Glassy

I've been fully immersed in new job orientations and trainings for the past few weeks, and my to-do list has grown to overwhelming amounts.  So instead of tacking it right away, I opted to take a brain break and meet a friend for a downtown adventure.

On multiple visits to Seattle I've visited the Space Needle and even the EMP Museum, but haven't had the opportunity to visit the Chihuly museum right next door.  It has been on my list of must-sees since the first time I visited Seattle.

One year, I had my students create little faux-Chihuly glass sculptures out of markers, coffee filters, and starch spray and I hung them all over the wall in our room.  That was before I knew he was from Seattle and that I would be moving here, so when I found out that there are a couple glass museums of his work here, I was excited to check them out.

One of the museums is in Tacoma, actually right across the street from the Museum of Washington History, and I admired it from afar when I was there but didn't go visit.  It is on my list of future activities.

Instead we spent the day downtown at the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum.  I drove and attempted parking.  The parking spots here are the smallest, most narrow parking spots ever made and my beast of a car barely fits.  I can get my car into a parking spot, but I have to crawl out the trunk because my doors won't open.  It's very stressful.  I had two people helping me get my car into the parking space in the lot downtown.  Then it cost $15 for a couple hours to leave it there.

We admired these cool panels for a little too long and decided they were created to disguise the ugly parking lot and separate it from the land of museums and Space Needle tourism.  They were kind of cool though.  Reminded me of wheat and Kansas!

You actually get a discount here if you live here!  Yay!  The museum has an indoor exhibit and a garden exhibit.  I've creeped on the garden exhibit from outside the fence before, but you only get a tiny sneak peek from there.  Inside is cooler.

The museum was divided into rooms and themes.  I didn't do much reading, mostly just admiring and skimming the information to see what I was admiring.  

This room was all glass from when Chihuly was experimenting with non-symmetrical designs.  It was combined with the Native American influences and blankets.  The blankets are really symmetrical so I thought it was interesting that the two were related and combined.

The next room was an under the sea theme.  It had all his sketches and then finished products.  They sketches were...vague.  It was interesting to see how they became such detailed artwork.

We walked through a small room with a collection of glass works on the ceiling.  I felt like I was in one of those I-spy books because there was so much going on and if you looked carefully you could see little sea creatures or cherubs/mermaids sprinkled throughout the display.

Then you were welcomed into this magnificence.  My camera just couldn't do it justice.  There was so much going on in this room!

...and then my favorite indoor piece: this canoe of orbs.

which was strangely offset by this canoe of craziness right next to it...

and I loved it.  I want the orb canoe in my house.  It wouldn't fit, but I could figure something out.  Maybe get rid of the sofa or something.

Next was the chandelier room.  Crazy cool and kind of scary...I mean, what if they fell??

My second favorite room was this room full of bowls.  They were all lit from above to appear like they were glowing from the inside.  Gorgeous.

And of course, the famous flowers by the garden and cafe.

The garden exhibit was so beautiful.  Early this year I went to someone's house and they had glass art in their garden and if I ever have a garden and gardener (haha) then I will put glass art in it.

The blue glass looks like rain.  The garden is right next door to the Space Needle so you get some really cool views. 

My favorite outdoor sculpture was this pinkish purple one because I think it looks like rock candy.  It isn't as smooth as the others and looks a little different than the rest of Chihuly's work here.

We left the museum and drove over to the Phinney Ridge neighborhood for an afternoon brunch at Phinney Market.  Delish.  I was stuffed.  

Beautiful day in the city!

Washington History

So this year I have to teach Washington history.  I repeat, I have to teach Washington history.

That's the problem with moving to different states and teaching.  You have to teach all their histories.  So, I've studied Iowa history, Nebraska history, Kansas history, and now Washington history.  And let me tell you, they are all shockingly similar give or take a few locations or people.

Here's a list of things I know about the history of Washington:

1. It is a state.  It became a state awhile ago.
2. The capital is Olympia.  I hear that's about two hours away from here.
3. It is the Evergreen State (is that historical?)

Some of those aren't even history, they are just facts.  I have a lot of work to do.  In my efforts to inform myself, I went to visit the Washington State Historical Museum in Tacoma.  Tacoma looks close-ish on the map, and then after I had been in the car for a good 20-30 minutes, I got on another interstate and had to go 20 more miles.  So it was a drive.  I was not on time to meet people.  That's another part of living here that I still need to figure out:  timing.

But I got there, and that's the important part.  Well, I got there and realized I forgot my camera.  Sad day.  All I had was my phone and I strongly dislike pictures from my phone (first world problem, I know).  So when you see these pictures, you can imagine me reluctantly pulling out my phone and rolling my eyes at myself.

Since I've moved here, every day has been gorgeous.  People here have even had the nerve to complain about how beautiful it is.  It is fantastic.  I'm trying to soak it all up because I keep hearing about how dreadfully gloomy it will be come winter.  But for now, this place is a dream world.  

I really enjoyed wandering through the museum.  The main floor was packed with historical greatness and the second floor was aimed at children with a cute little character that took them through rooms and explained the history.  I may have enjoyed that part a little too much.  

But my favorite part was the traveling exhibit that was there- Seeds of Victory: Posters of the Great War.  Earlier this year I visited the World War I Museum in Kansas City, which was really cool and I learned a ton because...no one really talks about World War I.  

This display was all the poster propaganda that was part of the war...including the most famous (I love seeing this stuff in person!)...

 ...and my personal favorite..."Gee!!  I wish I were a man!"

Be a man, would you?  I may have laughed out loud when I came to this poster.  All of the others were pretty standard and historically fascinating, but that one made me giggle.

  

I spent a good chunk of time in the gift shop as well, scoping out the children's books about things like salmon and the Native American tribes and otters and other Washington things.  Last year they had a display on one of my favorite American unsolved mysteries: D.B. Cooper.  A year or two ago I had gone to the bookstore in search of books about him and found nothing in KC (shocking!), but since the plane had landed in Seattle they had done an entire exhibit about him a year ago and I missed it!!  They were still selling that merchandise at discount, so of course I picked up a book.  

When we went to leave the museum, Tacoma was getting ready for a big parade and we were trapped in the parking lot.  It took a bit of mapping and figuring out how to get out since so many streets were closed.  I headed further south to a friend's house for dinner.  It's so nice to be here and know a few people to help me get acquainted with the area.  

Farmers Market

Farmers Markets are everywhere here.  I think every neighborhood has it's own, and of course there's the big market downtown.

The farmers market didn't open until 9am.  They really understand me here.

image from Piccsy

I had no real agenda besides "let's see what's here" and "I should probably have some food in my fridge" and "I have nothing to do today".

Of course it was beautiful out.  I think it's rained once since I moved here, so moving in the summer season may have been a little misleading as far as the Seattle rain goes.  I'm not complaining.  It's gorgeous and I am still getting used to seeing mountains and water all the time so I am loving it.

I left with plenty of goodies.  Big tomatoes and a few red onions for bruschetta.  Fresh peaches for some baked brown sugar peaches.

And cherries were only $3/lb!  I was in heaven!

I am a sucker for the gorgeous fresh flowers at every farmers market here.  $5 for this?  Yes, please.

They really brighten up the balcony.  Or the kitchen table.  I can't decide.

When I'm not out exploring or spending money (this has to stop.), I'm spending my time prepping my classroom and trying to figure my way around this fantastic new job.  An actual routine is kicking in this week, so I have to say so long to this fabulous extra long summer break.  And unlike other years where I worked through the summer both with tutoring or a job and getting my act together or attending training for the coming year...this year all I did was travel and move and explore!  The travel bug is a tough one to ignore, so hopefully I can fall back into work mode without a problem!

Super Mooooon

Let's just take a quick moment to enjoy the super moon a sit hovers above the Issaquah Alps.  

It's just pretty here.

SeaFair 2014

I'm all about being a local resident here, so when SeaFair was coming up, I made sure I was up on the bridge closings even though I had no intention of taking the bridge.  Plus I watched the SeaFair parade on tv because I didn't know it was happening until right before it happened.  Live and learn.

The parade was the weekend before SeaFair so I'm not sure if SeaFair is supposed to be the whole week or what, but I do know that they close the bridge from Seattle to Bellevue multiple times during the week for flight practice and even if you don't cross I-90 ever, you still feel isolated for some odd reason for a few hours each day.

I met up with some friends and we walked along Lake Washington to see if we could find a nice grassy place to rest and watch jets zoom by.  The awesome thing about the air and water show is that there are hundreds of places to go so even though there were crowds gathered, nothing was crowded.

So most of my pictures look like this...because the Blue Angels are fast...and you don't hear them until after they are past you so you have to be ready.  Mostly I was just gawking at the sky and forgot my camera was attached to my arm.  OR I was yelling at my camera for not snapping fast enough.  

But in between my ooo-ing and ahhh-ing, I was able to catch a few Blue Angels in action.  Plus, this helicopter with people attached to it.

They appeared to be pretty strapped in, but I still held my breath the entire time.

So basically, I need to make friends with people with boats, because this is a real water party.  The boats could anchor in certain parts of the lake to watch the show, or if you have a boat(?) you can go hang out down by the docks.  I didn't know I was supposed to wear my swimsuit and walk the streets of Seattle.

But if you're us, then you walk around or find a grassy place to sit around.  We wandered and then came across the SeaFair mothership.  Party central!  You have to pay to get to the other side of the fence, but from here we could hear the music and listen to them announce each trick the Blue Angels would be performing.

So...flying as close as 18 inches from each other?  What?

I was completely mesmerized.

Basically, there isn't a bad seat because the lake is huge and everyone is great for watching the show.

It was a fantastic way to spend the afternoon!  Afterwards we hit up happy hour for drinks and stayed for dinner.  This not working thing is fantastic...