Not being able to fall asleep the Wednesday night before our first trip probably wasn't the best idea. I woke up about five minutes after I went to sleep, and missed the whole two-hour plane ride awkwardly sleeping in the airplane seats.
I wake up to the captain announcing there's heavy cloud cover. Too lazy to open my eyes, I decide I'll look out the window after we've gone through the clouds, so I can see the city before we land. I keep doing quick peeks to check, and about 5 seconds after I see thick fog after the window, we land. Heavy cloud cover indeed!
The airport is beautiful. There are brass metal fish on the floor--at first we thought there were only salmon, but upon closer inspection there are schools of smaller fish and other not-salmon-looking ones as well. Not being a fish expert I can't give much more detail.
We were trying to find a mailbox, for a letter I'd finished the night before--a woman at a bookstore (half of whose books were 50 Shades of Grey or 50 Shades Darker) told us the mailbox was purple, and that it was to the left. The second woman we asked told us it was around the corner (we were in the straight hallway of the main terminal, decidedly lacking in corners) and the lady at a money-exchange place finally pointed us to an alcove next to security. The mailbox, once we finally found it, was indeed purple--there are seven mailboxes in the airport, delivered to the post office at 10 each morning. That was the first thing I liked about Seattle.
There was about a 10 minute walk through a parking garage to get to Light Rail. It was chilly outside and not terribly pleasant, but there was a pedestrian walkway next to the elevators, so we didn't have to navigate the cars in the garage.
The Light Rail station was open (and windy!) but beautiful: There was a cascade of small mirrors hanging from the ceiling above the escalators, which was nice on a foggy day. The ticket system is easy to use, but slightly baffling to travelers coming from the San Francisco Bay Area--after purchasing your ticket, you simply walk up the escalator or down stairs to the station. There are no turnstiles or ticket agents; the only barriers are designed to prevent luggage carts from the airport or shopping carts. Trains run from 5 am to 12 am, between 7.5 and 15 minutes apart.
At Westlake Station (the last stop on the line, and only a few blocks from our hotel) we got off the train to find buses sharing the platform with trains. The Light Rail tracks are flat on the ground, and the buses (some electric, some regular) can pull up beside the trains.
We were expecting about a 15 minute walk to our hotel. From Westlake Station (which had the atmosphere of a miniature Grand Central) we passed a Nordstrom, a very inviting looking Barnes and Noble, Williams and Sonoma, Forever 21, and other stores in a variety that appealed to both Mom and me. Our hotel turned out to be only a block and a half from the station, about a 4 minute walk if you didn't catch the light.
Apart from a few arrangements of dead flowers in the lobby (replaced the next morning) and men in suits discussing the demolishment of one of the lobby walls, the Roosevelt Hotel was beautiful and very comfortable.
After dropping off our suitcases at the hotel (our room wasn't ready; it was only 10am) we left for the Frye museum. There were a few fairly steep hills involved as well as a tunnel shared with cars, but the walk was beautiful. On either side of the tunnel there was a bridge over this park, which had beautiful paper flags hanging above it.
We crossed the street to a little cafe, and ordered lunch. I had a veggie sandwich without everything except cheddar cheese and avocado, and it was perfect. Mom had a sun-dried tomato and pesto sandwich, which she didn't like as much. We were more than halfway to the museum at this point--the rest of the walk was a beautiful residential neighborhood with lots of trees and pretty little yards.
The Frye Museum was absolutely gorgeous. There were light-colored wood floors, ceilings high enough to be roomy but not intimidatingly big. It's a free museum, founded by Charles and Emma Frye's collection after their death in the 1940's.
Their exhibits were better arranged than many of the Impressionist exhibits I've seen, mostly at museums in San Francisco--SF MOMA, the Palace of Fine Arts, or the de Young museum. There was more space in between each painting, giving time to breathe and recalibrate before moving to the next piece. It was nice that the exhibit wasn't miles long--they did a good job with arranging the paintings in way that made it easy to absorb the art. I would have liked to see more Mary Cassatt artwork, though. There was a single pastel sketch by her, and although they didn't advertise her work significantly on the website, I'd expected she'd have more of a presence in an exhibit about American artists in Europe.
The only other complaint I had about the museum itself was the lack of seating in the exhibits--there were two sets of three chairs in the main collection room, but no benches or other chairs in the special exhibits. The gift shop was under renovation at the time, which was a disappointment, but they had a wonderful little cafe--it was very light and beautiful, with fancy tea sets and gorgeous cakes in the window.
On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at a little diner for some more caffeine (to get us through the San-Francisco-esque hills). We lay down for a little while at the hotel, then walked down the hill toward Pike Place, where we went along the picturesque, bustling Post Alley for a few blocks before stopping for dinner.
Afterwards we went down to the original Starbucks (fun to put pictures on your Facebook page, but don't bother making a special trip to go in) and walked along the water for the sunset. There was some sort of gathering in a small park, presumably for the autumn equinox, which was interesting but preferably observed from a distance.
The walk back to the hotel in the dusk was beautiful. Downtown Seattle was busy but not crowded, and the stores are very fun to peek into in the evenings when everything is lit up. We watched Friends reruns on the TV and I wrote a little until bed.
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