Seattle

Howdy everyone,

I'm sitting in the Seattle Public Library right now updating my blog for y'all to enjoy. Before I talk about the what I've done so far I wanna talk about the Seattle Public Library for a bit. I like it quite a bit. The first time I came here, last year, I was pretty freakin' disappointed, but visiting it again with lowered expectations has really increased my appreciation of it. The library here is very different from our beloved SLCPL, but that doesn't make it worse, just -as I said- different. This is a very quite library, a reflective introverted place, really traditional in that sense. The architechure on the other hand is modern, postmodern in fact. This library is all angles a sharp contrast to SLCPL's curves and though it is made entirely of glass, it is very dim. I'm enjoying it quite a bit this time round, very restful. I am in a much more fitting mood for the building this time, I just finished touring the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and the this library has a similar atmosphere. The SAM has a great impressionist exhibit in right now which serves as perfect companion to the UMFA Monet to Picasso exhibit I saw up at the U a couple weeks ago. The SAM exhibit focused on the the influence of Classical Paintings on the Impressionist, sometimes even showing side by the side the original painting and the the impressionist revision. Even Monet who often claimed he was wholely unifluenced by previous artistic movements is included and you can see striking similarities between his paintings and seventeenth century Dutch landscapes.
The SAM also has a wonderful Northwest First Peoples art gallery and an Aboringal art gallery. I've can't think of any other galleries I've visited which so Australian art, so I was very impressed with that. They also had a small Japanese section (made me think of you Liesl!) with a little Japanese tea ceremony hut, which was absolutely beautiful.
Yesterday was super awesome. After landing at the airport my budding Matt and I went to take care of some important details such as: Checking into our hotel, securing a ferry ticketup to victoria and a train ticket back from Vancouver (we were just going to take a train up to Vancouver too, but it was sold out. I didn't realize AMtrak trains every sold out, in fact I always assumed they were mostly empty, whho knew?) and eating lots and lots of sushi. We had four delicious rolls and I loved every bite. With those details out of the way we roamed the city for awhile, first visiting Pike place Market (they through a fish at someone it was awesome/ hillarious) the Olympic Sculpture Garden (the sculpture was so-so, but we ran into Matt's aunt 100% by chance and she's going to take us out to dinner tonight) and finally (the best for last) the Science Fiction Museum. The SF museum was awesome, the had Kirk's command chair from the TV series (do I even need to say anymore to make you envy this place) as well as TONS of other stuff from everything SF you can imagine Star Wars, Terminator, Red Dwarf, Blade Runner all kinds of pulp SF stuff from the 30s, 4os and 50s and a great collection of H.G. Wells stuff too. Awesome, awesome, awesome! By that time we ready for dinner so we found ourselves a grocery store and some hummus sprouts and pita bread for an awesome mediterreanean dinner. Then we headed out to check out the bars over in Belltown.

I feel like I should say more, but I gotta hurry and wrap this up so we can make it to happy hour. So long for now everyone.