Seattle. Thanks to a trick that Dana's boyfriend taught us in Portland, we spent most of our time trying to take the same image with multiple exposures to overlay them later. We are very pleased with the results (see photos below).
While in Seattle, we stayed with Carter (a college friend of my parents) and Ruth and their adorable kids, Gracie and Lili. It's been a long time since I'd seen Carter and Ruth and I'd never met the kids, so it was great to see them - Jay also got to reconnect with Dani, the world-conquering theater lioness (although he did miss the last reasonable bus home and then have to take 2 different random buses and then walk for about 30 minutes, getting back to Carter and Ruth's at about 3:00 AM).
On our first day, Ruth sweetly dropped us off near Fremont on her way to work, so we walked by the Fremont Troll...
...along the water...
...to Gasworks Park, which by all rights should probably NOT be publicly accessible (let alone invite people to sit down on the grass for a picnic), seeing as it's a rather toxic site. But it looks cool, so we walked through and enjoyed the views of downtown.
Then we went to the University of Washington campus, where I managed to lose my iPod (hurray!).
Luckily, despite the threatening clouds, it did not rain at all during our walk. We continued south across the river into Montlake, walking through the park and arboretum...
...and finally to Capital Hill to see my old house...
...and Volunteer Park.
We then ate lunch at a Korean restaurant (Kimchi Jjigae!), where Jay giddily thanked the chef in Korean (a high point of the day). Afterwards, we camped out in a café to relax while we waited to meet up with Dani. The actual meeting was mildly problematic, as Jay (1) told her we were Downtown, not on Capitol Hill and (2) had no rain gear, despite my warnings that morning. So when she gave us walking directions (which seemed suspiciously long), we started out from our café. A few minutes later, she called to inform us that she would be a bit late because of the rain. Rain? We looked up. What rain? Oops. So we hopped on a bus (to the rain), Jay got soaked, we had dinner with Dani, and all was well. I went home early, leaving Jay plenty of opportunity to do at least one more silly thing before the night was up (see bus story above). The sweetie does not disappoint. :-)
The next day, I started getting sick (thank you innumerable people in Portland who all apparently had the plague! I have joined your ranks.), so we said goodbye to Carter, Ruth and the girls and explored Downtown - we had lunch at Pike Place Market (which I have to say, now pales in comparison to Seoul's Noryanjin), walked around a bit, and went to the top of the Columbia Center for some photos. While there, a huge group of Koreans came in in business suits with a tour leader. It was cute and very Korean and we recognized a lot of words, which made us happy.
Finally, we picked up a bunch of Korean (are you noticing a pattern?) and Japanese food (and green tea) from Uwajimaya Market in the International District before preparing to get on the train to Glacier Park, Montana.
For now, I leave you with images of Downtown Seattle. Stay tuned :-)
