Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Seattle Cheese Festival

Two weekends ago Robb and I decided to head to Pike Place Market Saturday afternoon to partake in the Seattle Cheese Festival. It started out awesome because we found an awesome parking garage right next to Pike Place Market that is only $6 on the weekend (see the picture on the left to see how close we were)! What a find! Robb and I have become quite the cheese connoisseurs, so we were excited about trying samples upon samples of free cheese (almost free, we donated the suggested dollar per person. Oh, and then I bought a Cheese Festival shirt.) The streets were packed. Everyone was out to enjoy cheese and sunshine. The weather was unseasonably hot (not only unseasonable for May, but unseasonable for the Northwest in general); I'm talking 90 degrees here! I have to admit that I did complain a bit. I don't really like crowds and I don't like the hot weather. (Yes, I know I lived in Florida, but there is a reason that I decided to leave.) But we came up with a system where I would stand back and Robb would squeeze in between the crowds to grab two cheese samples to bring them back to me so we could try them again. Yummy cheese. We ended up buying a couple of different cheeses for bargain prices.



We didn't want to go home after the Cheese Festival and it was getting cooler as the afternoon/evening wore on. So we decided to head to a restaurant we've been wanting to try in Phinney Ridge. El Chupacabra outdoor seating, burritos, and strawberry margaritas: the makings of a perfect evening. We were impressed with the restaurant. It had an eclectic mix of patrons and pretty darn good burritos with decent heat to them. It's a keeper.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

South Lake Union Boat Tour

I'm really behind in my postings and I've had a lot go on in the last few weeks! So I need to start catching up. A few weeks ago I met up with Megan G. to hang out in Seattle. I know Megan G. (one of the many Megan's I know in my life) from my political organization. I suggested a completely corny-sounding boat tour of Lake Union and luckily she was up for it. The 45 minute tour was a little corny, but we saw a good view of Gas Works Park (mentioned in my previous post), Dale Chihuly's studio (famous glass artist), a good view of downtown Seattle, tons of cute houseboats, and the houseboat featured in that Tom Hank's thriller: Sleepless in Seattle (the BIG houseboat with the green and purple trim pictured below). It was fun to hang out with a new friend and see a little different view of Seattle. And the $7 corny boat tour made for a slightly more exciting day than just sitting around in a Starbucks.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Gas Works Park

A couple of Sundays ago I was in the Seattle neighborhood Wallingford for a meeting. Since I was already in Seattle, I decided I wanted to go find something cool to do after the meeting and I decided to head to close-by Gas Works Park. According to my guide book, this park used to be the site of the Seattle Gas Light Company which operated from 1906 to 1956. In the early 1960s the Seattle City Council wanted a park to be created out of the former filthy plant. Originally they wanted a beautiful arboretum, but the designer decided to incorporate some of the old gas plant. It's really striking to see the combination of lush green lawns with rusty old towers. Plus, the park is on Lake Union, with beautiful views of downtown Seattle.

I guess you'll never know what can be spotted in a Seattle park. I suppose knights fighting in full armor shouldn't be considered that unusual; I didn't take pictures of the homeless guys taking hits from a bong or playing the flute.

If you look closely in the middle, that's a seaplane taking off from Lake Union.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Melancholy Musings

I've been here for 9 months now and I'm starting to get a little lonely. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE spending time with Robb. However, our schedules are very different which means that I have a lot of alone time. And the friendships I maintain through email and phone are sometimes not enough when you're hanging out by yourself. As an Army Brat you would think that it would be second nature for me to move around and make new friends easily. But it's different when you're an adult. And I'm not exactly a social butterfly, although I try! As a kid you meet people your age and with similar life experiences in school and classes. And in college you're thrust into living together with complete strangers who somehow become a huge part of your world. Even in grad school I managed to make a couple of friends through classes and work. And if my friends weren't around, I always had my family to lean on, especially when I was living in Florida.

But now, Robb and I chose to move across the country to a place where we didn't know a single soul. And I no longer have school to give me an automatic friend pool to choose from. I've tried to get creative. I've joined a young political organization for King County. And I regularly go to their meetings and have even become a board member. But the first problem is that King County is very large and most people in this organization live a good 30-45 minutes away from me. The second problem is that I'm at a different place in my life. I'm married and have different responsibilities. I was never a big "partier" in the first place, but now I'm definitely beyond it. My interests and life experience tends to be different than others my age in this organization. I thought that my job might lead me to meet new people, but this is also very difficult. First I am MUCH younger than the people I work with. Second, even if there was someone younger and who I could relate with on a friend-level, I work an hour away from where I live. That's not very conducive to creating a good friendship. I sometimes check out Craigslist activities and other internet postings to see if there's a group out there that I'd be interested in joining. But there's never anything that sounds both interesting, close by, or at a time that I could attend (remember I don't get home until after 6:00 and I work Saturdays).

So I spend a lot of time by myself. Robb had to work today; the weather was beautiful and I wish I could've gone hiking, but that tends to be a little dangerous for a girl to go to the wilderness on her own. So today I went to the movies by myself for the first time (hence the melancholy posting). I'm still very happy that we moved here. We still love this area, I just wish there was someone else out there that I could enjoy it with when Robb's not available to play.