Final Day

Today was my final full day in America.  As you'd anticipate, a day of real mixed feelings.  I'm very ready to get back home - I need to start eating properly (and lose some weight), see my friends, get back into work, re-engage with everything that's going on with the City Council and the Police and Crime Commissioner election (Thursday - make sure you vote!) and generally get back to normal.  But at the same time I'd gutted that my trip is coming to an end - it's been even more incredible than I might have imagined.  I've checked into my flight home (noticing at the last minute that the travel agent has printed the time wrongly on my itinerary so lucky I'm not going to miss my flight then!) and worked out for the final time what underused and rickety public transport offering I'm going to use to get to the airport.  (Actually, DC's public transport is pretty good so shouldn't be snarky about it).  I've bought so many Christmas and holiday gifts for people that I've had to plan to check in a second bag for the flight home - bearing in mind I've posted five parcels of stuff home as well!

I've not going to to try to even summarise what I've learned on this trip in this post - I've going to leave it some time to percolate through my brain and put it all into my final report for the Roosevelt Scholarship.  

In that spirit, I'm just going to drop a few final photographs into this post and leave it at that - see you on the other side.  

A

Yes, the sky really was that blue!  It was however freezing at 8 o'clock this morning before my official tour of The Capitol

I'm a massive geek when it comes to the US Supreme Court so was very excited to be inside this building

This is the Hirshhorn gallery - one of 19 Smithsonian museums.  An excellent collection of modern art, including a whole floor of Ai Weiwei

Stumbled across this almost by accident but thought a picture of FDR's memorial would be a fitting place to end this post

Parks and Recreations

(The title is apparently a US TV show about local government which I haven't managed to catch yet but is supposed to be good - and was appropriate enough for my day today). 

(Actually, scratch that, I've just watched an episode on Hulu - it's very good!)

Today I had my final meeting with the team at Bentonville City Council - with the Director of Parks and Recreation (see what I did there?).  An early start but well worth it to see parts of the City I've not seen yet on a combined drive and walk along the network of trails and seeing the city's extensive parks.  The City has had enough foresight to buy up distressed property when it comes on the market to enable it to be converted to park space and there are a range of different uses - including a dedicated dog park for "off leash" dog exercise. 

A couple of shots;

After this interesting start to the day I want to the WalMart museum at the original store - for a relatively small space there was a huge amount of information and history crammed in.  I did feel a little brainwashed at the end of it, but certainly shows a different side to the business and the man who founded it.  And it's very well curated and put together. 

Finally, the day took me to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  For the initiated (like me), this is a world class art museum built by renowned architect Moshe Safdie and funded entirely by Alice Walton, including a $1.4bn (yes, billion) endowment to enable free entry in perpetuity.  It's an extraordinary space built with great sensitivity to its location and a great collection as I hope some of the pictures below show -  a real sign of the commitment that the Walton family show to the locality that they come from and still live in.  

The location of the museum in such a perceived "backwards" place hasn't necessarily gone down well with the art elite on the East and West coast, as seen in this video from the LA Times.  

Kind of reminds me of the controversy in 2005 when the Royal Ascot horseracing meeting moved from their usual location to be at York racecourse for a year whilst its home course in Berkshire was being redeveloped.  This was great for me as it meant that I got to go to a race meet I wouldn't ever usually see but there were all sorts of comments like, "isn't it a long way away".  I distinctly remember John Humphreys on Radio 4 responding in unusually nuanced and subtle way, "well, it's not a long way away if you live in Leeds".  (I realise that that will be totally lost on my American readers - sorry).  Putting this new art gallery in Arkansas doesn't mean that it's "out of the way" if you live in, say, Fayetteville or Memphis or Oklahoma City... 

Anyway, enough provincial chip-on-shoulder ranting, it's been another great day, need to plan tomorrow's fun now!

Seattle

So I've not blogged for several days - don't worry, I'm still alive, just been busy having a great time!  I arrived relatively early in the morning on the Friday and so had some spare time in the city before I met my Servas hosts, Sarah and Cale.  I popped up the Columbia Centre tower which gave great views out across the City and the various bodies of water that surround it.  I also took the chance to visit the legendary Pike Place Market - I saw some fish being thrown and also took advantage of the great local artists to pick up some Christmas presents. 

I met Sarah at her office downtown and we walked up to Capitol Hill - the neighbourhood where they live.  I'd read a lot about the Seattle micro-/craft-brewing scene so I was pleased when we went to a local bar to sample some of them.  The evening then took its usual turn when you go for a "quick one" after work... We went for some excellent Mexican food in a local 'hispter' cafe and then sampled most of the local beers - especially from Elysian Brewing - their pumpkin ale is excellent!  I displayed my usual self-control and light-touch when it comes to drinking and seem to remember displaying my British beer-mat flipping skills to any and all that wanted to witness them.  

So it was obviously with a spring in my step and a totally clear head that I went off to the Seattle Art Museum the next morning.   It's a really great space and had some cool exhibits - I'm just not sure that I made the most of it...  

The Museum also has a satellite campus of outdoor sculpture so I dodged the rain and took in that.  In the evening we went over to a local neighbourhood that was doing a kind of 'open house' at the artists' studios - you can see some info here.  

I moved on to another Servas host on the Sunday morning - Rebecca and Sara live in Mount Baker a few miles away from the city centre so it was interesting to see a different side of Seattle life.  We did a whole variety of things over the three days I was with them, the highlight probably being a tour of several wineries and also going to a local bar to watch the second Presidential debate.  I really enjoyed the conversations with Rebecca and Sara about the local and national political scene and what it's like to live in Seattle.  

Seattle is a great city - still doesn't knock Chicago off top spot, but I like the culture and stunning scenery - even the British-style rain wasn't too bad!

(I'm going to do another post in a bit outlining the companies that I visited whilst here in Seattle). 

Chicago

What a place - I've absolutely fallen in love with Chicago.  

From the moment that I stepped off the (efficient, clean, fast) 'L' public transport system at Damen Avenue in Bucktown I knew that I would enjoy my time here.  There was a buzz about the place that was tangible - shops, bars, restaurants, boutique shops, oh, and, people (unlike in Detroit!) going about their everyday lives.  I was made very welcome by my Servas host, Jeff and we went out and had a few beers in the local pubs.  Jeff is a 'Quant' at a hedge fund, but that didn't mean that he was loaded he was quick to point out!  It was nice to talk to him about the places that he had travelled to around the world.  

As I had a really early start and important meetings I obviously drank far too much so wasn't in tip-top form for my 6.30 start the following day.  When will I learn eh?  Stupidly enough I had to travel almost all the way back to O'Hare Airport as I was due to attend the Illinois AFL-CIO (like the TUC in the UK) annual convention which was at one of the airport hotels.  Luckily it was an easy ride on the 'L'.  I freaked out the team from the UFCW who had arranged my attendance by insisting on walking from the station to the hotel.  It was a total of half a mile so I told them that I thought I'd be ok...

The convention was really interesting - lots of great speakers including Senator Dick Durbin.  I was made out to be some kind of visiting celebrity which was amusing.  I also went along to one of the workshops on GOTV ahead of the elections here in November.  I was interested to see if there were similarities or differences this side of the Atlantic.  There were a couple of interesting tips that I might be able to use in either our Parliamentary or Local elections in 2015 but the most striking thing was the similarities - including the perennial problem of what to do with the big band of volunteers who only turn up on election day itself ask what they can do to help - the reaction from activists from both the UK and the USA was, "be here 6 weeks ago when there was real work to be done"...

I was then lucky to be taken out to lunch to Gibson's which is something of a Chicago institution and also to meet Jon Karmel a local union right lawyer.  It was great to talk to Jon about the history of the labour movement in the US and also the development of Chicago.  Linked to my discoveries in Detroit re corruption, Jon's take was that although there have been question marks over the conduct and probity of the various members of the Daley family who have been Chicago leaders, the overwhelming focus has been on delivery of projects and initiatives - yes there might have been some greasing of some palms somewhere but fundamentally the public improvement works actually happened on the ground.  Certainly the city is night and day vs Detroit so something has gone right along the way! 

I did a bit of sightseeing in the afternoon but I was keen to get back to Jeff's place in time for the first Presidential debate.  I'm sure that people who are interested have watched the highlights already, but I was hugely disappointed with Obama's performance.  Hesitant, stumbling and willing to let Romney walk all over him.  As I said here this could be the turning point of the election and I don't think I'm alone in that analysis.  The second debate is on 16th October and the President is going to have seriously up his game.  

Thursday was a day totally dedicated to sightseeing so I covered a lot of ground.  First thing I went on an architectural boat tour as recommended by my good friends Dan and Josie - it was absolutely brilliant!  So much history and development in this city and the guide was excellent at drawing it all together.  Just a couple of photos below, including one of my all time favourite buildings, Marina City, not least because it features on the great album, 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' by local band Wilco.  

I also popped over to see Millennium Park and the outdoor art installation by Anish Kapoor (of Sky Mirror outside Nottingham Playhouse fame of course) - Cloud Gate.  (It's know by everyone as 'the bean').  A great atmosphere of fun and jokes, just one shot here - you have to spot where I am reflected! 

I've barely covered a fraction of what I did today - as I said, it's a brilliant city. 

Tomorrow (Friday) I go to the Walgreen's offices in Deerfield to meet with the team there - looking forward to that! 

Detroit

After a couple of pretty idyllic days in Ann Arbor I was both looking forward to and also slightly nervous about going to Detroit proper,  From everything I'd read and from some of the conversations I've had I had developed a mental image of the City as some kind of western-Beirut.  Of course it wasn't going to be as bad as that but it's certainly a city with some real troubles.  

I headed off first thing on Saturday to the Eastern Market which is a Detroit institution.  I was interested to see that the majority of the customers there looked and sounded like they were relatively affluent suburban-ites rather than locals taking advantage of the incredible variety of (cheap) food that was available.  This kind of links to my earlier post today which talks about the concept of a Food Desert which may or may not exist in Detroit.  The food available look delicious and there were some great bargains to be had.  

After that I headed closer to the city centre and paid a visit to both the Detroit Institute of Arts and also the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.  The exhibits were ok if not hugely inspiring.  I liked a couple of bits in the DIA including some great murals of Detroit's industrial heritage which you can see some images of here.  

I then walked down Woodward Avenue into the city centre.  It was about 4 o'clock on a Saturday and part of where I was walking was the financial district, but the thing that struck me the most was the sheer emptiness of the place.  Of course there are the desolate and deserted housing blocks and the buildings that have been razed to the ground but more than that there was the fact that there were simply so few people around.  But other than that it was a pleasant enough city - I felt very safe and secure.  Feels odd that 30 or so years about the population would have been nearly double and presumably a much higher level of activity.  

Have been thinking about what else to do when I'm here - obviously the car manufacturing museums are on the list but also pondering the possibility of a trip either up to Lake Michigan or over to Canada.