The Light Rail Opens!

Seattle has a train!!! Woohooo. It's called "the Light Rail" and it runs by electricity above the train, the way some of the electric buses in Seattle run. It's also on a track and goes through a tunnel. The route right now is from Tukwila to Westlake Center in Downtown Seattle. Despite the crowds, lines and confusion, I decided to take it downtown today. It was free for all passengers. Normally it will cost between $1.50-$2.50 depend on how far you travel. It's also based on the honor system, so no ticket is taken when you get on the train, but controllers can ask to see your ticket. It is much smoother than the bus and the EL train in Chicago, but is not yet super quick to get downtown. Supposedly, four bicycles per car are allowed. I didn't even attempt to try it today, it would've been impossible with all the people. It's great to have better/more options for public transportation in Seattle, even though waiting 3o minutes for the Light Rail did remind me of waiting for a ride at Disney World or Six Flags. Seattle is on it's way to becoming a 21st century city.

Longest days on the west coast.

So, I feel as though I've been slacking on the updating of my blog lately. After coming back from Chicago in early May, I feel as though the spring rush has taken over and is finally beginning to subside.

Today was the last day of kindergarten at the EEU(Experimental Education Unit), tomorrow will be graduation, but teaching is over. I'm so proud of all of the kids in my class, they have worked incredibly hard all year and I will miss them dearly. This evening "The Burrs", the old time string band I am in, played for the kids' end of the year BBQ. As we played tunes, they danced around us in circles in the grass. The kids reminded me of myself at their age; running around while my mother her fiddle.

Below is a photo of "The Burrs" playing at a Wallingford block party this past weekend. It was actually an Alley Party with a garage stage set up. Afterwards we all went out for Mexican Food and then waited in line for about 45 minutes for ice cream. It was worth it, hand churned, homemade fresh waffle cones and incredible flavors. I had salty carmel and ginger. Mmmm.

Later that weekend I went on a hike with a new friend of mine. We hiked up to Goat Lake, near Darrington in Mt. Baker National Forest. It was beautiful, but no goats, only faint traces of goat hair and what looked(to us) like goat droppings. After the hike I gave my first driving lesson, fun stuff. It's much more entertaining than I thought it would be. Below is a photo from Goat Lake.

I'm in the moving process again. Going to be house sitting until mid October at various places throughout south Seattle. Today has been a day of packing and listening to Hollow Earth Radio show, a friend of mine was doing a 2 hour special on the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. Moving is an invigorating yet tiring process. It's good to be moving on, but it's alot of lifting and exertion. Not paying rent till the Fall is quite a nice concept though.

On Saturday I'm off to the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes up in Port Townsend, which is on the Olympic Peninsula. Banjo workshops, square dancing, jamming till sunrise and camping! Woohoo...summer is looking good.

Spring Visit from Germany

Miriam and I at the Hen House.
Julia, Miriam & Brigid at Gasworks park.

A few weeks ago my friends from Germany; Julia and Miriam came to visit me in Seattle. It was Miriam's first time in the States and Julia's first time in Seattle(she visited me a few times when I was living in Chicago). They arrived on a grey, overcast Friday afternoon, welcome to Seattle.

Fremont Troll(above)

We did many things in Seattle together; visited Pike Market, did the Seattle Underground Tour among other things. They even got to sample my favorite Seattle donuts, Top Pot. As I do with most visitors who come to Seattle, I took them to Gas Works park and to see the Fremont Troll under the Aurora bridge.

Later that week we decided to drive around the Olympic Peninsula. First we caught the Bainbridge Island Ferry out of downtown Seattle. It's about a 35 minute ferry ride. From there we drove through Poulsbo, then over the Hood Canal Bridge onto the peninsula. We were determined to drive around it in a counter-clockwise fashion, in one day. On the west side of the peninsula there are some beautiful beaches, including the one below called La Push. It was almost desolate and very foggy. We were not able to see very far into the ocean. Only the large rocks in the foreground were visible. It was extremely windy and wet, a typical pacific northwest beach.

Below is a downtown photograph of Vancouver, BC. We spent three days trekking around the cold and wet Canadian city. I visited the main art museum there and was really disappointed. I figured that Vancouver being such a metropolitan city would have an extensive art collection on display. They had a minimal rotating exhibit that was not inspiring, I think I spent less than 2 hours there. For those of you who know me, this is a pretty short time for me to spend looking at art. We ate some of the best, cheapest sushi in one of the many Japanese restaurants there and also made it to an Irish Pub for a hot toddy, where on the television the NHL ice hockey game was being shown.

On their last day in Seattle, the sun was shining and the it was about 80 degrees. We decided to spend some time at Seward Park sitting in the sun and icing our feet in the cold water of Lake Washington.

Julia and Miriam did quite of bit of jumping that day on our backyard trampoline.

The Burrs' first open mic!

Hey Folks,

My new band "The Burrs" just played our first open mic last Friday at Cafe Racer!

We are: Anneclaire on fiddle, Brigid on banjo, Bronwyn on fiddle, Charmaine on guitar and flatfooting, Emily on bass, and Heather on mandolin. We had been playing as a collective for 6 days before this event!

Someone at the show captured a simple video of us playing Cotton-eye Joe. It was the third and final tune we played at the open mic. Below is the link for you to view it on you tube.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fyOyrGnIw4

Los Angeles, California

Traffic downtown Los Angeles. This isn't even during rush hour.

At the end of February I went to Los Angeles for my cousin Triana's wedding. I met my dad and siblings down there and we spent a few days together in the sun. In the sprawled city of 12 lane highways crowded with cars and 24-hour liquor stores every two blocks, I managed to relax for a week. My flight came into LAX at about 11am and it was overcast, but warm. I spent over an hour at the rental car place haggling over the quoted price. Renting a minivan was funny, it was also weird that it had a Washington license plate. They're such mama-mobiles.

So after driving for about an hour on one of the 20 expressways that go through LA, I saw the exit for the Getty Center and Museum. It's free to get in, but parking is $10, and it's virtually impossible to get there any other way besides driving. After i parked, a tram took me up this mountain to a beautifully landscaped museum grounds. A friend of mine suggested the art museum there. They did indeed have a great collection with rotating special exhibits. At first I scoped out the modern painting section and some photographs of the west coast from the early 20Th century.

It ended up being a gorgeous sunny afternoon, making it difficult for me to be inside the museum. I ended up laying out on the grass of this little hill overlooking the skyline of the San Fernando Valley and LA. For at least 2 hours my body was just soaking up the vitamin D. It was a lovely first afternoon in California.

I ended up meeting up with Maria and Tony, two of my friends that I met in Hawaii last year. They live far out of LA, in Rowland Heights. It took me about 2 hours to get there from where I was. Tony, being Chinese, took us out to a really great Chinese restaurant. Then we also went to an Asian SUPER market, it was HUGE.

Maria and I took the long way to the beach the next day, it took about 2 hours from their house. Anywhere you go in LA takes at least one hour to get there. Luckily the mini-van was very comfortable and had a great radio. We went to Huntington Beach, south of LA off the Pacific Coast Highway. It was really desolate and the backdrop was a bit industrial, but it was beautiful to be at the ocean and hear the waves. We did some yoga facing the water, it was so serene and beautiful. No, we did not coordinate our outfits, we just happen to be wearing the same colors.

After I dropped Maria off at work, I headed towards Malibu where the wedding was suppose to be. I wanted to check into the hotel and drop my stuff off. We stayed at a hotel in Aguora Hills, it was about 30 minutes by windy steep mountainous road to Zuma Beach. After seeing some of my aunts and uncles, I headed towards the beach. The photo above was the first one I took when I got to the beach, it was about 1/2 hour before sunset. I played a bit of banjo uke on the beach, but I mostly tried to get cool pictures of me, the beach, the sunset and the mountains in the background. Below are some of my favorites.

I think I was having too much fun taking pictures of myself.

After watching the sun go down on the beach, I headed south on the Pacific Coast Highway towards Santa Monica, heading into the city to meet Tony and Maria. Around 8:30pm we picked up Katie, my brother's girlfriend. We ended up going to get drinks and heading to IN-N-OUT for burgers, then we made two trips back to the airport, the first to pick up Brendan, coming from Dayton, OH. The second was to pick up Mags, Pete, Dad and Chris, whose flight was 2 hours late. It was 1:30am before we were en route to the hotel. It was a long day.

The next day was Triana and Tim's wedding. In the morning before the wedding we headed over to Zuma beach to go in the water. Dad and I did a 2 mile run in the sand along the shore and then jumped in the freezing cold water. At least the air was somewhat warm. We saw a sign for a polar plunge, which was laughable because it was nothing near polar outside.

After the beach we went back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. On the way back we stopped at this Canyon lookout to take pictures.

The wedding was held at a ranch type of country club between the hotel and the ocean. It was beautiful and secluded. The ceremony was outside even though it was a bit chilly. They had heating lamps set up. Below are some of the pictures I took at the ceremony

On Sunday night we went over to Aunt Dor's for dinner and took a large group photo of the family. It was so great to spend some time with my family.