busy busy busy!

hey all

it's been a busy one today... again...

got up and out at a reasonable hour for a change - then off down to pike place market for a little bit of shopping - didn't buy anything though! popped into seattle sneaker city and looked at lots and lots of converse... want the electric blue ones - but they're still 50 bucks! then went into left bank books - great little crazy bookshops for all the minorities you could ever dream up: feminists, anarchists, feminist anarchists, etc.

sneaker city:


left bank books:


the original starbucks:


got myself an organic smoothie (trying not to drink too much coffee!) then went to beecher cheese shop for lunch - yummy famous mac and cheese - sat at the counter and watched them making the very cheese i was eating!

my pot of mac and cheese with the cheese being made in the background:


then off to sam (seattle art museum) - there were two special exhibitions on that i wanted to see - one just called 'kurt' and the other an andy warhol photographic exhibit. i stupidly joined the gallery tour for the kurt exhibition but it was painful - some old lady talking about kurt cobain like he was a god or something... was very weird and made me feel slightly uncomfortable so i wandered off on my own. great photos - including 2 taking at reading festival 1992 - nirvana's last gig in the uk - and i was there... made me feel sad and frustrated and depressed...

sam:


some mediocre art on show - the best thing was the photos really. i was looking at a piece when an elderly couple came up and one of them said to the other, 'so, did he overdose then?' and without thinking i turned and said 'no, he shot himself in the head', and the guy said, 'yeah, i suppose that makes sense.' and i wondered what the hell they were doing there.

kurt:


the warhol exhibit was much better and cheered me up a bit. lots of his passport photo strips - which he used to construct the larger screenprints of celebrities that commissioned him - i think that's how he made most of his money as he did them for a lot of very rich and famous people! the coolest thing about it was that in the last room they had a photo booth where you took your own strip of photos and then you cut one out and put it up on the wall! what a great idea! my pic is up there now!









had a mooch around the rest of the museum, the collection there is quite good - quite diverse with a lot of american stuff which i think is good for an american art museum! saw work by jeff koons, mark rothko, diane arbus, georgia o'keefe, warhol, jasper johns, jackson pollock - in a really lovely galleries.

nipped back to my hotel to wait for the bus to pick me up as i decided to go on a 3 hour tour of seattle - sometimes it's gotta be done, especially as i don't have a car! the tour was great - very informative. we went all around the city, and wow, this is a very beautiful city! amazing waterfronts, beautiful houses, pretty tree-lined neighbourhoods, steep hills with fab views, cool quirkiness, friendly people and all clean and litter-free! this just may be the perfect city... i could easily live here...

to top it all off we went up onto queen anne's hill to see the famous seattle skyline and we were very lucky to be able to see mount rainier - not often visible due to clouds and haziness. it was amazing and didn't look real - not sure if it's visible in my pics...

me and seattle skyline:


after the tour finished i decided to jump onto the monorail and go up the space needle - hmmm, full of annoying rude tourists, unfortunately. i ended up sitting down and having a coffee and just trying to pretend the other people weren't there... back on the monorail downtown and walked back to my lovely hotel. unfortunately gotta pack - boo! don't really wanna go, wish i had more time here - but looking forward to portland!

space needle from the bottom:


me up there:


i'm gonna try to take the ferry over to bainbridge island and back tomorrow morning - but gotta be back and at the bus station by 12.15... must go and pack and sleep!

would love some messages if anyone gets the chance - missing having people around for company...

vx