The check out procedure for the Portland HI Hostel was simply to return the keycard, so I was out within no time, and heading awkwardly with my luggage towards the Greyhound terminal, all 18 blocks away. There's no better way to tone your upper body than to lug 20kg on your back, and I seriously don't know why people spend so much on gym membership when all they need to do is to fill their rucksacks with unnecessary keepsakes and try to heave them through a bustling city. By the time I reached the terminal, I had broke a sweat and spent the next few minutes undressing, including removing my scarf which wouldn't fit into my large rucksack! Once again, the Greyhound Station encompassed an unavoidable sense of gloom and doom; one by one passengers entered and started to sit in around Gate 9, the gate that I was told would lead to my coach although the man who gave me this information sounded (and looked for that matter) like the character Franck Eggelhoffer from Father of the Bride. The potential passengers who were crowding around my gate were as I expected them to be, though I hate to make prejudices. A gentleman in torn jeans with greasy hair carelessly tied into a ponytail, a rather large mature looking lady wearing the most fashionable sports shoes on the market that really didn't suit the rest of her pre-21st century clothing, and a slightly older man who came a little later, with two large and poorly looked after cardboard boxes, presumably his alternative idea of luggage.
I whiled away the hour I had before boarding by reading, staring up occasionally to check the most recent additions to what was beginning to become Portland's Unhappy and Bewildered Club. By the time we were asked to form an orderly line, we were already 10 minutes behind printed schedule, but I had no plans for the rest of the afternoon in Eugene so I could afford this lazy approach to timetabling. The coach itself was in the same condition as the one I had boarded a week ago, but the driver was perhaps less aware of proper customer relations. "Is everyone on?" to which he would almost immediately reply with "Tough, too late!" proudly. By no means did this affect my experience as almost immediately I was tuned into my Ipod and staring out the window, eagerly awaiting to see what vistas this journey would provide me with.
We left Portland, and continued along the freeway through each concentric circle of the Burgess Model; leaving the hustle and bustle of the CBD, travelling through the urban renewed light manufacturing zone, and soon entering the suburbs. Later, we approached the out of town retail parks which didn't look to be thriving on this wet Saturday afternoon, and eventually we were surrounded by the flat floodplain fields. This part of the journey reminded me a lot of the typical Norfolk landscape again; bare fields on both side of the freeway, often largely flooded by last night's thunderstorm. Where fields hadn't flooded, a kind of polyculture was in operation, or perhaps occupied by lifestock. (I even saw another Alpaca, looking more in his zone than the one I saw yesterday in downtown!) I also noted that many of the decidious trees had lost their leaves, and were completely bare, although in the cities some of the birches still showcased autumnal foliage! Nature trying to say something here?
The bus driver may not have been such an unwelcoming chap after all, when he suddenly declared that he would take time out of his driving schedule to stop by a Burger King in Salem. We all took this oppotunity to have dinner, and I enjoyed for the first time in ages, a fast food meal. Burger King was, like every other establisment of this nature, a showcase of the worse aspects of American culture. Renee, the manager, publically humiliated her employees, and despite the computers around the kitchen that indicated what everyone had ordered, she still felt the need to bellow out each customer's request. "I need two Whoppers, and I need them now." I felt like telling her she actually needed to quieten down.
Tucking into the Chicken Strips and Fries, carefully balancing a Sweet and Sour sauce tub in between my legs, I noticed that Salem was also selling Christmas Trees outside many of its superstores. From experience back home, as soon as you place a Christmas Tree in your lounge, it seems to realise that it's sitting on your well kept carpet and rebelliously starts shredding its needles everywhere. We've only just entered the festive month and already these things are being sold; what condition will people's carpets be in, in 25 days time?
As quickly as you could sing the 12 days of Christmas, we had arrived in Eugene. I made a strict promise not to comment on this post about the architecture, because it wouldn't be an entirely accurate description after a small one mile walk to the hostel in semi-gloom. I left the Greyhound Bus Station and walked a few blocks before I realised that I wanted 6th Avenue and that the avenue number was increasing in the direction I was headed from 12th. Back on track, I noted just how quiet this place was. It was a Saturday night, and whilst there was a fair few cars on the road, the pavements were deserted. Where was everyone? All of a sudden a group of three men, not too many years older than I, approached me asking for a generous 50 cents for exchange of a newspaper I didn't care to read. When I shook my head in refusal, a drunken chorus of "Come and be faithful" erupted, and I realised that they were following me. My intentions were to get to the hostel as quickly as possible, and eventually by quickening my step, I lost them.
Almost as soon as I had lost what could only be described as the thugs- believe me, my Dad would call them something else not too far from the white solid that is produced when soap meets hard water- I arrived at what I hoped for my life was not the hostel. With very bad street lighting, I couldn't see whether this was the hostel or not; it was certainly on the right street and the right side of it. "Please don't let this be it" I silently wished, as I neared the entrance. Outside, a few people were smoking substances that I would bet my laptop on were not tobacco, and the building they huddled around was dirty; the curtains were drawn tightly closed as if the owners were hiding a body of corpses. I advanced down the avenue a way, in hope that the Eugene Whiteaker Hostel would appear later, and to my relief, it did. In contrast to the devastating property that I feared momentarily was the hostel, the actual specimen looked a five star complex. Lights illuminated the front entrance, and the reassuring wooden sign reading "Eugene Hostel Whiteaker" proudly welcomed me into my new home for the next four nights.
Bob Marley is still staring at me, here in the music and games room, and the rest of the hostel is "jamming" in the kitchen, next door. I'll sweep first impressions aside though, and see what tomorrow brings. One thing is for certain though; Eugene will be a place that I will never ever forget.
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