Take Your Seattle: Day 4

This post was originally named 'Didn't We Have a Lovely Time the Day We Went to Seattle?' but that was too long, and rather arcane. Why can't I name posts properly? I guess I don't have a good enough memory for enigmatic lyrics.

So day three we hooked up with a ebullient Kiwi named Angela for the day. She was travelling with a cask of embryos to take back to her workplace, which was a sperm bank in London (they asked her at the airport if she was travelling with anyone else and she was like, "Well, four potential people...") We went to Pioneer Square again and then went around Chinatown, but there wasn't much to do. Charlotte and I proposed Bubble Tea, but no takers. So we went to The Crumpet Shop in Pike's Place market for Second Breakfast (you know it's a bad sign when you're eating like a hobbit). This was very English and genteel, plus they had Marmite, if you're an ex-pat who likes that sort of thing.

A little more time looking round Pike's Place, because seriously that place is labyrinthine, and then we went to Pirate's Plunder, the cheesiest pirate-themed shop in the world. We had a seafood lunch on the seafront, watching the rain outside and the boats slosh around. Following this was checking out time, very sad. The Green Tortoise hostel truly is a superior specimen.

On the way back we stopped off at the Seattle City Library, which is architecturally very interesting. (I have pictures, these will turn up soon.) It was a weird glass and metal structure which despite bizarre construction seemed to turn out as a very effective public library. Nice. Train journey back was uneventful, I slept through most of it and Alice wrote "Alice is my idol! She rocks my world." on my arm (this still hasn't quite come off). Completely knackered by the time we got back, so sat around drinking G&Ts and watching Scrubs.

So, hooray! That was our Seattle trip. I would recommend Seattle, it is officially ACE.

Seattle Tattle: Day 3

Aah, worst rhyme ever. Does anything good rhyme with Seattle? Should I be rhyming unsupervised?

So day 3 again began with me sleeping in. Charlotte attempted to wake me up for breakfast, I was apparently feeling grumpy and told her to shove it. I don't remember this. Alice and Charlotte kindly made me eggs and toast and tea, (the hostel had a DIY breakfast policy), and I got up eventually.

First thing we went to Seattle Aquarium, which is on the waterfront near the market. They had seals, fish, octopuses, and sea otters. Sea otters are the cutest animals in the world; take away your baskets of puppies, your tiny baby bunnies, sea otters are cuter. I have an awful lot of sea otter facts if anyone is interested, they are fascinating as well as cute. We went around the aquarium with a Scottish guy we met at the hostel called Andrew, (though we persisted in calling him Bart McHamish), he also went around with us for most of the rest of the day, including Mexican food for lunch. This is why hostels are the way to go, you meet people.

Next we checked out Pioneer Square, which is the original and oldest section of Seattle. Wandered around a little, and went to the basement coffee shop in the Elliot Bay bookstore, which was apparently the inspiration for the one in Frasier, (have to admit, it only partially looked like it, but we liked the vibe). The Underground Tour went from Pioneer Square, where a guide shows you the abandoned underground rooms and passageways underneath the entire section of Seattle. There was a fire in 1889 and they decided to relevel the streets about two stories higher because it was crap marshy land, but some sections of the buildings got left behind. A lot like the underground sections of Edinburgh actually, though in Edinburgh they are keener on telling you about all the ghosts that live there.

Before it got dark we went up the Smith Tower, which cost us four bucks (much cheaper than the Space Needle). It had the whole bit of ornate brass lift doors, attendants and swanky lounge music playing softly in the background. We went up 30 or 40 floors to the observation deck where we could see the whole beautiful city at sunset. People were gathering for a Rolling Stones concert, we could see the traffic backed up for miles.

In the evening we got a sub and chatted some more to other hostel denizens, and headed out to see a play by the Seattle Rep. We got cheap tickets and I'm pretty sure we were the only ones that came by bus. The play was Doubt, it won the writer a Pulitzer a few years ago. Doubt was about a nun and a priest, and the nun was convinced that the priest was a paedophile- it wasn't as heavy as this implies, but was thought-provoking and actually funny. So we did find things that happen in the evening in Seattle when one is not 21. Seriously though, what do young people do in the city past 9:30?

The Seattles- Day 2

Yes, I did amuse myself for about half an hour by saying 'The Seattles', as if George, Ringo, John and Paul lived here (especially George). Pronounciation is hilarious. So, day two was pretty good on the whole. It began with us all sleeping in somewhat, and Charlotte having difficulty with the bunk bed ladder. They were a lot of trouble actually, so very high up and difficult to navigate when sleepy. We missed hostel-provided breakfast so went to the Sound View cafe in Pike's Place market, which was awful, even though you could indeed see Puget Sound (I think). The tea was so bad it made me want to sob into my toast.

Ha, then we went and had a manicure, which cheered us up. There was one on the next block, it seemed like a thing to do...I would recommend a manicure, it is most enjoyable and relaxing, and about every hour for the last few days we've found ourselves gazing dreamily at our pristine nails. Mine are blue like the sky.

Next on Day 2 we went to the Seattle center, (imaginative name), where they keep all the tourist trap stuff. This is where the Space Needle is, which you may remember from the Frasier opening credits skyline; it is fairly pricey to go up, and it was cloudy enough to obscure the view from the top, so we stayed on the ground. I have actually been up before many years ago on my last trip to Seattle, and have also gone in the revolving restaurant at the top, which was pretty fantastic but even pricier. Setting off from the Seattle Center is the Duck tour: a Duck is an ex-military kind of vehicle which can travel on both land and water, so on the tour it drives all around the city and then out onto Elliot Bay. Elliot Bay has expensive yachts and really beautiful houseboats, one of which was used in Sleepless in Seattle (we saw it, it was pretty). We also had a decent view of the skyline, though it was again quite grey. The tourguide told us some interesting information but also spent much of the time singing along to disco hits such as Play That Funky Music, White Boy, wearing stupid hats, and telling sub-Dad Joke puns. They also gave us some plastic thingumajigs to make duck noises, if we felt the need. Also at the Seattle Center was the EMP, which stands for Popular Music Museum somehow, and isn't that great for the money unless you enjoy large amounts of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia.

In the evening we were stuck for things to do remembering the "under 21s aren't allowed any fun" rule, so we ate in the hostel and then went out for a movie (Science of Sleep) We talked to some Scots who told us horror stories about the sketchy people they had stayed with when backpacking through California. (Guns, rats, cockroaches, slugs, the windows nailed shut...)

Hello from Seattle!!!!!

Cheesy post title, sorry. But yes, we are in Seattle, staying in the Green Tortoise hostel which has hot and cold running internet and no cockroaches so far. Actually it's pretty nice for a hostel, and I have the top bunk.

We got here by train this morning, took about three hours Portland to Seattle. Everything was grey out the window, and we kept taking very high railway bridges over rivers we couldn't identify.

The Green Tortoise is up the road from Pike's Place Market, so we spent a good while exploring that this afternoon. It is semi-famous, mostly because in the fish market section they throw fish to each other (to speed up serving and show off). The market is huge and sells everything, I love that kind of place. We had lunch in a bijou Chinese cafe overlooking Elliot bay.

This evening was spent mostly wandering aimlessly around downtown Seattle, it was a bit depressing quite frankly. The place is pretty dead on a Sunday evening, and there were so many places that wouldn't let us in cause of a No Minor policy. We couldn't even go bowling! Bloody America. Well, we saw some good bits of downtown, including the Space Needle. I think we'll see it again tomorrow.

Bleh

Hello kittens,

I have not been posting lately because I 've had a whole bunch of work to do, what with it being pre-Fall Break week. So no wasteful blog entries for me! But then I've been procrastinating so much this week I thought why not.

I'm sitting in the library right now, looking out at the sun and the trees and a group of Prospies being shown around campus by an over-enthusiastic senior (I can tell he's over-enthusiastic just by looking at his hand gestures through the window). I've spent a good part of today in the ETC centre where the people who know about computers work. I was having trouble connecting to the network and printing my Linguistics homework so they spent two hours messing with firewalls and removing a veritable KGB of spyware from my laptop. (72 problem items, I think that's bad...) Poor infected lappy, it runs slower than a pensioners' three-legged race. So now I'm in the library finishing off my Empire and the Novel paper, but I'm not very motivated since we just got an extension, though I know I'll have to do it some time.

Over Fall break Alice, Charlotte and I are going to Seattle for a few days. We'll be staying in the Green Tortoise hostel which is opposite Pike's Place Market, (where they throw fish at each other). Ooh, there are so many fun things to do in Seattle, I will tell you what we got up to next week. I will also include pictures, but they won't be my pictures since my camera got nicked when we visited Mount St.Helens and Multnoma Falls last weekend. All the compromising pictures I had collected for bribe money, gone!

Well, best get back to my paper. This has been such a boring day. Well, things will improve this evening. I think at the very least we will watch Veronica Mars and start on my red wine stash. Could be worse...

Blooming Fandom and Help Needed

I went with my friend Hannah on Tuesday to see the season premiere of Veronica Mars, which they were screening at a local movie theatre. It was awesome. I feel a new obsession brewing here. When Buffy was cancelled it left a huge gap in my life, but with Veronica Mars, I sense there is consolation to be had. Which is of course what fellow Buffy fans have been telling me for ages. But I couldn't watch it back home! Here in the US, I have the opportunity; we will kick everyone out of the common room for one hour every Tuesday. The cinema showing was great btw: it was packed full of die-hard fans, there was trivia in the commercial breaks, and they gave me free home-made cookies for being a Veronica Mars newbie. Hannah and I went home and immediately ordered seasons 1 and 2 off Amazon.

So, speaking of Hannah "Battlecat" Baker, she has a radio show on Reed FM, which I appear on, every Wednesday at 4pm. It is primarily a talk show, with various half-defined segments and a lot of arguing. Every show starts with a serial, which Hannah writes, it is totally funny. The premise is that most of history's important writers have been transported to 21st century Portland for no apparent reason, and the action centres on Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde, who share an apartment in the city. It is the best literary radio soap I have ever heard, no kidding.

Anyway, I was thinking that a cool thing to talk about on the radio would be English dialect stuff. Specifically I was thinking that I could read out a bunch of fantastic gritty Northern slang terms, and explain it to the stupid Americans on air. For education and for kicks. So I need your help Yorkshire folk, what should I talk about? What's your favourite Hudds terminology?

"Is that Sean Penn?! Oh no, it's a tree."

Have I mentioned Reed is photogenic? It is terribly photogenic. Hence why they occasionally film sections of movies here. They were filming one earlier this year with Morgan Freeman (note the filming locations, all in the immediate area), now there are film crews around for another, directed by Sean Penn. It is called Into the Wild, which I think is a lame title, and is about getting back to nature or something. They were calling for extras in a crowd scene to be filmed next Saturday, but I decided I will go on a trip to see the biennial at Portland Art Museum instead; it sounded like you had to sit around wearing smart casual pastels (to simulate a Southern summer) all day long, not very interesting. We have been walking around looking at members of the film crews to see if we can identify any of them as Sean Penn, but no luck so far: "Ooh look, Sean Penn oh no it's just a grumpy-looking guy."

In other news: I have dropped a Lit class so in theory my workload should be lighter. Free Verse was getting severely tedious, we kept having to do things like count stresses and measure out the clitic phrases in various lines of poetry, (and I still don't know exactly what that means, but it sounds kind of rude). I had a good day in art class, the teacher kept singling out my drawings to talk about to the rest of the class. She also said something about my having a dynamic, dramatic line. I said I was just impatient, and she said that was ok because life was filled with impatience; I can't lose!

The 'M' Stands for AwesoMe!

So as previously mentioned I saw M Ward in Manchester a few weeks before I came out here, and then I saw him again in Portland last night! He was in the Aladdin Theater (note US spelling) but got moved to the much larger Crystal Ballroom due to high demand. Well done M, much bigger audience than the cosy Manchester pub I saw him in last. So he was very good and the atmos was filled with excitement because it was the final date of the tour and a homecoming gig. All the coolest musicians come from Portland. Went with Britta, Aya and Amanda, and we went to an actual bar beforehand. What a relief.

Sorry for this if you've never heard of M.Ward by the way. (He's rubbish.) The Crystal Ballroom was an interesting space, with the chandeliers and the murals on the walls. Oh, and they had a big barrier down the centre of the room, with under 21's on one side and everyone else on the other side next to the bar. Apparently in smaller venues they just have a bunch of 'Caution' tape strung around the bar to discourage young uns. Hee hee...