Bainbridge Island

The waterfront in Seattle

Having been totally lazy on Independence day I decided I should do something slightly more exciting on Saturday and take a trip to Bainbridge Island. I eventually made it out of the house a bit after noon, caught two buses, and then a ferry.

On the ferry

It was cloudy and drizzling with rain. I stood at the front of the ferry whilst most other people found a seat. The ferry started up and so did the steady driving wind and rain. It wasn't actually raining that hard but it was enough to keep other people inside. I enjoyed the quiet or rather the roaring wind howling in my ears, a nice change from chattering people. I enjoyed spotting jelly fish. I enjoyed the watching the play of the light off the raindrops on the ripples on the surface of the gentle waves. Sometimes driving raindrops is just the perfect kind of weather.

Arriving at the island

The ferry docked and ready for deboarding

Downtown Bainbridge

Bainbridge Island is connected to Seattle by one bridge and the ferry which carries cars and people. It is an expensive place to live and is one of those places that really only seems to have tourist shops. There are lots of art galleries, bakeries, home decor shops, and restaurants. There was also a nice fabric store with some interesting patterns. My collection of fabric, which I've bought with no clear idea what I'm going to use it for, increased by another two pieces - but they were soooo beautiful!

Frogs on the Rock - treasure hunt

I stopped into the local bookshop and came across a painted fibreglass (?) frog. Hmmm... I thought to myself, could they possibly have a frog treasure hunt? Well yes they could - Frogs on the Rock! I didn't try to visit all of the frogs (I thought I'd save that for another time) but I did come across some...

 After spending slightly more than I should have on Seattle memorabilia I decided to try out a bit of the Waterfront Trail. This is a nice walk that starts off in Downtown Bainbridge and, where possible, winds around the edge of the island. I walked along it for about 40 minutes there and 40 mins back and saw many interesting things. Possibly my favourite was the stone sculptures (see below). There were a few humans, a T-rex, and a Triceratops (which I failed to photograph), as well as other things.

The waterfront next to the marina

Stone man pulling chain

The person who did the work

This stone man is living the high life

I had a chance to do another sketch, of a different stone man

The Waterfront Trail

I'm not sure what this was about but I liked the way it divided the view up
into segments all holding different interesting things. 

The hollyhocks were in full bloom with massive flowers

A hummingbird really liked this flower.
I think it is probably a Female Rufous Hummingbird but not entirely sure.
See video below

Though you can't see them in the photo there are
herons nesting in these trees

People in line for the ferry

Eventually it was time to head home. I was glad I was on foot when I walked past the queue for the cars going on the ferry. The journey back faces towards Seattle making ideal photo opportunities. The weather had cleared up somewhat so my return journey on the ferry was a lot less chatter-free. I'll have to try and take more ferry rides in the rain!

The view from the front of the ferry at the start of the return trip. So many shades of blue and grey!

Mt. Rainier

The Seattle Skyline as featured on most postcards. 

One of the things I miss about home is fish and chips. Every time I mention this to a Seattleite they say 'what about Ivars?'. Ivars is the white building in the photo. I have been to Ivars before but as a Birthday treat. I wasn't in the mood for American 'Fish and Chips' but today I thought I would give it a go...

Repeat after me "A chip is not a fry with it's skin on". The fish was really nice, fresh and yummy but it was breaded not battered and therefore does not count as fish in the sense of 'fish and chips'. They did have vinegar (sorry northerners, no gravy offered).  The chips were fries. A chip is at least 1cm (3/8") wide, anything smaller is a fry. My eating pleasure was also slightly ruined by picking a table by the railing, where people were feeding the seagulls. FEEDING SEAGULLS!

American Fish and Chips

Evidence that some
Americans are stupid.

This weekend I have come across two behavioural faux pas that have lead me to conclude that some Americans are actually stupid. Number 1: you do not let your children handle fireworks, you definitely don't let them pick up supposedly used fireworks. Number 2: Under no circumstances do you ever, EVER, feed the seagulls! You may laugh, but I have suffered from multiple sequential seagull ice cream raids in Cornwall. Swooping down and plucking the things from my hand inches away from my face. Please, people, for the love of fish and chips and ice creams everywhere. DO NOT FEED THE SEAGULLS! 

Despite that slight downer I had a really good afternoon and did enjoy my 'Fish Fingers and Fries'. 

Independence Day

To be honest I failed to find any Fourth of July events to join in with on Friday. I was told at work that I should be going to a barbecue to celebrate but that didn't happen. I didn't do a lot for most of the day but I did go out to see fireworks at the end of the day. Fireworks are illegal in Washington except for where you have a permit. My local park sits on the edge of lake Washington and I had heard this was a good place to see the organised displays without getting caught up in the traffic. At 9:30pm I left the house and joined the slow flow of traffic down to the lakeside in the blue dusk light. I could already hear the occasional firework bouncing off the surrounding hills.

As I said fireworks are illegal in Seattle but that didn't seem to stop people. There were at least 10 groups letting off small amounts of fireworks all over the park. Clearly the American public hasn't been scared into only going to public shows by decades of 'Fireworks are Dangerous' ads on TV. Nonetheless I enjoyed the firework around the lake. I tried out the fireworks setting on my cheap digital camera, and was quite impressed with how steady the pictures are. There was also one of the big army helicopters flying around towing a star and stripes flag, which was quite cool but I couldn't get a picture of it. So I'll just leave you with my firework photos. 

An American Cathedral

Another Choir of the Sound performance. This time Verdi's Requiem. In St. Marks Cathedral. They brought in four professionals for the soloists, supported by a full orchestra but the parts I liked the most were the full chorus singing. It was glorious.

I'm still slightly bemused by the Cathedral. I haven't been to any modern Cathedrals in the UK so I didn't really know what to expect. It was built in the 30s on one of the highest points of the city and served as an outpost in WWII. It is basically a large cube. The ceiling is wooden and several stories high, then there are just four massive 6ft wide columns standing a little in from each corner of the room. The windows were massive and when we arrived it was full light, so we could appreciate the light they let in. No stained glass. The building was a bit sparse really, I suspect that there are usually banners which had been removed for acoustic purposes, and the echo was lovely. It did have a lovely organ (which we didn't hear but there are pipes all around the building) and also a cool glass installation, with coloured glass arranged to be perpendicular to the window in a large star or sun shape. All in all it lacked the cosy but vast feel of European Cathedrals with the arches and aisles, stained glass and high ceilings.

The top of on of the massive columns in St.Marks Cathedral.

A fuzzy image of the pretty organ

The stained glass window

But the choral singing - that was glorious.

Odds and ends of an overly busy month...

I have to admit I come to the end of June in a state of total disarray, slightly bemused and confused that I have been in Seattle over a year, how did that happen? I can't even remember the last month without some serious prompting from my box of random ticket stubs and leaflets (which I may one day turn into a physical journal of this trip), and my camera and sketchbook.

What have I been doing, lets piece the evidence together...

Evidence number 1: A sketch dated 26th May of Sandpoint UMC.


This evidence seems to suggest I got to church on the 26th of May - that seems like a good start!

This is of the alter at my church. I was listening to the sermon but I can't now remember what it was about now...









Evidence number 2A: A photo of the back of my head taken 1st June!

Evidence number 2B: A flyer...

Both of these bits of evidence remind me that I ended May and started off June singing a Bach Cantata with my church choir. Saturday the 31st was our final rehearsal and Sunday the 1st was our performance. To be honest most of the piece is sung by soloists but as it took us a couple of months to learn chorus parts that is probably a good thing. As well as excellent soloists we also had a host of amazing musicians on period style instruments playing with us. To make life harder for myself after working hard to get the Alto part down I decided to defect and support the Tenors. It was actually quite fun to sing at a lower pitch and restful for my voice, helpfully I had the support of some excellent tenors on the day of the performance otherwise I wouldn't have got it. Why is there a picture of the back of my head? Unfortunately I couldn't find a second mirror so this was just me checking my hair style! This is the single occasion I have had to dress up fancy in Seattle and I don't actually have a photo of my whole out fit, someone at church does I think? There was a recording made of our performance so maybe one day I'll get to hear what we sounded like.

Evidence number 3: A program and a ticket stub [1st June]

On the afternoon of the 1st of June, as if singing Bach wasn't enough for one day, I was invited to a concert by the 'Choir of the Sound'. This is an eighty strong choir of very good singers which has been around since the late 70s (although I suspect the members have changed!). Before the concert I was taken out for Brunch, which was really nice, I had a plate full of fried potato (hash browns) and tomato, bacon, and all sorts of exciting things. The concert was predominantly Jazz but the choir also 'do' church music and have a Christmas concert. This performance featured a number of people doing short solos, selected members of the choir swing (?) dancing, and generally a lot of animation and acting as a part of the crowd, all the music was sung from memory. It was really good and they had obviously worked hard on the couple of hours of music they performed,with several costume changes. Some of the pieces were really fun like 'The Pink Panther' some were just beautiful like 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square'. They also had some special guests join them - search the web for the Baudboys if you enjoy barbershop octets(?) with a twist. So that was a musically diverse weekend and unsurprisingly I didn't get any sketching done.

Evidence number 4: The start of a sketch and more photos [7th June]
Just to show that not all my sketches get finished. This is one I had been planing for a while. A sketch of the Montlake Bridge. I bit off a bit more that I could chew. I walked about 3 and a half miles or more to get to the Montlake Bridge on a lovely sunny day, found myself a bench, noticed the beautiful position of the moon just above my image, and lost enthusiasm. Whilst waiting for the bus home back on campus I took a quick look around the university's medical garden. Which was interesting but would have been more interesting a) on a day I hadn't exhausted my brain cell trying to pretend to be draughtsman and b) with a little more information on what these plants are doing in a medicinal garden.

An unfinished sketch

The photo I took so I can finish the sketch off at some point. 

The University Medical Garden

The University Medical Garden

Evidence number 5: A leaflet and a wrist band. Plus lots of photos - opps I forgot about them [8th June]
This is evidence of my trip to the 'Museum of Flight'. I was invited by one of the  members of the congregation at church. He was a airmen in the second world war and, as he had joint nationality, worked with both the RAF and then later the american forces as a bombardier. He has donated some of his memorabilia to the museum and has been writing memoirs. He is a great teller of tales and shared some of his wartime stories with us as well as organising a tour of the aircraft from both the first and second world wars with us. They have aircraft from lots of different nations fighting on both sides of the war so a lot of the names were forgettable to me.

As an aside the museum of flight has slew of aircraft to represent the history of flight including space travel. It is situated across from Boeing Fields and so is a bit out of the way for someone without a car although I got a lift to it on this occasion. We didn't have time to look around all of it but I look forward to going back.

So here, in roughly historical order, are some of the planes I thought were interesting. Apologies that I really don't remember a lot of the details and that I am very biased and mainly took pictures of the British planes.

This is a prototype plane made by Caproni, one of the first examples of a plane with weaponary.
In this case a rifle (?) with a firing mechanism and an eye of sight so that it could be fired by the pilot.
 I forget when this was made but it didn't catch on so the museum rescued it from a loft in Italy.
Amazingly this is the original cloth. 

This is the skeleton of a Curtis Jenny (USA, WWI and after).
 I like the fact you can see just how fragile the wooden structure is! 

Sopwith Triplane (Britain, WWI). I was told these planes were quite agile
but when others tried to copy the three wing design it didn't work as well. 

A Sopworth Camel (Britain, WWI).
Apparently the most 'successful' allied plane of WWI.
Success here being measured by it's ability to shoot down other aircraft.

An overview of the downstairs (WWII) aircraft. 

I couldn't not take a picture of the Spitfire (Britain, WWII).
Which I have to say is a lot prettier than it's German counterpart (which I failed to photograph)
I guess it was some kind of Messerschmitt which I think is like saying an oak is some kind of tree!

General Motors Wildcat (USA & UK - Navy, WWII)

Goodyear Corsair (USA Navy, WWII).

The hinge holding the wing on the Corsair.

 So the naval planes with the folding wings really got my attention, I had never really considered how you pack aircraft onto a carrier. Obviously, aircraft with folding wings. Folding Wings?!? The Corsair pictured has a particularly interesting history. It was stationed at the naval base which used to exist 10 mins away from where I live and is now Magnuson Park. This plane failed to get home and sat at the bottom of lake Washington for over 30 years! The plane still technically belongs to the navy so despite having been restored to flyable the plane can not be flown because it is only on loan. I started having flash backs to the movie Independence Day at this point in the tour, I imagined the contents of the museum being commandeered to be flown by retired pilots and crop dusters to fight off some alien invasion...

B17 bomber (USA, WWII).
It is something similar to this that the gentleman from
church flew in with the Eighth Air force - eek!

 So having pieced the evidence together it seems I have had a fairly busy start to the month, phew - no wonder I'm tired! I think that is enough for one entry. I'll write separate posts about later in the month.