Images worth repeating

[jazzfish]

Morning fog thick enough that when you look out at the Space Needle all you can see is the base. Calm rain that's serious about getting its job done but still takes the time to talk to me and tell me "Sun'll be here soon." O so many used bookstores-- it's a dangerous, dangerous city. Tea and good conversation with tulip_tree, a first in far too many years. Conveyor-belt sushi and pumpkin-bread and piroshkis and empanadas, staying up talking 'til three in the morning and drinking yerba maté the next day (it's like green tea, but sharp around the edges). Water water everywhere: the sound to the west, the rain above, lakes in all directions. The brightest October sun I've ever seen, not quite pierce-your-eyeballs but I wouldn't want to have had a hangover that morning. And nixve, always nixve.

And distant mountains and random city art and /trees/ and in all a friendlier personality than I've ever gotten from DC. On the flight back I looked down at the Rockies passing beneath me and thought I am so done with the east coast. And I understood why one travels, and that the beauty in other places is not necessarily better but always, always different.

---

Minneapolis is the largest small town I've ever been in. scathach drove me around a bit, to and from various places, and nothing I experienced felt much like an actual city. It's a place continually surprised to realise that it's inhabited by 300,000 people (probably more including St. Paul). Every so often it makes an effort: a couple blocks of skyscrapers, some impressive architecture (the new Guthrie in particular), a few freeways. Then it shrugs and goes back to getting on with life.

Continued the staying up 'til three in the morning thing with scathach, because sometimes the conversations just kind of go, and sometimes I need to be someone who listens. Got an impromptu tour of the new Guthrie, and saw a show (Yellowman, very thought-provoking and very very good; perhaps more on that later), and experienced creepy modern art at the Walker (the Silent Hill Room was hands-down creepiest, though the Halloween Cave gave me a couple chills as well) and sculpture in the Garden. Good tea from tea-bags, and decent cider (Strongbow), and a most excellent pizza (involving feta!) and the best cherry coke I think I've ever had. It's a good place, with good people.

. . . yeah. The show and the art both want more thought than I can give them right now. Maybe tomorrow.

---

I dearly love flying. Partly because yes, it's an order of magnitude faster than driving. But mostly for the experience itself. The sudden change in force from 'back' to 'down' at the moment of takeoff, the ant-cars in the streets below. Rolling argentine clouds and patches of city-light that peek through. "This is your captain speaking." People who wander around for the express purpose of giving me a ginger ale.

I should do this more often.

Comments

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

Convienietly, you again live near airports that make it worth doing

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

♥Seattle♥
I've always thought of it as my real home.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

I say we organize a masse immigration. Find us a quirky company all us geeks can work at and I think you got a deal. ;)

[fishy1.livejournal.com]

I like this plan. I am proud to be a part of it!

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would move there if I could take my peeps with me. :)

[jazzfish]

I very much less than three Seattle. At least what I saw of it over three days while not being all starry-eyed. Have to try and take in some more of it next time.

[narquelion.livejournal.com]

Welcome, well, back. When I was in Seattle last year, I thought of you, so as usual my egotistical side is glad to be proven right.

[jazzfish]

Thank you. I'm more than happy to concede this one, and probably even Vancouver as well.

[vond.livejournal.com]

Flying is even more fun when you're at the controls. I wish the cost of entry wasn't so high for anything more than a teaser flight.

[jazzfish]

I could believe that. Thing is, it's cost of entry in both cash /and/ time. For that I'd rather someone else flew me up and then I jumped out.

[jonny-law.livejournal.com]

Someday you really should visit The Bay Area, so you can shatter your preconception that Sunny Southern California (a.k.a. The Southland) and Northern California should occupy the same place in your mind.

[jazzfish]

*blink* Yes. Yes I should. Definitely. Hrm. Will have to think about when to schedule that.

[scathach.livejournal.com]

Actually, the population of Mpls is closer to 400,000, and if you add St. Paul it climbs to 650,000. Just sayin'.

I found out that Creepy Room was installed just the day before we visited, so the blood was pretty fresh. I think it'll be less stinky in a week or so.

I also found an image on Google Earth of that churchyard I was telling you about. Look here.

[jazzfish]

So noted. That's a decent amount of people. (I am rather pleased that people who live there also refer to it as Mpls. Do they pronounce it "Impulse" as well, or is that one really just me?)

That might make it a bit less creepy, or at least less . . . imposing, I guess, in the sense of crowding out thoughts with sensations. (It's still creepy with just the visuals.)

Huh. That looks rather neat.

[(Anonymous)]

It's more of a "mmmapplis." or "mmmpulze."

[darkfyre-muse.livejournal.com]

I love traveling. And hearing about friends traveling is almost as good as actually doing it myself. Makes me wish I got more vacation time. Or that all my family would visit here and hence I wouldn't need to use it for that.
Seattle sounds sooo wonderful.

[jazzfish]

I categorically refuse to use more than a week's worth of vacation time per year for Visiting Relatives, /ever/. In thirteen years growing up (from the time we got back from Germany 'til I left for college) there was exactly one week of Vacation that didn't involve going to Arkansas. This has left me with a bitter residue in my soul at all the people who went places like Hawaii, Greece, and London on their vacations.

Seattle was amazing, and a week later I still don't really have any more words than that. Words are inadequate (the poor craftsman blames his tools).