Reporting to You Live

After Toledo's relatively poor welcome to the Buckeye State, it was a refreshing change of pace to arrive at Oberlin College, buried deep amidst the drabness of Ohio's agricultural heartland. I literally know a dozen people in Seattle who've graduated from Oberlin, and thought I should stop by and check out the Midwest's most dependable hipster factory while I was passing through. I stayed with a great guy, David, fellow outdoors enthusiast and all-around good guy, who helped to introduce me to the campus' extensive student co-op network, and, in the process, about half the student population. The night I arrived, David and his roommates were having a triple birthday, in the form of a curanto, a traditional "barbecue" from the island of Chiloé in Chile. The rather elaborate dish involves digging a large hole in the ground, heating up several large stones in a fire until red-hot, placing them in the hole and piling alternating layers of cabbage leaves, clams, beef, pork ribs, chicken, sausages, onions, potatoes and garlic, and covering it all up to let cook for hours as a sort of pressure cooker. To be sure, the karma that one will enivitably reap from the destruction of so many creatures' lives for a single culinary dish is outweighed only by its sheer tastiness.

After my meat-filled visit to Oberlin, it was back on the road for a very drizzly, muggy two days travel through the hills of eastern Ohio, and into Pennsylvania. The hills surprised me, both in their existence (I guess I didn't really know when Appalachia began) and their scale. Miles and miles of the steepest hills I've ridden on this trip passed underneath me; if it hadn't been for traffic, I'd've easily been able to cross the elusive 50 mph threshold. I followed the ups and downs all the way into Pittsburgh, which is where I am now, and will continue to be for the next couple of days.

I've met up with some local brass band brethren, the Breakaway Marching Band, and together we aim to fill the streets with music for as much of the G20 protests as we are able to. Today was my first day playing with them; we took part in a student march and rally at Carnegie Mellon, and went "caroling" this evening, leading a crowd of people in protest songs, parading through the downtown area. It poured buckets and buckets of rain earlier today (mostly the bike ride back home), to the point where I ended up with a large reservoir of water inside the bell of my baritone and the contents of my saddlebag immersed in a pool at the bottom (including my poor, poor camera). The next two days (the actual dates of the G20 conference) are filled with more parades, protests, dances and workshops, and I'm planning to attend as many of them as I can.

The police presence here is obscenely huge, and it seems as if everyone is gearing up for conflict, no doubt exacerbated by relentless media reports of nonexistent violent protesters. Tomorrow's major protest and march, beginning at Arsenal Park, is distinctly un-sanctioned by the city, and everyone is looking to that event to be the fuse that sets everything off. I expect it'll be largely peaceful, but we'll see! I'll try and keep this updated if there ends up being anything fun to share.