sleeping in Seattle

pike place market
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Seattle was just going to be a stopover for me but it ended up being a week-long stay! What first got me there was the water. Puget Sound and Eliot Bay were beautiful as were the snow-covered mountains on the other side. Mt Rainier is an active snow-covered volcano that people snowboard and ski on! I thought that was so cool. It's only visible 90 days out of the year. I met some English girls when I got in and we went for a beer then got fish and chips on the pier.

The Experience Music Project was rad! I got this day-pass that allowed me to go up the Space Needle (which had cool 360 degree views of the city), do a harbour cruise and entry to the EMP. There was an interactive part where there were little booths and you could sing, play keyboard, guitar, bass and electric drums, so i got my drum fix there. I really wanted to go into the private singing booth and scream my lungs out.

first American city

good view
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The museumy type part was cool; there was the story of how punk emerged in the mid 70's and all the local bansd at the time that shocked everyone with their rude names and their looks; how punk later fused with metal and then of course the appearance of grunge. There were heaps of memoriabila-type stuff like cymbals and guitars Nirvana and other bands had used, Kurt's personal hand-written lyrics and stuff. Then there was a section about riot grrl and there was a little plaque up about Sleater-Kinney. Said something about how people took notice of them cos they were so anti-grunge and had music that was different to everything else and because they were women. There was a video playing and it had a live show of theirs and The Gossip. So that was fun.

the troll under the bridge
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There was a 71-yr old lady staying in my room. She liked to chat alot. I checked out touristy stuff like the famous Pike Place Farmer's market and bought some vegies so i could cook super-cheap dinners which i would recyle for four nites. Also did an underground tour of Seattle which was where teh building levels were before the Seattle fire or flood or whatver. Kinda cool to hear about the history and stuff.

My last nite in Seattle I went to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs play! It was a great show. I had balcony seats so I felt a bit too luxurious and was jealous of the people up the front who were getting into it. But it was still fun although I don't know any of their new songs except one.