristy’  stuff in the last couple of days including visiting Alcatraz yesterday and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge today. Alcatraz was really interesting, the audio-tour is great with stories from ex-convicts and officers. They also talk a bit about the island’s time as a military fort, before it was used as a prison, and then when it was occupied by Native Americans in 1969. The Native Americans used an old law which states that any federal land which is not being actively used by the government may be reclaimed by indigenous peoples. The US government eventually managed to argue in court that the light-house on the island mean that the land was being actively used and then kicked them off.

I have just returned to the hostel after cycling accross the Golden Gate Bridge. It was really foggy and windy which made it a touch perilous but I persevered none the less and survived to tell the tale. I cycled to a very nice little town over the bridge called Sausalito and got a ferry back across the bay to SF. I met some other Scottish young people on the ferry ride which was nice.

I’ve bought a small guitar to take with me on my travels which is great as I find playing very relaxing. It has also come in handy as we had a sing-song in the hostel common room last night. Also I was playing in the park yesterday and I got chatting to a couple of guys which was nice. As I’m travelling on my own it is important that I meet others in the places I visit and the guitar is turning out to be a nice wee ice-breaker.

 After having mentioned the problem this city has with homelessness I got chatting to a couple of guys on the topic. One was a young man who was collecting signatures for a petition to reject a government proposal to cut the homeless budget by 60%. This would cut both the National and California budgets relating to helping the homeless. Given the scale of the problem here in SF this seems to be a counterproductive step regarding the problem. Furthermore, nationally there is a steady increase of families being made homeless by having their houses reposessed.  He told me that 40% of homeless people here in SF consisted of families with women and children and that 1/3 of homeless people suffer from mental ilness.

 The second guy I was chatting to was a homeless man who went by the name of Brother AL Cadilac. He said that he moved to SF as a hippie in 1969 and has been here on and off ever since. He said that he didn’t mind being homeless here but that he was going north as Jesus told him there was going to be an earthquake soon. He asked me if I had any drugs and of course I told him I didn’t. He was swigging from a bottle in brown bag during our conversation. Despite being accosted by this man and many other homeless people at no point have I ever felt unsafe as none of the people begging have been agressive in the slightest. Brother Al clearly has a great many issues not least alcohol and drug related and there are many thousands of homeless people just like him here making it a huge problem here.

Anyway, I’m off North to a wee place called San Anselmo tomorrow to stay with an Iona Community Associate and to visit the seminary he works at there. I’m looking forward to it very much.

 Blessings,

 Mark

From the moment that the customs officer winked and said have a nice day I have barely stopped smiling (except when my plane had to fly through a thunderstorm which was  a bit of a white-knuckle ride). I flew from Edinburgh to San Francisco via New York and I’ve now been in SF for a couple of days. I’m getting over the jet-lag and the sun hasn’t stopped shining since I arrived.

San Francisco is a wonderful place, it is very eclectic as one might expect and has a whole mix of people from different races, religions and sexual orientations. I have met with an associate of the Iona Community (I’ll be meeting a quite a few during my time in the US) and she took me to a few churches and showed me round her neighbourhood called Noe Valley. Interestingly at the local church Noe Valley Presbyterian Church I met a young woman from Oklahoma who knows Frances. What a small world. This morning I attended an Episcopal service at Grace Cathedral which was lovely.

On a more concerning note here in San Francisco there is a large population of homeless people , not unlike Edinburgh. The churches here provide a lot of help for this group of people but I’m unsure what sort of government strategies there are to help. There are some church services which specifically welcome homeless people so I am hoping to go to one and find out a bit more. Also although the sun is great for visitors like me there is a huge problem in California with forest fires at the moment so a day or two of rain would help. Outwith major cities here the fire service is made-up almost entirely of volunteers. They are quite rightly held in high esteem in the press, however I have not found anything in the local papers about homelessness. Both of these groups of people are in my thoughts and prayers.

I’m off today to some different neighbourhoods, the city is largely still split into neighbourhoods based on ethnicity. Tomorrow I’m off to Alcatraz with some lovely Irish travellers I have met in the hostel I’m staying at.

 I hope you are all well and I’ll write again soon,

 Blessings

 Mark