Right now we're in Olympia which is just outside Seattle, about an
hour south and we're staying at Kathryns (Maricelles sister) place.
Its been really cool getting to know her after hearing so much from
from Chris, Ani, and Marci. As soon as we got into town Kat picked us
up and we went to watch her boyfriend pay rugby. I didn't really know
rugby featured that much over here, which is true, but it was pretty
cool to see some Americans taking up the sport. Their coach was
actually an aussie guy who lived in Scarborough for a little while.
Wierd.

Seattle was good. Driving in I had some pretty high expectations which
had been built up over the years, but when it finally came to seeing
it, it wasn't all that big of a deal. It was a nice change from San
Francisco which had a pretty high homeless population, and was a
little dodgey in parts, but you could just tell that Seattle has a
good vibe about it, and the people here are a lot more easy going.
Maybe its all the hippies. I could really see myself living here.

The hostel we stayed at was pretty nice, and was right in the heart of
downtown. It was actually right across the street from the Pike Fish
Markets where they have those famous fish throwing dudes, and also the
first original Starbucks was just down the street. I really wanted to
see the fish throwing, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to waking
up before 6am for the possibility of seeing some action. There were
some pretty cool buskers there as well.

Some of the cool things we did while we were there include seeing the
Space Neddle, Ye Old Curiosity Shop, the lookout, the Pike Market,
walking around the whole city to find a cool pub, Kells Pub, Linda's
Bar, and having a relatively nice hostel to spend our hours in. The
space needle was pretty cool to see, but like most attractions like
that, you kind of reach your saturation point pretty fast. Once youv'e
seen it, youv'e seen it. There was also that dome fountain thing which
is in my pics which we sat at for a while and listened to little kids
screaming as they ran away from the water spray. The markets across
the street were pretty sweet. There were heaps of cool little stalls
and stuff there, plus the fish market had some massive fish for sale.
Maybe like 3/4 the length of me some of them were. On our last night,
Chris and I found this cool Irish pub really close to our hostel which
had a pretty good atmosphere. There was an Irish/bluegrass band
playing, and there was also the Bombers vs ??? footy game on. The beer
we had there was also pretty good. I think it was called Manny's.

Some of the crap things about Seattle were, parking ($17 a day, but we
eventually got it for $12), and walking long distances (to find pubs,
and also us getting lost). We had really wanted to go see the Mariners
play (baseball), but on the last day when we were going to see them it
was raining, plus we had just got in contact with Kathryn, so we made
our way south to Olympia. I think me and Chris were just getting a
little tired of city life, so even though it was Seattle, we were
ready for a change.

I haven't got my guitar fixed yet, but I'll hopefully be able to find
a place in Salt Lake. The problem is that everywhere I take it to
needs to keep it for almost up to a week for them to be able to get it
done, and that doesn't quite work when you're maving around that much.
I should be able to get compensated by the airline, but I've still got
to talk to the boss lady. I need to get it fixed soon though. Off to Donnelly, Idaho tomorrow, and thats gonna be one heck of a drive.