Blog #12: Seattle Trip

It's our last blog entry of the semester!  If you recall, I went to Seattle 5.5 weeks ago, so I thought I'd share some pictures.

I have only been on a plane a few times before, so I was super nervous while we were waiting in the terminal in Burbank early Friday morning.  Our first official trip picture was of our feet!

 

Even though I was nervous about taking off, landing in Washington was amazing.  We flew over the city, and it was breathtaking.

I was in Compton until

late Thursday night,
and then we left early the following morning, so I was very tired on Friday.  We flew to Seattle, had lunch, walked around in the rain (trying to find a place where we could buy a second umbrella), took a nap, and then had a nice dinner.  I didn't take any pictures; however, my partner snapped one of me standing under a big, red art installation with my umbrella.

On the second day, we did virtually all of our sightseeing.  We went to a doughnut place in the morning, walked past the Space Needle, and then checked out the EMP Museum.

 

John said that I couldn't post any pictures of him, but I am going to anyway, lol.  I kept snapping pictures of him as we were walking, and he kept yelling at me to quit it :)

We could see the Space Needle almost everywhere we went.  It was always looming off in the distance.









The exterior of the EMP museum was very bizarre; there's a section made up of metal panels, a section that is red, a section that looks kind of like an iceberg, etc., and the city's monorail runs through it. 

Our main reason for going to the museum was because there was a Battlestar Galactica exhibit that I wanted to see.  I took tons of nerdy pictures, but most of them turned out dark and blurry since you aren't supposed to turn on the flash.

There is a giant Nirvana exhibit at the museum.  The coolest thing that we saw was Kurt Cobain's sweater.  (Not just any ol' sweater, the famous sweater!)  When I turned the corner and saw this, my eyes got a little misty, and I could feel a lump in my throat.  It was amazing.

There was also a Jimmy Hendrix exhibit with tons of "artifacts."  They had the guitar he used to play his famed rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock and a Bob Dylan album that Hendrix owned.

Downstairs, there was a small horror movie exhibit.  We saw Edward Scissorhand's scissor-hands.  The museum also had a room full of guitars from various time periods and an exhibit devoted to the movie Avatar.



Our hotel had a Whole Foods downstairs, so we were able to get lunch/snacks each day with ease. After we left the museum, we walked back to the hotel and then drove to a couple of places.  Our first stop was the Fremont Troll.  Yes, I'm a dork and I shoved my hand up its nose :)

Next, we drove to Gas Works Park.  There are plenty of parks in Seattle, but this one looked the most unique.  My partner had just purchased the new iphone, so he had fun editing our pictures with some fancy camera app.

The thing that blew me away the most about Seattle was the leaves.  I had never seen red/orange/yellow fall leaves before.

After we left the park, we drove to the Japanese Garden.  I took dozens of pictures (literally). 

 

I am the least photogenic person on the planet--I look like a hideous monster in pictures!--but John got a couple non-ugly ones of me not looking at the 

camera :)

When we left the garden, we dropped the rental car off at the hotel and then walked down to Pike's Place.  The market was so crowded that we ran though it in less than five minutes.  Once we got back outside, we strolled along the water; went past the aquarium, Pioneer Square, and the art museum (SAM); had dinner; and then called it a night.  Unfortunately, we forgot to do the Underground Tour, which had come highly recommended by quite a few people.

At the water, there was some odd statue of a man feeding seagulls.  It had a chair in front of it, so I jumped in and pretended like I was feeding the seagulls too.  John gets embarrassed when I take silly pictures, but I can't resist.  We have tons of them.

Overall, Saturday was a long day of looking at stuff and of walking.  Luckily, it didn't rain.

The next morning, we had the most delicious breakfast ever at a place called Serious Biscuit, checked out of the hotel, drove around for a while, and then flew home to California.  We didn't get back to Glendale until Sunday evening.  As we were landing, I snapped our last trip picture, a picture of the Valley.

Taking a weekend anniversary trip in the middle of the semester (my first vacation in years!) was tough because I got behind on grading/work, but it was totally worth it.  We had a wonderful time, and I fell in love with Seattle.  The cold weather was delicious, and there was tons to see--and to eat!  I hope to head back there in the future.