6/15

I slept so good. Lovely breakfast at the B&B. There was the female proprietor & an elderly female guest, both of them seemed First Nation, and me. It was a big table right in the kitchen, the place is truly just like a home, everything sized & decorated as a big country family of some bygone area. The older guest had grown up here, worked in canneries, was back for some young relative's high school graduation. The owner was retired cooking for BC Ferries. They talked of oogly-booglies (or something like that, local loch-ness-like humped sea monsters, explained away by scientists as mere waves) and "spirit bears", white grizzlies. It was fun, but it reminded me of the Fijji B&B, where the woman brought out food, served family style, we ate our fill, it was good; then she brought out the unexpected 2nd course. To be polite, tho we'd each already eaten our fill, we ate this too. And then there was the 3rd.

Even these local people expressed amazement at how light the nite had been, til maybe midnite. (I can personally attest to 11pm, it was still quite lite.)

Right outside the windows, bald eagles swoop about, as common it seems as pigeons.

I resolved to stay in Prince Rupert 1 more day.

Back on the docks, i unloaded (considerable) beer cans accumulated from Alaska to the very tidy & organized recycling bins. The marina manager happened to be busy there, i think he must always be busy, yet also ready to converse at length, sorting recycling categories and sterilyzing, it seemed, the perfect blue bins. I told him Alaska doesnt seem to do recycling, at all. He agreed, expounding on recycling in the states vs BC. In BC, he said, not only are they serious about recycling, but the material is processed, then put back to use, in BC, whereas in the States it seems it's all shipped to China for gosh sakes. And i agreed, recycling in the US is about feel good, not about practical use.

I took the city bus out into the country, 4$C 1-way, visited a restored cannery museum, it was very interesting, well done, well presented.

Back afternoon, i hit the local brew-pub again. But this confused me: so i've consumed ny brew & chowder, but no napkins anywhere. I noticed this similarly in Ketchikan at a similar establishment, fingers/face dripping from ~fine dine, not a napkin to be seen anywhere, i had to ask for 1 there. Here, likewise, i explained i'm from Lower 48, there it seems McDonalds gives you like 30 napkins, why none here? I truly was curious about this cultural phenomena.

The young server, holding emptied beer mug in 1 hand and my emptied bowl in the other, glanced down at them, they were clearly getting heavy, she was busy, no doubt used to The Ugly American, and definitely not in mood for such inter-cultural philosophyzing. She returned unapologeticly/passive-aggressively with 3 thick over-kill napkins.

If this wasnt bad enuf on my part, then i was confused about the bill, the paper receipt showing ~25$C. Maybe it's just because i live in Trinity County CA, but i've never seen this there: in both Canada &n Alaska, in any restaurant, if you present a credit card, they dont wander off with your card, rather they hand you a portable electronic device, into which you insert your card. Then you carefully follow the prompts (designed to make you feel like an idiot, because every device it seems is different), add the tip (again, every method is different, the most annoying just present alternative dollar amounts, most-higher some-lower than you would consider), some even ask about exchange rate-related choices (pay in US or Canadian $?), and you'r done. Rolled paper spews from the device, you endeavor to squash it flat, sign 1, keep the other.

In my case, i then instantly get a txtmsg from Capital One, informing me of the use of my credit card, in case some fraudster. So the txtmsg i got instantly reported a charge of ~22$US.

So again i request assistance from the overworked disinterested server. Here, the receipt says $25. The exchange rate is roughly 75cents US to $1canadian. "I know," she says immediately, no doubt expressing not only "Duh" but also her nation's shame.

OK, i say, so 1/4 of 25 is roughly $6, so i'd expect the US equiv to be $19, but Cap1 reports $22. Help me out here.

"Did you add a tip?" she asks, restraining to add: "Idiot?"

Yes i'm an idiot, and i wasnt finished this day.

Back at the marina, i've placed my laundry into the perfect washer in the spic-span wash-room/laundry complex. I open the little drawer where one pours the laundry detergent, and am confronted with *4* compartments, no idea which 1 is appropriate for my goo. At that moment, a wisened white-haired man enters and studies the take-1/leave-1 bookshelf. I relate to him my deep interest in user interfaces: how does one, when confronted with some unfamiliar device, decide what to do?

"Did you read the instructions?"

Truly, that never occurred to me.

- -

I was to loan my truck to a woman, so i was explaining to her how to open the tailgate, which had a broken handle. It was complicated, it involved manipulating an exposed internal rod behind a removed plate, even then striking at a certain spot at some certain moment to release the mechanism. And she looked at me and asked, incredulously: "Why dont you just get it fixed?"

That thot, never occurred.

- -

It rains. Out in the channel, empty waiting coal ships swing with the tide.

Today I also visited the Port of Prince Rupert Visitor Center, very well-funded & done. But it was the excellent interpreter at the Cannery that revealed that within 5 years, "all", he said, container shipping from Asia to Canada, the US, and Mexico, will be thru Prince Rupert, because, simply, geographicly, it is very much closer to Asia, and because fact is it is cheaper to ship by rail than sea. In 5 years, the single railroad track, of which i complained during my helpless maroon in PortEdwards, trains over 2miles long, will be *5* adjacent lines. This is capitalism. I wonder the impact on US container ports: Long Beach, Oakland, et al, as well as US railroads and truckers.