Seattle Day One

I don't know if you can really tell from this picture, but there are sheets tucked under that table/desk thing. Why, you wonder? Because I had made my bed under there, that's why. My brother is apparently too old to share beds now and I am a ridiculously restless sleeper so no one wants to share with me. Only two beds, rollaway posed a fire hazard so we couldn't have one... I slept on the floor. Three nights. It really wasn't that bad. My hips are a little sore but it was worth it to wake up every day in Seattle. 

 Day One: Rode the train. 

 

 This ^ is basically the summary of it. Waiting for the train (brother playing his laptop chess game), sitting on the train (me reading a book on the fall of the USSR and passing through Portland -incidentally my second favorite city ever and the place where wonderful Mia lives)
I took a LOT of photos of the train ride up. Reading on the train gave me a headache so even though the book was good I had to stop reading periodically to keep my head from exploding. So here's some of the pictures from the journey up:

 screwing around in the station

 actually on the train

I like trains. The way they sound is really nice, not quite like a car or a plane but also not just the clickety clack of older trains. Unfortunately, this one had some odd mesh in/on the windows, so most of my pictures came out kind of... strangely. I think the mesh messed (haha, mesh messed- say that out loud three times fast) with the ability of my camera to focus, so some very very odd pictures -which I will spare you- ended up occurring.

  

 Finally arriving IN Seattle:

 It was so beautiful! I love cities at night. While more dangerous to roam short-skirted, they are infinitely prettier from the inside of a car. I caught my jaw physically dropping two or three times. There were such amazing things to see... I liked looking in the shop windows during our cab ride to our hotel. There were so many pretty things, so many interesting and downright daring (by the standards of where I live) sorts of things... It was just amazing. So beautiful, everything shining and lit up and the people all look so different... I swear, the entire time in Seattle I saw more people under the age of thirty than over the age of thirty. Coming from a town whose industry is retirement, that was pretty impressive to me. I actually saw population diversity too: more than just Caucasians. It was so cool. I mean, in my town, if a new African American shows up, everyone knows in like two days because there are FIVE. The diversity to be found in cities thrills me every time.
Sadly, at this point I noticed that my camera was low on batteries. Wouldn't you know it. So there are relatively few photos of the next few days.
The hotel room and the view from such:

 my mother lying on her bed reading. I asked if she'd like out of the shot and she looked at me with great disdain, so I decided she meant to remain where she was.

There was a Cheesecake Factory across the street. We didn't go in, but seriously. For me, this was a huge deal. A chain restaurant. A big-city place. See, it's little things like that that really amaze small-town girls like me. The traffic lights aren't strung through the middle of the street, people don't get taunted on the street (as much) for looking how they want, drivers actually WATCH OUT for bicycles, buildings are routinely taller than one floor... the architecture in general is just stunning. There are things to do. Foreign films. More than one ice cream shop. A BOOKSTORE CATERING TO GAYS AND LESBIANS. I almost died of delight when I saw that, but I didn't get to go in (and wouldn't have wanted to drag my family around while I looked for just the right love story). In my town, that shop would be out of business or worse in a matter of weeks.

On a side note, while I was at a sushi bar in Eugene (from whence the train departed) I saw this really pretty alternative girl with cherry red hair and an undercut wearing Doc Martens and a leather jacket with patches and the like on it. She had her lip pierced and maybe her nose. We did the freak nod of mutual recognition across the room. I was thrilled. Never gotten to do that before. She's maybe the fifth or sixth goth/alternative type I've been around, and usually I either already know them (hence no need for the passing nod) or I haven't been particularly "gothed-up" so it wasn't mutual recognition. But this time! ^.^ I was so happy I looked at my mom and asked her if she saw what just happened. "Uh, you made eye contact with and nodded at a girl? It's happened before." And then she went back to eating her sushi. But my delight was not lessened!!