Sam Goldsmith: Speed Dating Seattle Part I

Friday, June 1, 2012

Speed Dating Seattle Part I

The top of the Space Needle has been painted orange in honor of the color it was during the world's fair for which it was built.

Memorial Day Weekend was my first opportunity to investigate the city of Seattle, Washington. In fact, it was one of my first chances to find myself in the state of Washington at all, despite living in Portland, Oregon, which borders Washington - once, on the way to the airport, I missed a turn and biked until I saw the "Welcome to Washington" sign, then continued biking until I was beyond it in order to say I had been in the state.

A couple of friends were heading to Seattle to visit family and offered to take me along for the ride. It was all very last-minute. I called my Dad's high school friend Steve on Thursday telling him I'd be there for the weekend starting Friday night, and luckily enough he was available to visit and give me a place close to the city where I could spend a couple of nights, although no plans were final until about mid-way through Saturday.

Mostly the visit was for travel's sake, but also I needed to evaluate Seattle's livability, since there is an excellent law school there that I may be seriously considering in a year from now (while Portland is just fine as far as cities go, it doesn't have any top notch law schools except Lewis and Clark, which is only top notch for environmental law). It turns out that big cities - Seattle - have much more going on than little metropolises - Portland - and there's still much more to see before I get a real idea of what living there would be like. I guess this means we have to schedule a second date.

Still, Seattle is beautiful and green, and it has some great architecture. I'll split this post in two parts just because there are too many photos to bombard you with in just one "welcome to June" announcement.

While I was there a large folk festival, "Folklife Northwest" was taking place. I did check it out, but it was far too crowded and noisy in general. I couldn't stand it, in short. But there were some small, removed patches where I was able to escape before I escaped the entire festival altogether. Off to the side one table sold books of poetry written by kids in juvenile detention, where an organization called Pongo Teen Writing teaches non-profit poetry. It felt like something I could support, and the poems, which now sit in my room, are often quite good for being written by kids aged 13-17.

Then I made my way to Kerry Park Viewpoint, up a huge hill that rewarded me with a sweeping view of the cityscape. This is where my picture taking of the day started, because it's the only place in the city where a shot of the Space Needle makes it look like it's actually within downtown Seattle, while in reality it's off to the side in a different section of town from the skyscrapers.

See? No skyscrapers nearby.

The next day I went to Waterfall Garden Park (of course) because the public transportation was limited during the holiday weekend and I couldn't make it out to Snoqualmie Falls as I had originally planned. It turns out I wasn't allowed to take pictures with a tripod in the park because it's a private garden and no professional photographers are allowed. I was too flattered to be considered a pro despite my dinged up tripod to protest.


Waterfall Garden Park is a quite, tucked away fountain in the shape of a waterfall. It	's a few blocks away from where the Seattle Seahawks play.

Later, on the way back to the Space Needle, I accidentally ran into the downtown public library, an example of Seattle's bizarre and amazing architecture. Portland also boasts a fine public library, but not ten stories of modern glassy book holdings, complete with a book spiral built exactly how I imagined my protagonist's home to be in the novel I'm writing. It was a legitimate research library and piece of art, and made the prospect of being a University of Washington student seem quite appealing.