seattle IS supersonic

i just got back from basically the farthest place i could go in the entire country (continentally speaking, of course), seattle, washington. aside from eating my way through seattle, portland and olympia, i drank some beers and made some friends and had some fun adventures.

pinball wizards, rowboat trios, epic unplanned walks, sammiches every day, test rose gardens, gum wall, coolest library ever, best biscuits ever, mushroom hunting, doughnut testing, coney island themed bar, lighthouse slumber party, TOTALLY VEGAN GROCERY STORE, this sounds like the makings of a good vacation, no?

day one: gum wall, pike place market, seattle public library, water activities center

after taking the bus to the central district, my friend and i meandered through some pretty adorable city streets, back alleys and li'l parks. wandering our way up a hilly lane on the way to pike place market, we passed a sign for a ghost tour of seattle urging customers to "meet in front of the gum wall". "what's the gum wall?", i asked, and mere seconds later my question was answered, as if it wasn't obvious enough by the name. oh gum wall, in all your disgusting minty glory.

literally a wall with a shitload of gum on it

disgusted or contemplating licking it? you decide

we then met up with my friend justin, from delaware, who was on the tail end of his own seattle trip and we miraculously had a one day overlap. we both wanted to see the public library, which we had heard was pretty kickass. yeah, so the philadelphia free library is (and continues to be, thank god) pretty epic, but seattle public library, damn son! the library opened on 2004 and in it's first year attracted over 8,000 visitors a day. this behemoth boasts 9,994 pieces of exterior glass, enough steel to make 20 statues of liberties and 18,400 cubic yards of concrete (enough to cover 5 1/2 football fields, 1 foot deep). Beg pardon the "fun facts" i pulled from the website, but they really are rather remarkable. especially when you see the structure and realize all the materials it takes to make something of this magnitude. oh, also, there were 11 floors, apparently it can hold up to 1.45 million books!!!!!

more escalators should be neon

wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of center city, we hopped a bus to the WAC, the water activities center on university of washington campus. what this translates to is $8 an hour boat and canoe rentals. we rented a rowboat, donned our life jackets, and plastic oars in hand, embarked on an aquatic adventure. the first fifteen minutes consisted of paddling in circles, laughing, getting a bit annoyed, and finally getting it together. ironically, we spent most of our time zig zagging under tall highway overpasses, an epic and beautiful juxtaposition but not exactly nature-y. but then we saw a beaver’s dam and a blue heron! not too shabby for three city mice.

we were in none of these boats

lake goo, radioactive or magical?

going in circles, but playing it cool

as you surely know by now, i'm pretty verbose so we'll leave off here with just the end of day one. stay tuned for days 2 - 9! just kidding, i'll try to condense the rest. maybe.

-lauren