Editing Vek's Journal on Randal (section)

=='''Visiting'''==
I spent a couple days in Tentar watching the races and setting up the garage.  I turned the small conference room/private office into a residence.  Fridge. Hammock.  Replicator.  Keg.  Nested really. 

By the third day my riding leathers had arrived. My painted bikes arrived.  I mounted the race bike in the frame and looked it over, tearing it down piece by piece till it was scattered around the garage.  Re-assembling it I had a fairly good idea of its strength and weaknesses.   Putting it up on the blocks I figured my job was done.

It was time to take a ride.    I had ordered a touring trailer and packed it heavily with native equipment.  The point was to blend in after all.  I then took to visit the world.  I figured six thousand miles on the road would teach me how to ride their vehicles and understand the people.

That brings me to the city of Ralst.

Ralst is a tropical sea port on the south edge of the main continent.  It does business with hundreds of islands in the southern archipelago.   The merchant shipping is brisk and the pleasure cruises are plentiful.  Maybe i'll take a trip south sometime but the water isn't what brought me.

This city reminds me of New Orleans on the Earth/Urth worlds, like the New Orleans of Lous's market.  I'm reminded strongly here that this universe has a Star Fleet that started on an Earth world and conquered the stars. Yet the capital of their Federation is no longer Earth but Vulsar base.   Maybe i'll take to the stars here and book a trip to Old Earth.  From what I read its treated largely as a Historical Amusement park.  That might be too much to bear. 

So this City is like that.  Steamy, boozy, musical, a mixture of races and parts of races.  A place where food styles are created and where they are enshrined.  As a connoisseur that part excited me.  As I rode into town I first hit roadside places that were part homesteads and part restaurant.   The first was called Dab's.  It served roast alligator and the damn things look 20' long.   I feasted.  They let me park my bike and pitch camp.   In the morning I had bacon steaks and alligator & peppers scrambled eggs.  And fluffy hearty biscuits.  

If I didn't have a destination in mind I might well have stayed to see who Deb was.   I am told hunting the 'gators is quite frolicsome and am intrigued.  Ill come back sometime to join in on a trip. I found local races and rode in them.  Won some, lost some, learned the trade. 

I left with 30 lbs of alligator jerky and a reputation as an aggressive racer. 


Arriving in town it was not hard to find bourbon and music.  The place was rife with it.  Urban but worn down.  This town was a thriving metropolis but some parts away from the commercial ports and still by the water had been relegated to those not in the shipping trade.  These places tend toward a seedy luster and look best at night.  So its residents sleep the day through and come out at dusk to make their livings and live their lives.

Its the nightlife I like.  I found a area where food and music mixed well.  The clubs had a familiar feel and I fit in well.  I stuck with bass guitar and saxophone at first, for the first few days.  Pushing a piano down the road get attention even here.