Proud to Be an American

This 4th of July was quite different from the one last year. Don't get me wrong, there were still fireworks and all that good stuff, but last year I would never have imagined that I would be in Seattle this year, watching the fireworks on the roof of our apartment complex surrounded by complete strangers, half of who were drunk. Haha, it was actually kind of funny listening to some people try to talk. Either way, Jason and I got a sweet view of the firework show that they do every year right over Lake Union, which is right in front of downtown. I'll tell you what, folks, I am glad to be an American! I don't care what people say about our country or our leaders, we have one heck of a sweet deal and we better not take it for granted! I've been doing an online course of 20th Century Russian history and boy oh boy, if you ever think we have a screwed up political system try understanding some of the crazy stuff that went down during the Soviet Union! Whew! I thought about that as I watched the fireworks this year and I'll say it once again, I'm proud to be an American!

Snoqualmie Falls

To get the 4th of July weekend kicked off right, Jason and I decided to go the great outdoors and get a respite from the city of Seattle. I'm not gonna lie, I have lived by mountains and "nature" but the northwest has a beauty that is incomparable with anything else. It is so green! Tall beautiful pine trees cover the foothills to the Cascade Mountains, and even the highway is lined with tall beautiful trees! I loved every second of driving along it...
So anyways, we went to this park called Snoqualmie Falls. First, I just have to say what a cool name that is: sno-qual-mie. That rocks. Anywho, so we got to the park and from the top you get a pretty good view of the beautiful falls, but you have the option of hiking down to it's base. When I say hike, it was more like a casual stroll, half through nature and half through very man-made fences and enclosures. But it was scenic all the same. At the end of the hike you walk along this boardwalk that is lined with big warning signs that tell you not to leave the boardwalk due to flashfloods. But of course no one listens to big warning signs. When we got to the end, we, along with half the tourists, climbed down and walked along the rocky riverbed to get a closer view of the falls. It was definitely worth breaking the rules :)

Here are some more pretty pictures of the falls, I couldn't pick just one!



Here are some more pictures of us!

Alki Beach...How Romantic!

Friday night Jason took me on a romantic date to the exotic beaches of Seattle. Haha, after growing up in Florida and living 20 minutes away from real beaches, any man-made beach is going to make you laugh. Nevertheless, we enjoyed walking up and down the walkway that hugged the coast and boasted a fabulous view of the city skyline. This was the first time Jason had touched the Pacific ocean and man! that water was COLD! As the setting sun sank into Puget sound, we strolled by all the bicyclists, rollerbladers and beach bums also enjoying their Friday evening. We met some people speaking Russian so I was even able to use my extremely limited Russian skills I picked up while in Moldova. (When I say limited I mean it, it consists of "please" and "thank you") I am pretty sure too that I saw a seal! I kept seeing a head bob up and down. It was either a seal or a mermaid, one can't be too sure....

The Pacific Ocean! (kind of) That water was chiiillllly!

Seattle Bus-stoppers

So it's cool to be eco-savvy around these parts. Alot of people are really into biking and walking to places they need to go. Cars are bad!! And smelly! They seem to have a decent public transport system here too, although I wouldn't know because I always just walk. Apparently it's cool to ride the bus. Well it looks like this family waited so long for the bus that they finally just turned to stone. It happens. Folks have fun dressing them up and putting frillies all over them. In case you didn't know, that one in the middle is President Obama. Who knew?

Go Seattle Sounders!

I had never heard of the Seattle sounders when Jason told me that Google had gotten tickets for all of the interns to attend one of their games. But then again, I would wager that most Americans couldn't name more than a few teams in the MLS, if they even knew what that was in the first place. By the way, MLS stands for Major League Soccer. Then again, maybe it's just me who is the ignorant fool. Either way, Jason was able to get an extra ticket for me and, along with his mentor,Larry, we went tonight to watch the Sounders take on DC United. It was a pretty cool exciting game and the football stadium-turned soccer stadium boasted a fairly large crowd. I found myself cheering, booing and whooping along with all of the crazy wild fans. My, my, how our allegiances can so easily be altered. I haven't even lived in Seattle for 2 months! I cannot say that we walked away triumphant; the Sounders tied 3-3, which was very disappointing, but it's all good. :)We had lots of fun!!

The Famous(?) Seattle Aquarium

Seattle is known for being environmentally friendly. Ya know, "save the whales!" and "hug a tree!" type of thing. Well I thought it would be pretty cool if we went and checked out the aquarium they have here in town; apparently it was supposed to be the bomb diggity. Plus, a girl at work got me two complimentary tickets because her mom works there. Nice.

So yesterday Jason and I went downtown to the famous Seattle Aquarium. It was....nice. I have a few criticisms however. It was super small. It seemed that the main displays were starfish(oops, i mean sea stars) and small fish. That's ok but they have that at the Museum of Science and Discovery too. Also, the big mammals, consisting of two giant seals, had this super small tank. They had two identically sized tanks side by side: one had two big seals and a little guy and the other had otters. Hm... that seems less than environmentally friendly. The 2 ton seals get the same sized tank as the 2 pound otter? Another thing that I was sad about was that they didn't even have killer whales! What Aquarium in the northwest has the audacity to call itself an aquarium and not have orcas?? Even Miami Seaquarium has a killer whale! And they don't patrol the coasts of Florida naturally.

Oh well, I guess for all this complaining it means that I was just a little disappointed. I am still glad we went and I am definitely glad we did not have to pay the $16 something fee for each ticket. But I expected more I suppose. To top it all off, the aquarium doesn't have it's own parking so we ended paying $8 bucks for public parking! Ouch! sigh. Asa e viata! We also got a glimpse of the famous pike place market. Not gonna lie, I was not dying to go in. Jason and I both thought it looked overrated and neither one of us really care to go there.

This is a real man-eating octopus! It looks like an alien!

I shouldn't complain. There were some neat things that we saw and some super uuuuggggly fish, haha! I enjoyed the experience of going downtown and hey, at least I got some cute pictures of my adorable hubby! He is such a good sport. I'm always telling him to stand here or stand there while I take a picture of him. He likes it :)

Aw..he's so cute...
Notice the scary octopus coming after him, ahhhhh!

What a View!

A blustery cool front came in last night,pushing out what remained of the last rays of light. Jason and I were both pretty tired from the day but I had to just take a moment and go on our roof and look at this. I thought it was so beautiful. I think it would make for a great water color. In fact, I think I might just go ahead and do that. Pretty inspiring,eh?

While I was up on the roof I thought I'd give everyone an idea of the view we have of downtown right from our own home!