Friday, July 21, 2006

little hiccup..... that lasts two days....

Instead of arriving down under in 3 hours... I am stranded in Texas until tomorrow.... so I will see you on SUNDAY!!!!
Caz Welcome back, i hope all is going well!!!!
Christo, I miss you!!!

Sunday, July 09, 2006

well well, many things have happened and many places seen since the last update a few days ago, all of which have resulted in two incredibly and probably permanently sore legs....
i belive it is on thursday that i really gave my shoes a chance to show me what they could really do.
Paul lives next to a part of town called capitol hill, which is the equivalent of Oxford st for the aussies reading this. it has all the cafes, rainbow flags and an abundance of piercings, tatoos and scary dogs on leashes. the main street that goes through it is Broadway and when you walk all the way up that street, you suddenly end up in a neighbourhood of beautiful old victorian houses, and when i say beautiful, i mean it. so i walked around thoses streets for a bit and ended up in Volunteer park, named after the soldiers who volunteered to fight in the spanish-american war sometime the in past.
the park is really quite nice and i walked the 100 or so steps up the water tower which gives alright views of seattle, unfortunately, a lot of greenery hides most of the views plus there are grilles on the windows, so actually you can't see that much but i was proud of myself for walking up anyway....
the park is also the site of the Asian Art Museum, and not only is it currently hosting the collection from the seattle art museum (under renovation), it was also the first thursday of the month so the entrance was free. they had a really beautiful photography exhibition on but the thing i fell in love with was all the blown glass stuff they had on. apparently seattle is quite good at it and i can believe it because some pieces did not make sense to me, so ridiculously beautiful!!!
a bit further down the track, there is a green house which you can also enter for free and i hesitated a bit because i thought it would be kinda boring, and i was wrong. they had the most beautiful orchids and all kind of flowers and plants, plus a really good section of cactus, some of them in bloom. the whole thing was quite small but it was like another world and definitely worth it.
finally, the park sits next to the cemetery which was interesting because a lot of stones were chinese and looked quite cool. it is also the resting place of Bruce and Brandon Lee, so i payed them a quick visit. i'm not sure why someone would want to see the tomb of a famous person but maybe you learn something about people when you see where they will be for rest of times. just after leaving their spot, i wandered around just a little longer, sat down and turned around to take one random photo of the cemetery. the funny thing is that i realised afterwards that i coincidentally took a photo of Princess Angeline, the daughter of the indian chief Seathl who gave his name to the city i am visiting.... i thought it was some kind of sign, not sure what it means though.
with the walk back, i would say that my whole journey got me going for a good five hours and i had two pretty tired legs by the time i got home. we had a sushi dinner, it was tasty.
yesterday, the sun decided that it was time to shine and for the clouds to leave which made it the perfect day to go back to Pike Place Market, which has a variety of flowers, fish, vegies and whatever else you find on markets. it's pretty nice though because it's right on the water front so you can catch glimpses of the harbour here and there, and you can buy some nice little bits of food along the way.
From there, we caught a ferry to Bainbridge island. in a way, it feels a bit like going to manly because the ferry ride is about the same time (although the ferries here are a lot bigger since you can take your car on it and a lot faster) and you leave a beautiful harbour so plenty of picture opportunities there. in the distance we had a magical view of mount rainier and it's snow covered top. it looks like it is floating just above the horizon line and it sure feels special.
the island is pretty nice, it has a decent main street with the usual expensive artist and design like things and we discovered a really really good bakery. i hadn;t had good bread for tooooo long!!! we walked around the island for a bit and got back on the ferry.
Last night, i organised to catch up with John and Devin, two of Paul local friends who had visited nice a year and a half ago. John loves to cook and god, we looooved to eat the food. he cooked up a storm in 1 hour and it was sooo delicious, it was great. and of course, we had a really nice time catching up and laughing away.
the entry is getting long and thank goodness, it's up to what we did today now. we woke up pretty late, around noon and had some asian breakfast as the local Chinatown had a festival on. it was ok and certainly better than the sydney one we went to last year where thorpedo was posing on packets of instant noodles..... china town has one massive supermarket called wajimaya and that was good fun since they had all kinds of fun asian things like cool chopsticks and sushi themed stuff. we walked downtown but didn;t really do much down there, just went into a couple stores and i just dropped by here to write this entry on the way back home,
i think that;s enough information for now, if you even got to this point.....
the trip here is coming to an end but i am really satisfied with what i got done so far, i'm not sure what the plan is for tomorrow but i believe there is a game to watch so you'll most likely find me at the pub....
ciao for now amigos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and next time i write it will most likely be back in Cowtown!!!!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

sleepless in seattle....

but don't be mistaken by the title, i am still the party pooper i have always been, it's just that i force paulu to wake up early so that we can do as much as possible...
So far, seattle has been very good to me although considerably colder than TX and starting to realise that i should have packed a few less fancy tops and skirts and a couple more less revealing garments.... oooh well...once again, my reputation as a "badpacker" shall be confirmed...
Paul is being a fine host so far, if you can ignore the tornado that blew his house inside out and upside down..... i have met many of his friends (all of them females so far) and am forced to come to terms with the fact that paul is a fearless womaniser..... i believe he has introduced a good 50% of his friends as "my future sister-in-law" which makes me think that it must come from the jordanian side of him.... still, it's fun and they are all nice, tanned (too many of them come from hawai) and like to take photos of all of them making faces or getting dressed up... yeah i know....
as far as seattle goes, i really like it but the weather is clearly a downside in my case (not for this week of course, who cares) but if i ever was in a situation where i had to chose a US city. seattle is cool but i need more sun!!!
I spent most of the day, yesterday walking around the downtown area. i started by a walking tour from the lonely planet and that wasn't the best so i took off on my own and that was better. i walked into a couple stores, and even bought some mega-touristy shoes that will be very good for lots of walking and also if we do some hiking/strolling with christo around sydney or in tazy.... i realised that i hadn't worn comfy shoes for decades and it made such a difference yesterday, i was bouncing off the sidewalks and so now, i categorically refuse to take them off..... i do look like a bit of a dagg but they are starting to grow on me or the opposite so i like them!!!
also, i have never seen so many starbucks in my LIFE, and i mean in my whole life, if you combine all the starbucks i had ever seen before. well of course, it's a seattlite company but still, what happened to fair competition laws!!! there is no way out of it so i think i already had about 5 starbucks coffees but i only get normal boring coffee unlike people who regurlarly enjoy mocha lattes with soy milk and raspberry dripping down a whole lot of cream and chocolate bits.....
anyway, all of this to say that when a group of tourists came over to ask me where THE starbucks was, i didn't even bother answering..... or i didn't notice their white canes.......
by the time i started exploring the famous market here, paul called me (he is taking a summer class) to come and meet him before we went to "gas works park" to watch the 4th of july fireworks. we went there with his harem and had a great time, except for the incident when i thought i had dropped fro's phone in the grass, only ot discover later that i had left it at home.... the park is really awesome, it has fanstic views of the city skyline and the harbour, plus it is the site of an old gaz factory of something but i'll show photos as soon as they are devellopped and they will speak for themselves. the fireworks were amazing and i don't have photos of them so you'll just have to take my word for it....
this morning i dragged paul to see the "experience Music Project", a big blob designed by frank ghery. we didn't go into the exhbition spaces but the outside was what i wanted to see so that was fine. i'm not sure how feel about it, it seems like a bit of a waste of resources to me and the area around is a bit sad compared to downtown, plus it was grey today... we'll see if the pix turn out.....
oh and of course, France is in the FINAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, July 01, 2006

photos

photos will come but as I am currently deprived of my usual computer tools such as photoshop, i am having a bit of trouble uploading anything... probably the files are too big or who knows but I am working on getting them onto my photo page... will keep you updated....

almost week 2 and hardly nothing....

these extracts are taken from various emails i have sent since i got here, all of them to Chris I believe. I think it will give a good idea of what has been happening here and will get me back on updating schedule...

June 22nd
...." today i woke up pretty late and went for a swim; mum showed me around a bit more and tonight we went to the movies with marc and mothe (lolo is on a business trip) to see a pretty stoopid and really funny movie, Nacho Libre... we laughed a lot.

Oh yeah; we went foodshopping as well at one of the two main supermarkets. that one is the "fancier" one and it had some really nice looking stuff and i got plenty of things for a delicious barbie one of these days; probably when lolo comes back; they are sooo boring; they only cook steak on the barbie; i'll teach them!!!! "......

June 23rd
We went to the Kimbell museum, designed by Louis Kahn in the "cultural disctrict". The building itself was awesome and i took quite a few photos of that. i wanted to write something a bit more complete about it but have been too lazy so far... and i don't think it will happen... the museum is pretty small and the exhibition inside is mainly oldish stuff; which is quite pretty but not my favourite. Still; I was there for the building and I was not disappointed. Hey Christo, I was wondering if you had heard of Louis Kahn....?

June 24th
....." i went swimming with Emmanuelle, from laurent + mum's work this morning at the unipool, their pool is not as good as ours because it's not as wide and there is only one 25m long pool + a diving area. well, they also have an outdoor pool though; i didn't go check it out. on the other hand; their gym bit is a lot nicer than ours; well from the outside anyway and they even have a climbing wall so i thought of Chris. i swam 2.2K ....pretty good hey; i think that's further than ever so far so... i'm still trying to teach myself freestyle but i really look like a wet dog... oh well, it does get better after a couple tries...i'm not sure what we'll do today actually but it's time for me to get into the shower; wash the chlorine off and see what happens....."

A few hours later
....." today was pretty good; this arvo, we went to do a bit of shopping and we got me quite a little collection of new clothes already... it's a good start.
We also went to the Museum of Modern Art; also in the cultural district and this time designed by tadao Ando. This one is much bigger than the Kimbell and has a lot of interesting artworks.
tonight; we went to the stockyards, the part that looked so western on those photos my mum sent the other day. I didn't take any photos there because it was night time and i don't have a flash but we'll go back during the day so nothing to worry about. we had really tasty ribs for dinner and walked around a bit. it's where they have rodeo and cattle auctions and stuff... and heaps of stores for hats;boots; saddles, you name it... it's pretty fun and we found me a really good looking winter rain hat, it's not totally cowboy and looks really nice; you'll see..."

June 25th
......"today was good; we went to dallas at around midday and went to the Kennedy musem actually called the "6th floor museum". the guy who killed Kennedy was on the 6th floor of this warehouse and you can see Xs on the road, 6 floors below, where Kennedy was shot. the museum was good; it told about that time in the states; the 60s, what kennedy meant at the time with all the civil rights things happening; and the cold war etc... and what he meant after he was assassinated, "what could have been"...well i can tell you that you walk out of there wondering how such an idiot as G.W.B can be in the office now.... also; I'll have to say that his wife Jackie was really quite beautiful and sophisticated.We walked over to the Kennedy memorial designed by Phillip Johnson and well; i can't say i was very impressed with it... it's a pretty ugly structure but it has a "concept" about an open tomb thing which isolates you from the world outside but you are connected to the earth and the sky; it's basically 4 concrete walls and you can walk through it and that's all....after that; we went to a place called the Spaghetti warehouse....sounds tasty hey. well, it's about 10:30 pm now and i was just getting hungry again...when we got back home; i went for a little swim in the pool with marc and i kicked his skinny ass at volleyball... well not really, and i think i would be totally useless at waterpolo..."

June 28th
..."today has been good. we started by my second appointment at the dentists so my teeth look really nice now although they are a bit sensitive still... they do look nice!!!this arvo; we went to yet another museum; the amon carter museum and it's all american art. a fair bit of stuff about indians etc.. and some more recent stuff. A lot of beautiful paintings and we even got some prints of two paintings by Georgia O'keefe... hopefully we can hang them somehow...i'm also starting to stock up on goodies for everyone; it's pretty exciting..
tonight; we are going to the musical Oklahoma and that's downtown in a very handsome looking building, the Bass Performance Hall, although i have only seen it from a distance...
oh yeah; and we dropped off two loads of film today; although one was started in sydney when we walked around the stables... i have a feeling the photos will look funny because the films spent quite sometime in the boiling car... oops; we'll see.i can't rememeber all the things i wanted to tell you so that's all for now; plus we'll be leaving really soon..."