Cape Town to Hood River (via Abu Dhabi, New York, New Haven, Texas, Portland & Mount Hood Meadows)

Beautiful Hood River. Mountains and rivers. The Oregon border, watching Washington bustle accross the Columbia Gorge. Loud cars, sewing shops, 2nd hand stores and friendly people.

Getting here took some time. 12 hours to the Middle East, 11 Hours in the Middle East (with Arab men who love to stare and stare and stare) 10 hours to New York. 1 hour train ride to Manhatten and 1 and a half hour to Connecticut where i was picked up and brought to food and a bed. Finally.

A few days later, after a cancelled flight and early rising i found myself on another plane flight to Portland, via Texas. So 2 hours to Texas. 5 hours in the Texas airport and another 4 hours to Portland, the capital of Oregon and one and a half hours to Hood River. I breathed a sigh of relief to finally be, well at least near to, my final destination.

Portland greeted me with rain. Rain that simply streams and streams and streams at you and never thinks to stop. I had a little sign saying HOOD RIVER which was meant to procur me a lift to my final destinination thus cutting out spending any unnecessary and probably expensive time in Portland. After standing with my snowboard, guitar and huge rucksack in the cold rain with my thumb and my sign out for about an hour and a half, I disheartedly walked back inside the airport and sat in a dejected worried stupor for some time.

I was making all sorts of plans, thinking that maybe sleeping in yet another airport couldn't be too bad considering i had done it for a while now. But, finally after some firm Mary team talk i found airport information services and the lady kindly gave me the information for hostels and told me about the bus ride that could take me straight to Hood River the following afternoon. This led me into the city of Portland, a train and a bus ride later to a hostel and warmth and a bed. After dumping my stuff I walked down the road in search of food and a fellow hostel man wearing a fake fox on his head bought me dinner at a chinese restaurant. (It was terrible food, some sort of weird seaweed soup that was supposed to be good for you but i had to summon courage before every bite. The hunger inspired me, i gobbled it down).

The following day I found the book store which one guy at the hostel had called the "biggest book store in the world". "The world?" i had asked, "oh", he replied, "well maybe just America". I smiled and replied, "same thing right?" while a German caught my eye and we began to laugh. The American didn't notice, i think he agreed it was the same.

So the promised bus that would take me to Hood River didn't come. I waited, yet again, in the rain with my huge rucksack, snowboard and guitar for no bus. After some frantic phonecalls, i discovered it only ran on thursdays. This was monday. I sadly made my way back to the hostel to figure out some new way of getting out of this silly rainy rainy rainy forever rainy city.
But people are kind and one is never lost for too long if they simply refuse to be. After more silly phonecalls i discovered that i could get a lift through a ride share facebook group (Yay facebook!) to Mount Hood Meadows (the mountain i was working at) and hopefully hitch the extra 45minutes or so to Hood River. After this i was somewhat happier and my hostelling roomate happened to be a woman in her 50s who was going to Jackson Hole (awesome Ski resort) for the winter. She wanted to ski, work a temporary job, meet new people, live in a new place and basically adventure for a while. But she was 50 and had not done this before and she was frigthened (maybe a bit too frightened) about the future but she was doing it, she was living, trying to find something new and inspiring instead of just giving into the daily routine her life could be at this point. She bought us a floor picnic dinner to relax my worries; olives, feta, hummus, bread, crackers and a bottle of wine (which found us later giggling on the floor watching excerpts of Absolutely Fabulous on YouTube).

I awoke at 5am to take a bus and another bus to a car which promised to take me at least to the mountain where i would work at. So i met up with a bunch of excited snowboarders who were SO excited to spend the day on the mountain. The talk in the car was so infectious i was so bummed that i wouldn't spend the day flying around the mountain with them. "Why can't you?" they asked. "if you work there maybe they will give you your pass early."

I was absolutely sure that this plan would not work but as usual i know that you have more chance of receiving things you want when you ask for them. So i approached the conceirge who made a phone call to my soon-to-be boss and in 5 minutes i had been given my free ski day pass. I was elated, i asked the ski technicians to attach my bindings to my board (which they did for free and fixed it partially because he liked my South African accent) and soon i found myself on my snowboard again, after two years of its sole purpose being my pinano keyboard stand (a noble purpose yes, but not really performing its full potential).

In the afternoon the man who had given me a lift to the mountain saw his ex girlfriend, who yes, just happened to live in Hood River and who happened to want to leave at 3pm and yes, she happened to want to give me a lift there. Life :)

I had arranged a place to couchsurf in Hood River so I arrived at my new home (not knowing then that this would actually become my real home) and was meeted and greeted and chatted to. Showed to a huge room with a comforatble bed and found my way to sleep, accross the world, warm and safe.