Seattle, Day 1, Part 2

 A shot of Zeitgeist Coffee after I woke up from my afternoon nap. Kate and I have an obnoxious habit of photographing places we consume things.

 There were two old train stations in Seattle not too far from Pioneer square. The interior of the Amtrack station was quite ornate and the white paint really makes it quite striking.

Chinatown in Seattle is not much to behold, Vacant by day, and probably some place we wouldn't want to walk at night. It frankly made me appreciate Boston's Chinatown much more. There was a "gate" to the neighborhood, as many of them have and you can see it in the distance.

 Inside the public library. It was quite a great building, for a change Lonely Planet was actually right about something. The stacks were all connected by a giant handicap ramp that zig-zagged down the 11 story interior. The building is fairly new opening in 2004, but alas new to me is old to others. The color schemes are very bright, and before reading about the library I might have guessed that it was older, but I think the interior design is perhaps just a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s modernism. Look at me pretend I know what I'm talking about.

 Oooooh Monorail. Are you thinking about the Simpsons episode where the con-artist comes to town? Sad what an obscure pop-culture reference coupled with a deficiency of monorails can do to my brain. The monorail is only about a mile long, but we coughed up the money to have this essential Seattle experience. It took us from downtown to the Science/Space Needle park. At the park the Pride festivities were going full throttle, and rather than being the only sober people in what was a giant outdoor rave we decided to come back later.

 These flower sculptures were near the Chihuly (glass sculptor) museum in the "Seattle Center" park that harbors the remnants of the World's fair. I'm actually not quite sure how we managed to avoid getting someone in fishnet stockings twirling around in a circle in this shot. These flowers actually "sing" when the wind blows over them.

 This is Olympic Sculpture Park. The pictures don't really do this justice. It was great walking around here, a serene refuge from the city. The Puget Sound is adjacent and there are some nice paths along the water.

 Those of you linking in from Facebook will recognize this. There are actually sounds playing through these when you sit down. I'm not sure if it was a recording or the wind operating some sort of mechanic contraption. I'd like to think the latter.

 This sequence of Kate sort of reminds me of a strip of photo booth shots. I was going to keep only the "best" in the blog, but who am I kidding they are all kind of good.

 This was kind of cool, I'm suspicious that it was computer generated and therefore not perhaps as impressive as a true original sculpture. This said the plaque adjacent to it did not suggest this. It reminded me of a conehead, although I don't think that is exactly what they were going for.

 Exhausted we had some comfort food here a block from our hotel. Sitting outside was great and the classic Americanized Mexican food is apparently a neighborhood favorite according to the guidebooks.

 This ends our first jet-lagged day in Seattle. Day 2 coming soon.

The Pacific Northwest, day 1 part 1

As promised, I will start writing about a recent trip to Washington and Oregon that Kate and I took in early July. This trip was very last minute it was looking as though we would be having a staycation or perhaps a drive up to Montreal and Quebec, and we pulled the trigger and rolled the dice weeks before the vacation. Both Kate and I had been busy between school and work, and we now had a bit of a break. This trip was a welcome reprieve and I have no regrets!

 The first day in Seattle happened to coincide with pride day, and of course our hotel ended up being on the opposite side of the parade route. While the atmosphere was fun and memorable, we were tired and I couldn't help but grumble a bit when we were told by an officer that we'd have to walk out of our way to get around the route. We stayed at the Belltown Inn which I would recommend to anyone looking for an affordable, clean hotel in Seattle. The neighborhood was nice close to restaurants, bars and the space needle and it was a short walk to the public market, which is similar to Fanieul hall in Boston, but is more of a functioning food market than a glorified food court. It has a fantastic atmosphere, and some scenic views of Puget Sound. We would have our first meal here (I had a lovely Salmon sandwich), and would walk through it a couple of times.

 Local brew in the market, waiting for my food!

 Characteristic clouds in Seattle, however we typically had beautiful blue skies throughout our trip.

 Totem poles, apparently Seattle "stole" one of these from the Native Americans in the area, and later was made to pay up.

 The original Starbucks in the Public Market. The inside doesn't really look any different than the average Starbucks, but people still wait many minutes to get in. The primary difference- the mermaid has nipples.

 This totem pole is in Pioneer Square, a historic district that had an interesting museum on the "Gold Rush" and how it essentially built Seattle. While there was no gold in Seattle, the city became a stopping off point for those headed to the Yukon. Below I am passed out tired from walking and jet-lag at Zeitgeist Coffee, which was ranked #9 of Seattle's Coffee houses on the list I've linked to.

Am I ready to walk more? Maybe, either way I will.

Where did I leave off?

I've had substantial difficulty accessing this blog given my long period of inactivity. I haven't been writing due to a preoccupation with my Master's degree which was recently completed, as well as other time consuming aspects of my life.

Provided I can get back in here, I will continue the old travel blog style posts, because I know most of you hate my politics. I'll probably do a dump of the stuff I never got around to posting from Barcelona, and then I'll document the trip Kate and I recently took to the Pacific Northwest. Anyway, provided I can get back in here, stay tuned.