the emerald city

According to weather dot com and word of mouth, Seattle is a cold, rainy city. If you're traveling there, you should bring a raincoat, umbrella, and a heavy fleece, even in June. Fortunately, that is a lie. A big one.

Seattle is rainy, in that it drizzles for 15 minutes, and then is sunny for two hours. This makes it the perfect weather for all green things; there were gardens with gorgeous flowers everywhere!

Sam and I went out to Seattle a few days before Potlatch to see the city and stay with his friend from library school. We came with the idea that we must do three things in Seattle: eat sushi, see the men throwing fish at Pike Market, and visit the Seattle Public Library. We accomplished these things and more.

On Wednesday night, Darth and Katie took us out to one of the many, many brewpubs in the greater Seattle area where we were treated to pirate-themed food and beer. On Thursday we once again braved the confusion of the Seattle bus system (confusing, but efficient), headed into downtown Seattle, and entered the world of tourism. Pike's Place Market is home to the fish-throwing fresh fish stall, rows upon rows of beautiful vegetables and flowers, the original Starbucks (with a line out the door and around the corner), and all sorts of variety shops, junk shops, antique shops, and an exhibit of the world's largest shoes, if you pay a quarter.

Next, we walked down to the Seattle Public Library. Now, you might think that the only reason we went here is because Sam is a nerdy librarian who needs to get his fix of that book smell daily, but no. Seattle Public Library is an amazing feat of architecture - the outer walls are glass crisscrossed with steel, the second floor meeting room area is entirely red, the stacks gently spiral upwards eliminating the need for stairs, a computer screen on the wall tells you how many books have been checked out during the day and what some of them are, and on and on. It was a really amazing place.

Exiting into some drizzle, we walked down to the International Quarter, where there is a large Japanese grocery store. Oh my goodness, I almost had a heart attack. Sam wasn't sure what to do with me as I practically ran from the 18 kinds of tofu, to the bean paste bread, to dried squid, to the noodle sauces, and back to the breads again. I wanted to buy everything, but had to settle on a few snack foods and pastries that I could eat during the weekend, or that would stay fresh until I got back home.

We met up with another of Sam's friends from back in the day for conveyor belt sushi. This was a first for Sam, and another happy reminder of my time in Japan. We went to a place called Blue C, which actually had one real Japanese sushi chef. Amazing! The fish was pretty fresh, and Sapporo beer was on special, so it was a nice dinner. The only thing that confused me was the coloring of the plates - each color represented how much that plate cost, and was named after a subway line in Tokyo. But Ginza, the line which goes to the ritzy shopping district, was not the most expensive plate. I really think it should have been.

On Friday, we walked around two northern suburbs of Seattle, Fremont and Ballard. Fremont calls itself the "Center of the Universe" because it has a signpost denoting this. There's also a friendly troll under one of the bridges, and a large statue of Lenin (the leader, not the singer). Ballard is home to a large Scandanavian population and a "green" library with a grassy roof, solar power, huge skylights, and recycled construction materials.

We walked from Ballard north to the Locks, which connect Puget Sound to the freshwater Lake Washington. When they built these locks they had to build a special way for the salmon to get through, including a set of sprinklers to keep the gulls from eating the young fish.

From there, we went north along the sound to Golden Gardens Beach, a nice park with a rocky beach. The long walk was a great way to enjoy Seattle's weather and admire the scenery.

I could definitely live in Seattle.