Day two: A lot of walking.

Day two was kind of a blur. In fact, they all were in a way. I awoke at 6 (according to my phone) to the sound of *someone else's* cell phone annoyingly emitting some kind of alarm that sounded more like a ringtone. The cell phone in question seemed to be a problem shared most by the upper bunks. His (cell phone alarm guy) bunk was a top bunk to my left, and the person who finally spoke up had a top bunk directly in front of my feet.

"Whose phone is that?"

"I think it's his" I said incoherantly as I pointed to my left. The pointing was probably even less coherant.

"Hey chief? Could you turn off your phone?"

After a few of the, "hey chief's" the beeping ceased, and it was back to sleep for me...

...for another hour or so.

I kept waking up and falling asleep, taking advantage of the fact that I didn't have to work from 2:30 to 6:30 in the morning. When I finally woke up for good, I turned on my CD player, turned it to the TV band, and listened to the local news for about twenty minutes. It was one of the many subtle differences I noticed between Seattle and my city. After this, (which was about 9:00) I finally left my room, only to find something taped to my door telling me to report to the front desk immediately:

I was worried though I had done nothing wrong. Had I broke a rule? Had I been accused of stealing? Did they remember to charge the additional $9.00 they discounted when I checked in? The whole, "thank you for staying at the Green Tortoise Hostel" thing scared me. As it turns out, it was none of the above. The accented Danish looking woman checked her list and told me that the reason for the note (and the others on the door) was I had been moved to another room since they needed to use that one as a female dorm. I grabbed my stuff, moved down a door and after placing my stuff in my room, headed out the door and down a block to the Pike Place Market.

Sunday was different than the other days, in that the street in front of the market was closed, and in place of cars were dozens of merchants with booths selling fruits, vegetables and flowers. I bought some strawberries and made my way down the street, past the other vendors and along the street that runs near the water.

When I reached the end of the merchant row, (which was really only two blocks after it began) I kept walking. I hadn't explored Seattle to the north yet, and figured today was a good day to do it. I passed the pier (Pier 70) where Real World Seattle was filmed, the Microsoft building as well as the home to Real Player, the computer audio player we all know and in my case, love. There was also a cruise ship in the harbor. I didn't realize how big those things were.

A bonus sign at a construction site that I found so funny, I had to take a picture:

Once I began to reach a somewhat industrial area of the city that began to look boring, I decided to turn around after walking 24 blocks. It was just after 11 at this time, and I needed to be on the other side of town by 1 for a Mariners game. Not only did I have to walk 24 blocks just to be back to where I started, but I also had to walk an additional 26 blocks beyond that to get to the stadium. In all, not counting later that night. I had walked 116 blocks on this day. That coupled with the fact that I hadn't eaten yet began to make me worry that I was going to return home and find that I had shed far too much weight off of my already thin frame.

I had a problem before the game. Ticketmaster had charged me for two $17 tickets. I went to the customer service window and was told that the only thing he could do was give me a ticket to a later game (which didn't work because my next night was booked and I would be in Portland the night after that) or he could upgrade my seat to the $35 section, which was the approximate value of the two tickets I had received. I only wish I had walked to that window when I was at the stadium the night before, because I would have preferred a $17 ticket to the prior game and a $17 ticket to that game over one really good expensive ticket. I had thought about it, but nixed the idea when the website read I needed at least 24 hours notice. Note to everyone: don't trust a website. Go to the window yourself and find out. Another note: I think I sounded really confusing in the above paragraph, so if I was confusing, I'm sorry.

So I got to my seat along the first base line (chosen strictly because of the view of downtown) just a few minutes prior to the opening pitch. For the second straight day the temperatures were perfect and didn't reach over 75 degrees even during the hottest part of the day. The M's lost 5-0, but I got to see the opposing pitcher throw a one hitter. I was also there to hear a trade announcement that sent the crowd into an uproar. My seats were great, but like I said, I'd rather have two upper deck seats than one good seat.

View from my seat:

With the zoom on:

View of downtown Seattle:

Upper level where my seat would have been:

I walked home (thankful I didn't have a car to get trapped in postgame traffic) and rested a little bit. This is the part that was a blur. I'm not sure what I did from about 5 - 7:00. I know that I began writing in my journal at 7:22. I know that I went to Pike Place after walking 26 blocks from the stadium. I know that while sitting at a booth (with my CD player and journal) in the hostel while waiting for a computer to be free, I began talking to Luis (who sat down at the booth and was mentioned in the last entry) and then to Jesper (also at the booth), who was from Denmark. The two of us and two other guys (Soren and Simon, both with British accents) eventually began a conversation.

I believe it was Jesper's idea to see Fahrenheit 9/11. He had been talking about it, and had the movie section of the local paper. Since I had been exploring the city and knew street names and addresses, I volunteered when he asked someone to locate the nearest location. All six or so weren't downtown until the final listing, which was just five blocks up the street. We had just missed the 9:30 showing, so we decided to see if we could make the final showing of the night. We left immediately and got our tickets with time to spare.

I mentioned earlier that I hadn't eaten in a day, so I bought a mini pizza for (ouch!) $6.00. We (Luis also bought a pizza) had to wait for it to cook, and we almost lost our spot in line to enter the theater.

We couldn't find five seats together, but did well finding four. Jesper volunteered to sit in the row in front of us. The five of us watched the film (sharing the biggest tub of popcorn I had ever seen) and I even took notes. I apologize for the blurry pictures, but they weren't planned, therefore I didn't have my camera settings right for them. And by the way, James is just scratching his nose, not picking it.

On the walk home, we talked about the movie. We had very similar opinions, which was nice. We also talked about it once we got back to the hostel, and at this time, James from LA and later Richard (I believe also from California) joined our discussion. They essentially became the sixth and seventh members of the group.

Jesper:

James:

Richard:

Louis:

We stayed up and talked until 3:00 in the morning, and after sending an email, it was finally to bed to rest for what would be my most packed day in Seattle.

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