Seattle Part 2 of 2

After seeing the Seal in all it's glory, I went to the nearby Olympic Sculpture park. Deceiving in it's name, the park had nothing to do with the Olympics. Hell, it was barely relative to sculptures. Luckily, and I mean thank the higher spirit lucky, there were descriptions for each sculpture so we knew what exactly the artist was thinking when he came up with these monstrosities fine pieces of work.

Well that was five minutes of my life I will never get back. I did get a little chuckle from this though. I mean ... just because she works with a smile she gets her own hut? Hardly seems just. Oh well, enjoy your job and you get your own set up. Lesson learnt.

My immature chuckle aside, I returned to the hostel to recharge the batteries. After two hours I reemerged into great Seattle, in the rain (no Jacket of course, that would just be too damn logical) to hit up the famous Seattle Market (famous in Seattle anyway). Home of the Original Starbucks!

How someone can take such blurry pictures of inanimate objects is a Mystery. Embarrassingly, there is a new Starbucks on the same street that I got to first. I almost took a picture of that Starbucks which would have been very awkward. I am happy I saw the signs of modernity (they had wifi, and new age materials. not something a 1971 building would have)and perceived adversity in finding the new Starbucks.

Also at the Pine street market was a booth where men literally through fish to each other - as if anyone would say that figuratively. I was waiting for my Korean in food, because as they say, when in Rome, and there was some hollering across the way. These men were just chucking massive sword fish and other fishes at each other and shouting. It was quite the spectacle.

I also went to a famous cheese shop and got a Kraft dinner, apparently ranked second in the world for Kraft dinner. Fantastic. I then mopped back to the hostel in the Rain to catch the hockey games. Good day all in all.

Lastly for all my South Park Fans out there:

Seattle Part 1 of 2

Seattle is a cool town. It's basically Vancouver but smaller and more american. But I mean, the climate and what not. The game plan for the day was to walk to the Seattle Needle, where there are few museums, then head to Union Park, by Union Lake, and return to the hostel down Edwards trail. It almost worked out.

After continental breakfast (sidebar, continental breakfasts at hostels are weak) my first stop was Walgreens to pick up some Batteries and a Cherry coke. That went well, but the problems started there. I went in the front door and exited in the rear, or the opposite, it completely bamboozled my sense of direction. I was no longer able to picture myself on the Google Map that I looked at before starting my day. But I did still know which was way up, and that was helpful, because up was the direction of the Seattle Needle ... a spectacle in it's own worth. I hate tall things. I dislike the CN Tower, the Tour d'eiffel. Sears building was pretty cool actually, but other than that ... so I didn't go up it. But here are a couple of shots I took of it throughout the day.

See how it looks the same from every angle. Fascinating.

Next to that there is the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and a Music Museum. Sticking to my "Not spending money other than way too much on food" budget, I didn't go into either. But check out this freaky building. It's in several shots because my photography skills are lazy and poor.

I then looked at other things that required payed admission before leaving the area and heading for the coastal trail. Trouble started here.
You see, the trail was between the Railroads and the coast. To stop people from getting on the railroad, there was a big fence next to it, making the trail in view but absolutely not accessible. Weak. I was determined to get there, but there was no break in the fence in sight. Well ... whatever, I will head for the lake and double back later... right?
Well, disoriented, I forgot what the name of the street towards the lake was. Might not have been going the right direction to be honest. But I did find what appeared to be a park. Some woods anyway, and it advertised a view point and tennis courts.
I headed up through the woods where I was happy to see that Seattlenites had as little respect for the keep your dog on a leash rule as Frederictonians. It was a small park with a crappy tennis court and a mediocre view, but it was a decent detour.

Wait, no it wasn't it was a terrible detour. It brought me right into the middle of absolute nowhere. In some suburb on top of a mountain. Every road down was a dead end blocked off by roofs. Oh and as some of the pictures so far suggest, it did start raining at this point. I wouldn't say I was lost, I knew where I wanted to be, just no idea how to get there. I walked to six dead ends before finding a road, well off the beaten course, that got me down the hill.
But after that it was a simple walk back tot he trail, the one I wanted to be on an hour ago. Alas, I was there, time to start making my way back to the hostel, or at least back into town. The skyscrapers were pretty far away, I don't remember coming this far.

The walk on the sea line was nice. I like water, and seeing it out into it was pretty good.

I also ran into this elusive bastard.

Part two to follow.

Portland

Portland is pretty nice. I got off the train, exhausted, and went to the hostel to watch the Preds game online (followed by all other games that night)
Portland has the largest forest inside city limits in the United States. Woopti doo. I decided to check it out, went for a 5 hour hike, got lost (the maps were terribly messed up) got unlost and made it back to the hostel. Really a pretty uneventful day. The forest was really really nice, but my camera was out of batteries and I only got the chance to take one picture before it completely abandoned life.

Some Pictures from the Train Ride (LA - Portland)

29 hours on the train was a long long long time. But the scenery was quite nice.

When I woke up ... it was like being in a new world.

Ducks Game

First and foremost, the answer to the poll is Tootoo, I am surprised most of you guest that. Congrats.

Holy crap. Just the whole thing, unfriggen believable.
The crowd in Anaheim sucks. They really do, heck the two women next to me didn't show up again after the second period. Not like the tickets were cheap either. I really don't remember ordering the seats I got, but I ended up two rows from the ice, to the right of the net.

You couldn't have asked for a more exciting game. From Bobby Ryan's amazing breakaway goal to Weber's game tying last minute goal.

Midway through the second the two people behind me decided they had consumed enough alcohol to start dangling their Ducks towel over my head and 'accidentally' hitting me in the back of the neck with it while they randomly swung it.
When the preds tied the game at 2 – 2 I stood up and cheered only to get booed from the rest of my section. I particularly enjoyed that.
After Weber scored the goal with his goalie pulled I jumped out of chair looking for high fives, you know because it was overtime and we were getting our money's worth, but was given stares of hatred from the fellow hockey fans.
When the Predators won it a minute into overtime I knew it was a good time to keep my head down and get out of there with as little celebration as possible. The mumble and grumble of the crowd indicated their displeasure. I took the jersey off, for my own safety, once we left the rink but still some people saw it and yelled very pleasant obscenities at me.
Here is me and my home boy Head Coach Barry Trotz chilling before the game. No big. Just palling around.

I moved to their end for Warm up.

Once the game got going though, I went to my seat.