Thursday 9 December 2010

Why I Fell In Love With Seattle


Some Red Tube sculpture
I have failed to find the name of...

So, as you can see, our destination for our first night in America was Seattle. To be honest, I have never been all that bothered about going to America, and I'm not quite sure why I had more of an urge to visit Canada. But seeing as Washington was so close, and that I had been invited down there with some couchsurfing friends, I thought why not? It's an experience nonetheless.


And I shall eat my words right now. Yumyumyum. We were only in Seattle for one day, and had to race around a little in some kind of mad dash to see the nice parts, but my goodness was I blown away. Seattle just seemed like my kind of city. Quirky and artistic with a touch of chic and grunge simultaneously. I'm by no means a fan of Starbucks, but a visit to their first ever cafe there also have some kind of charm about it.

Seattle Science
 Fiction Museum


The one thing I did notice about Seattle that made me love it even more was the amount of artwork, sculptures and interesting buildings that were about, a few examples of which lie around on this post. Additionally, we were incredibly lucky with the weather. Despite there being a bit of a biting wind at times, the sun was gloriously shining for us, improving everyone's mood immensely. On so many occasions did one of us turn to the group and say, 'Guys, can I just say how nice a day I'm having.'

As well as beautiful architecture that has become a tourist attraction in Seattle, there are some other little quirks which are easy to miss. We were lucky enough to meet up with a friend of one of our group who actually lives in Seattle, who showed us a local site, the Seattle Gum Wall. Possibly the most disgusting building I have ever been to when you consider how much saliva is just sitting there holding it all together, but it also has a nice story.

Seattle Gum Wall - The ticket office
Those walls surround a music venue called the Market Theatre, and those waiting in line or catching a smoke started to put gum up on the wall, sticking coins up with it or making little pictures. And it soon caught on. Officials scraped away the gum twice, but it just kept on happening. So it was therefore deemed a tourist attraction, and so the wall prevails. Viva la Revolution!


Lumps and bumps
Funky drainpipes
A couple of other things to point out are these weird nodules poking out of some gravel. These we stumbled upon just walking down a street below a busy road. I was impressed that this completely useless piece of land, otherwise just left to be an empty void, was turned into something vaguely interesting to look at. The same thing goes for these unorthadox drainpipes which twist and turn the water before depositing it to the ground. And why not? Gravity, you are useful, but oh so boring sometimes.

So good on you Seattle, you have made some beautiful architecture to feast our eyes upon, and have now forced me to change my plans in order to visit you once more. See you soon.

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