seattle

in my current job, we are only allowed to report 40 hours a week, but (given the nature of this job), i often work over this time. we can save up all that extra time and take days off in the future. my job is also limited to 1040 hours, so in these last few weeks, i realized that i have quite a lot of this "comp time" leftover and so figured i'd not spend those days off bored at my house in corvallis, but that i'd take a trip up to seattle and get paid for it. :)



[seattle skyline]


i took the amtrak up and let me tell you, the train is about 100 million times better than the bus. i will never take the bus again if i can avoid it. how nice to sit comfortably, be able to walk around, have a dining car, real bathrooms. way, way nicer.

and i had a fabulous time. i really enjoy traveling by myself - with my tendency to run around like mad, i just do better on my own schedule without having to worry about anyone else's (brad is the exception to this, i suppose, since he puts up with my desire to do absolutely as much as possible (couldn't tell you if he'd travel the same way given an option)). i stayed at what was probably the best hostel i've ever stayed in, and it comes highly recommended. it was a bit out of downtown in the ballard neighborhood, but near the beautiful shilshole bay and golden gardens beach.



[yachts at the marina]


[sunset view from the hostel]


i of course had to visit the pike place market and enjoy the sights and sounds - flowers, fish, fresh produce. i also stopped by the "first starbucks" but really it's just like any other starbucks. gotta love those pumpkin spice lattes though.









really, i did a little bit of everything. wandered through the downtown, saw the space needle, visited "u dub", saw museums, art galleries, drank coffee and read in a lot of cafes, rode a ferry through the sound, went to the central library with it's cool architecture.



[central library]


[view from tenth floor looking down]


i took heaps of pictures. i love that the city is surrounded by the sound. it's great. here's a few more pictures:



[fremont troll]


[puget sound]


[view of city across union lake]


so i'm now in my last week of work and then off to boston for a week. i am so excited to see my friends there and soak in the city again. excited to move on to the next stage.

portland zombie walk

i just have to post this picture of jacob, lindy, me, and alice from the portland zombie walk. hundreds of zombies meet in portland and go lurching through the city. fabulous.

red dust

brad and i have been meaning to go to bend all summer. and then with the weird scheduling of this job, various other commitments, and the lack of car, we never got over there. last weekend was his last one in oregon, and it conveniently coincided with a "first friday" art-walk in bend, so we finally managed to go there. it was also the first real wintery rainy weekend over here in the valley, so we were happy to escape to (somewhat) drier conditions.

i love bend. it has so much of the culture and atmosphere that corvallis lacks. the art-walk on friday was great; it's wonderful to wander through crowded art galleries, sipping wine (and giving most of my overly-generously-full glasses to brad since i was driving). we went to drake park, visited the fall festival, and saw a play at the historic theatre downtown.



[deschutes river through drake park]


and on our way back to corvallis on sunday, we swung by smith rock state park, which is famous for it's sheer rock faces and, thus, very popular among rock climbers.





we soaked in the sun, walked along the river, watched the climbers (man, there's another hobby i want to take up!), had a picnic. it was just lovely.







it was a great way to spend our last weekend together in oregon. his last day (he had a red-eye out of portland, so he was here in corvallis most of the day), we read the paper in the morning, watched a movie, went for a walk. it was nice - it was homey. this is probably the last time in ... two years or so that we'll be living in the same place, able to do all these normal sorts of things.

so now that he's gone, i just feel very ready to leave here. i've enjoyed it here, really. but this time was really about us for me and now ... i leave for boston in exactly three weeks and i cannot, cannot, cannot wait to go and see my friends, see the city, feel full again.

middle distance runner

last sunday, as part of the fall festival here in corvallis, i ran my first 5k race. a few weeks ago, i realized that my gym membership was about to expire and that (speaking of gyms) there wouldn't be a gym in mexico that i could join. and so i decided to take up running in order to stay in shape. and since i'm not really that motivated to run (particularly due to past knee problems), i figured what better motivation than to sign up for a race and pay to run and get a t-shirt as well.

so i went out and bought a new pair of running shoes and have been running fairly regularly. my "goal" was to run under 30 minutes - set the standard low, yes?

the day was beautiful and sunny (not too much more of those ... the current forecast has little rainclouds for the next seven months), and my time was 25:14. woohoo! not too bad.

the great pumpkin run is next! because seriously, that is going to be an awesome t-shirt.