Well, after a crazy month of work last month, this has been a rather slow one so far. So with not much travel info to blog with I wanted to share more about the local scene here in the Seattle area. While I haven't been to any far off lands, well any NEW far of lands, lately I have been in the Capital Hill neighborhood of Seattle eating, drinking and being merry. I'd been to the area a few times before, working on a movie set, or just driving around, but I never really checked it out. It is a fun place! Shops, bars, cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, its all there. It's got a real youthful, eclectic, urban vibe to it. Part of the happening grunge scene of the 90's, legend has it, (ok, wikipedia has it) that Pearl Jam actually came up with their name while sitting in one of the local coffee shops, B&O Espresso. Kinda cool.
Walking down one of the main streets, Broadway, you come across an unique art display. The Broadway Dance Steps are a set of 8 bronze shoes mapping out different dances on the sidewalk, such as the rumba, tango and waltz. Who wouldn't want to stop on the street and learn how to two step with someone? Are you in the mood for food? Capital Hill seems to have it all. Pizza, burgers, Thai, Italian, Mexican, Sushi, Greek, even a chocolate bar! Check out Bleu Bistro a quirky place at the corner of Broadway & Olive/John. It features a super cool menu with lengthy, historical descriptions and explanations for most food and drink items. It seriously would take quite some time to pick out what you wanted if you read it all. But the food is yummy, a lot of pesto options, and the atmosphere is fun. The booths have curtains around them for a more 'intimate' setting. Loads of fun and super yum! Or for a happy hour treat and some pool go over to Garage, a pool hall/bar/bowling alley. Happy Hour prices were some of the best in town and with about 15-20 pool tables your wait time is short. I hear that brunch is all the rage over there, but have yet to partake myself. Don't worry, I'll get around to it, but till then if you're in the neighborhood, go check make a night of it over in Capital Hill.
Random Fact: Ants never sleep.
Random Quote: But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
A Day In The Life
There is a fellow blogger that I just love to read, The Sassy Stew, her posts are always so funny and true about that small 1% of passengers. Today I was reading back through her archives and just rolling in the floor with laughter. I got to thinking about all the crazy stuff I have seen, which actually isn't that much. I am kinda thankful for that. As much I like having a good story to tell, not being in an emergency or having a situation where you need to call the cops is probably better. But I thought I would share a few stories about how 3 people amazed me, in a bad way, on my last trip. It really is amazing sometimes to see what people think is acceptable.
I was on a 4 day domestic trip over the 4th of July week and story number one takes place on one of those days. First of all some background on what my uniform looks like as it is an important factor in this story. I like to wear the dresses that we have during the summer. There are two, a red one and a blue one. Both have a breast pocket where you can put a pen, or pocket square, or whatever. As the name implies, its right over the boob area for us ladies. With that being explained, lets go back to the flight in question. I was walking through the cabin with a bottle of water and a stack of cups when this guy holds up a used napkin to indicate he wants to throw it away. Now, on a side tangent, I am always shocked when people try to give me trash when my hands are full! Do they expect me to whip out a 3rd arm? Hold it with my teeth? Squeeze it between my knees and waddle down the aisle? I can't carry your trash right now people! Geez! So when this guys starts waving his gross, dirty, used napkin at me, I hold up my hands to indicate that, HELLO!!, I can't take your TRASH, while I am serving water and have no hand to take it, or bag to put it in. So what does he do you ask? Well he makes a motion with his free hand that interpreted as wanting a cup a water so I lean down a bit to make it easier for him to get a cup and lo and behold as he is coming towards me the world kinda slows down into slow motion like on a movie, where everything happens so fast you don't have time to react, but it seems so slow that you have the chance to process it all. He reaches up with the dirty napkin and sticks it into my dress pocket!! EWWW! Now not only has he put his TRASH into MY clothing! MY uniform! But in a way he has groped me! I was shocked. Who does that?!? Calmly, I sat my water on the floor, grabbed his stupid, gross napkin out my MY DRESS POCKET!!! and place it on his tray. Calmly still I told him it is not acceptable to place trash in a flight attendants uniform and under no circumstances is it ever ok to put anything in my front pocket! His response? "Oh, when you leaned down (to offer him the cups) I thought that was what you wanted me to do." Are you for real buddy?
Story Number 2
Might as well stick with the theme from that last story about inappropriate sexual behaviors on board. This one isn't as bad as the trash in my pocket guy, but still merits a "What the h**l are you thinking?!" On this flight, same trip, different day, I was sitting in the jumpseat where there are 2 passengers directly in front of you. Now, so fa's are super picky and ask people not to have anything in their hands during take off and landing, not even a book or magazine, because if something happens what ever they have is going to come flying at us. I don't care if you have a magazine, but on this particular day there was a guy with a HUGE laptop. I mean circa 1995, Dell something that had to have weighed 20lbs. It could have easily done some damage so I told the guy that I needed to stow it for take off. Now most people when you tell them that you need to stow something either: A. Try to get up to stow it themselves or B. Hand it to you to stow. (Which if you are already seated and we are moving, is the correct option.) This guy opted for option C. Which turned out to be 'pick the laptop up off my lap yourself.' Now this might not have been such a big deal had his laptop been at his knees, as opposed to directly on top of his crotch area. So after telling him I needed to stow it, he proceeds to lean back, lift his hands in the air and look down at the lap top to indicate I need to pick it up myself. Before I really thought about it I almost did it, but thankfully realized that had I went to pick it up my self, I probably would have had to inadvertently touched this guy in a spot that in no way did I want to. Eww. Sir, I am sorry, but I am not about to touch you in that way on today's flight. And I told him that and had him hand me his computer. Was he trying to get me to touch 'it'? I'm hopping not. I hope he just didn't realize what would have happened, but people are strange so who knows.
Story number 3 is short. I just couldn't believe that guys asked this. I was walking down the aisle and a man, in his mid 50's I would guess, waves me over. "Miss, I have a question for you." Ok, go ahead. "Those white things out there," pointing out the window, "Are they clouds or snow?" Seriously? We are flying over Minnesota/Michigan in July. Not Colorado or Alaska in January. After I took a second to be sure he was in fact serious, I answered him with the correct answer of 'clouds, sir." After which his wife proceeds to smack him in the leg and yell, "I told you so!" I am guessing she was thinking to her self, 'I can't believe I married this guy, how embarrassing!'
Today's Random Quote: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." - Marilyn Monroe
I was on a 4 day domestic trip over the 4th of July week and story number one takes place on one of those days. First of all some background on what my uniform looks like as it is an important factor in this story. I like to wear the dresses that we have during the summer. There are two, a red one and a blue one. Both have a breast pocket where you can put a pen, or pocket square, or whatever. As the name implies, its right over the boob area for us ladies. With that being explained, lets go back to the flight in question. I was walking through the cabin with a bottle of water and a stack of cups when this guy holds up a used napkin to indicate he wants to throw it away. Now, on a side tangent, I am always shocked when people try to give me trash when my hands are full! Do they expect me to whip out a 3rd arm? Hold it with my teeth? Squeeze it between my knees and waddle down the aisle? I can't carry your trash right now people! Geez! So when this guys starts waving his gross, dirty, used napkin at me, I hold up my hands to indicate that, HELLO!!, I can't take your TRASH, while I am serving water and have no hand to take it, or bag to put it in. So what does he do you ask? Well he makes a motion with his free hand that interpreted as wanting a cup a water so I lean down a bit to make it easier for him to get a cup and lo and behold as he is coming towards me the world kinda slows down into slow motion like on a movie, where everything happens so fast you don't have time to react, but it seems so slow that you have the chance to process it all. He reaches up with the dirty napkin and sticks it into my dress pocket!! EWWW! Now not only has he put his TRASH into MY clothing! MY uniform! But in a way he has groped me! I was shocked. Who does that?!? Calmly, I sat my water on the floor, grabbed his stupid, gross napkin out my MY DRESS POCKET!!! and place it on his tray. Calmly still I told him it is not acceptable to place trash in a flight attendants uniform and under no circumstances is it ever ok to put anything in my front pocket! His response? "Oh, when you leaned down (to offer him the cups) I thought that was what you wanted me to do." Are you for real buddy?
Story Number 2
Might as well stick with the theme from that last story about inappropriate sexual behaviors on board. This one isn't as bad as the trash in my pocket guy, but still merits a "What the h**l are you thinking?!" On this flight, same trip, different day, I was sitting in the jumpseat where there are 2 passengers directly in front of you. Now, so fa's are super picky and ask people not to have anything in their hands during take off and landing, not even a book or magazine, because if something happens what ever they have is going to come flying at us. I don't care if you have a magazine, but on this particular day there was a guy with a HUGE laptop. I mean circa 1995, Dell something that had to have weighed 20lbs. It could have easily done some damage so I told the guy that I needed to stow it for take off. Now most people when you tell them that you need to stow something either: A. Try to get up to stow it themselves or B. Hand it to you to stow. (Which if you are already seated and we are moving, is the correct option.) This guy opted for option C. Which turned out to be 'pick the laptop up off my lap yourself.' Now this might not have been such a big deal had his laptop been at his knees, as opposed to directly on top of his crotch area. So after telling him I needed to stow it, he proceeds to lean back, lift his hands in the air and look down at the lap top to indicate I need to pick it up myself. Before I really thought about it I almost did it, but thankfully realized that had I went to pick it up my self, I probably would have had to inadvertently touched this guy in a spot that in no way did I want to. Eww. Sir, I am sorry, but I am not about to touch you in that way on today's flight. And I told him that and had him hand me his computer. Was he trying to get me to touch 'it'? I'm hopping not. I hope he just didn't realize what would have happened, but people are strange so who knows.
Story number 3 is short. I just couldn't believe that guys asked this. I was walking down the aisle and a man, in his mid 50's I would guess, waves me over. "Miss, I have a question for you." Ok, go ahead. "Those white things out there," pointing out the window, "Are they clouds or snow?" Seriously? We are flying over Minnesota/Michigan in July. Not Colorado or Alaska in January. After I took a second to be sure he was in fact serious, I answered him with the correct answer of 'clouds, sir." After which his wife proceeds to smack him in the leg and yell, "I told you so!" I am guessing she was thinking to her self, 'I can't believe I married this guy, how embarrassing!'
Today's Random Quote: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." - Marilyn Monroe
Monday, July 11, 2011
Ballard Days
So a few weeks ago I blogged about a night out in Ballard and how much fun it was. On Saturday I was able to experience Ballard in the day time. It was the 37th Annual Ballard Seafood Fest! For 2 days Ballard is transformed into a street fair complete with music, vendors, performers and of course seafood!! They close off most of 'downtown' Ballard and people set up shop. There were people selling all kinds of things, from soaps, spices and jewelery to luxury sheets. We were a little surprised by the sheets. And the food choices, oh my, there was smoked salmon, pickled herring, chowder, Cajun gumbo, gyros, french fries, fried pb&j sandwiches, fish and chips, elephant ears, you name it, it was probably there. I happened to choose the one place that had the longest line, for what I am sure was the smallest amount of food, but it was still a good time. If you have any desire to people watch, a place like this is where to go. People were walking around wearing Viking helmets as Ballard is considered to have a Scandinavian heritage. Ballard also has a history as a fishing community in the area and I believe is still that way, though maybe not as aggressively as in the past. But if you walk down to the docks you can see big fishing boats parked beside smaller house boats. Its an eclectic community for sure. I believe that I will like to explore more of Seattle's neighborhoods. On the way to Ballard, the friend that I was with was pointing out some things in another community, Fremont, that were also random and quirky. Maybe soon there will be a 'Fremont Friday' post!
Today's Random Fact: Lake Baikal, in Russia's Siberia, is the deepest and oldest lake in the world.
Today's Random Quote: "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?" ~ The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King
Also, more passport covers! Over 100 in stock! www.passportcoverskygirl.etsy.com
Today's Random Fact: Lake Baikal, in Russia's Siberia, is the deepest and oldest lake in the world.
Today's Random Quote: "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?" ~ The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King
Also, more passport covers! Over 100 in stock! www.passportcoverskygirl.etsy.com
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Viva Malaga!
It's possible this post may not make a lot of sense. I have wanted to go to bed 4 hours ago but thought I better not go to bed at 4 in the afternoon. So here I am at 8pm, east coast time, trying to stay up till at least 9pm. I'm going to make it, I think. I'm stuck on a 4 day domestic trip, which I don't care for to much, but it does give me 22 hours in Orlando, which I have used to crank out about 20 more passport covers. Check em out! Stay tuned, I may be getting a business partner in the near future!
You must hear about my lovely trip to Malaga, which may now be my most favorite city in the world. Why? I just don't know exactly. Maybe the way I feel like I just belong there. Maybe the way the streets are so windy and narrow. Maybe to way you never know what you might find down one of them. Maybe the beautiful Mediterranean, or the cafe con leche, the churros, the tapas, the rioja, the, well, you get the picture. I LOVE it there.
A must must must on your trip to Malaga is a trip to the market, Atarazanas, open from 8-2 Monday-Saturday. This place has your fruits, veggies, cheese, meats, some breads and its all delicious.
I easily spent 30 Euros here, but I got bags full of stuff. Olives, bread, almonds, tortilla, cheese, serrano, so much for so little. I am still eating most of it after sharing half with a friend! After your shopping trip, wander down to the park on the coast and check out all the non native plants there. Years ago sailors would bring back a plant from each exotic place they went and plant it in this park. There are all kinds of weird things there. Finish that off with a stroll on the beach. Don't be scared to get rid of those tans lines ladies, as some women go topless here. The guys are quite nice to look at as well. (See?)
Finish your day up with a good dinner of tapas, maybe some wine or sangria, hopefully from some locale where you can watch the sun go down. Then get ready to dance the night away. The Andalusians are know for their buleria lifestyle so be ready to live it up. And of course the next morning you will be ready for a cafe con leche and some churros y chocolate. And can it get much better than that?
You must hear about my lovely trip to Malaga, which may now be my most favorite city in the world. Why? I just don't know exactly. Maybe the way I feel like I just belong there. Maybe the way the streets are so windy and narrow. Maybe to way you never know what you might find down one of them. Maybe the beautiful Mediterranean, or the cafe con leche, the churros, the tapas, the rioja, the, well, you get the picture. I LOVE it there.A must must must on your trip to Malaga is a trip to the market, Atarazanas, open from 8-2 Monday-Saturday. This place has your fruits, veggies, cheese, meats, some breads and its all delicious.
I easily spent 30 Euros here, but I got bags full of stuff. Olives, bread, almonds, tortilla, cheese, serrano, so much for so little. I am still eating most of it after sharing half with a friend! After your shopping trip, wander down to the park on the coast and check out all the non native plants there. Years ago sailors would bring back a plant from each exotic place they went and plant it in this park. There are all kinds of weird things there. Finish that off with a stroll on the beach. Don't be scared to get rid of those tans lines ladies, as some women go topless here. The guys are quite nice to look at as well. (See?)
Finish your day up with a good dinner of tapas, maybe some wine or sangria, hopefully from some locale where you can watch the sun go down. Then get ready to dance the night away. The Andalusians are know for their buleria lifestyle so be ready to live it up. And of course the next morning you will be ready for a cafe con leche and some churros y chocolate. And can it get much better than that?
Friday, July 1, 2011
Out Living
Enjoying life so much right now! There isn't enough time to post! Great trips! Great friends! Great days! Be back soon!
Monday, June 27, 2011
A Sunday Drive
It was a gorgeous day here in the Pacific Northwest yesterday. One of those rare days that you really feel lucky living here. A friend had been inviting me to visit her church with her so yesterday morning I got up and drove 30 mins north to Bothell. On my drive back home I was loving the warm, sunny weather and got the itch to just keep driving. I know, I spend hours trapped in a steel tube hurtling though the atmosphere and here I am wanting to spend time in my tiny car. But I made a decision and it was off the to Olympic Peninsula for the afternoon! So I swung by my apartment to thrown on a skirt, spray my left arm with some sunscreen, cause that baby was going to be hanging out the window a lot, grab my camera and I was off. After making a few phone calls to see if anyone wanted to tag along, no, I rolled the windows down, turned the radio up and let the wind blow through my hair. It was awesome. Then I did something unthinkable. I turned my phone OFF! I know right? Crazy stuff. Wait, it gets even crazier, after that I got out my atlas. Remember those things? For you younger readers only familiar with GPS' an atlas is a large collection of maps. A map is a GPS in paper form. I know, archaic, right? But I LOVE maps in general and love tracking my progress during a road trip on the map. So, I've got my map, my peace and quite (well except for the wind roaring by) & my sunshine. Now all I needed was some good tunes. Out came, gack, cd's! It was like taking a road trip in the 90's, I know. I threw in one of the best cd's ever, Maroon 5's Songs About Jane.
So now I am doing superb, very happy and loving life. As I drive on, farther away from Tacoma, I enter part of the state that I haven't been to before. I am stoked to pass over a drawbridge! I love it! I live in a place that has drawbridges! So cool. So I'm puttering along and I keep seeing all these signs for lavender farms: The Purple Scent Lavender Farm, Bob's Lavender Farm, etc. Hum, that sounds interesting, I'll spot at the next one. But in between thinking that and seeing the next sign I realized if I stopped I'm most likely buy some stuff that I didn't need so I kept moving on. Maybe next time.
The drive took me up past Bremerton, across to Sequim, to Port Angeles, which was a lot bigger than I was expecting, and down to Forks. I had aspirations of making the whole loop down to Aberdeen and back through Olympia, but I was not ready to be in the car for another 6 hours. So once I got to Forks I turned around and came back. The drive takes you through part of Olympic National Park, around Lake Crescent (which reminded me of Lava Lake) which was beautiful.
For those of you who would care at all that I was in Forks, WA, you know the significance of that little town out in the middle of no where. For the rest of you I will explain and show what a dork I am. Forks is the town that the Twilight books are set in. I'm not ashamed, I am a proud Twilight book fan, movies, there ok, but the books were really, really good. That woman can really write. I know I am not the only one who holed up on my couch for two days straight reading all four books as fast as possible. They are awesome. So here I am in this little town that has sadly been taken over by Twilight mania in a way. I stopped at the Thriftway Grocery store for an apple and a Port Angeles brewed Creme Soda, and even there there was Twilight stuff. But it was just a small little mountain town with super friendly people. I did stop and take a photo for the 'Welcome to Forks" sign. I really felt like a dork then, even though there were about 4 other cars of people doing the same thing. 
But alas, the fun had to come to an end so I turned the car around and heading back home. At Port Angeles I stopped by the water front to try and get a glimpse of the ferry that goes over to Victoria, BC, but it must have been out as I didn't see it. That would be a fun trip, going over on the ferry.
And now, the start of something new. At the end of every post I'm going to add a random fact &/or quote. Just for the sake of doing it. Today's we will do both:
Random Fact:
Canning came about after Napoleon offered a cash award of 12,000 francs to any inventor who could devise a cheap and effective method of preserving large amounts of food to help feed his army.
Today's Quote:
"I intend to live forever, or die trying." ~Groucho Marx
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Manila Recap
My trip to Manila was killer! First a little background on the Philippines. It was 'discovered' by Magellan, the first guy to sail around the world, and claimed by Spain in 1521. Spain ruled until the late 1800's when it sold the Philippines to the United States. The people however were ready for independence and a few wars broke out. Japan even occupied the country for a short time in WWII, but eventually in 1946 they were granted their independence. So as you can imagine there is a lot of Spanish influence in the city of Manila. And of course there is some American influence as well. Without offending anyone, I would say that the Philippines aren't very 'Asian' at all. If anything it reminded me of Central America, especially Nicaragua, a lot.
Much more than anywhere else I have been in Asia. I wasn't expecting that at all and it was really interesting. With about 31 hours there we had a whole day to explore. So my fellow FA, Lu, and I went off exploring. As I was hoping to track down a copy of Japanese Rosetta Stone, our first stop was the Greenhills Shopping Center. Kinda like a mall and a flea market met and had a love child, the shopping center is freaking huge! Huge. I am sure there were a lot of things we did not see, Rosetta Stone being one of them. However there was a little fella that came up to us asking if we wanted to buy software, saying he had the 26 languages DVD's for sale. But it just felt to sketcky especially since I know you can get it in Shanghai and it works. So I avoided him. For me getting to Greenhills was fun. We decided to forgo the $5 taxi ride and hop on the metro line. I personally love experiencing public transportation and would much rather use it than a taxi. It was great, got us where we needed to go and we had to walk a little bit to get to Greenhills.
Now here is where I was reminded of an important lesson. As an often solo traveling woman I am often on the defensive and tend to think on the defensive too. (See dad? I am careful.) Meaning that I don't often trust people. At least random people on the street. Remember this story from Tel Aviv about the taxi driver who tried to swindle us? So when we were walking along the street and a torrential downpour broke out, I was hesitant to jump into the back of the Jeepney (similar to a bus), or even a taxi, as I was afraid they would try and charge us a crazy price. But we jumped in the Jeepney anyways and drive about half a mile more to Greenhills. Come to find out, the guy wasn't even going to charge us for the lift! Lu gave him a few US dollars and said he was very pleasantly surprised. Good lesson to be learned, not everyone is out to take advantage of you. (Don't worry Dad, I will still be careful.)
After our shopping adventure, which took a few hours longer than I would have thought, there was just so much stuff to see, we headed to Intermuros, the old Spanish city in Manila, where we checked out the old fort and the cathedral before returning to the hotel for a 2 hour massage, that cost $15. :-0 I actually felt guilty only paying the girl this amount. After the massage we stumbled across the street to get some dinner. We happily found a traditional Filipino desert, the Bibingka, which we tried and loved!
There are so many other things that I would have liked to done, but for our short time there I think we did pretty good. Hopefully there will be another trip there in the near future. But for now I am happy to be going back to Spain on Tuesday, to Malaga. And then next month off to Bangkok and Hong Kong! Loving life.
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