The Pacific Northwest and Catchup on Other Items

Mountains and ocean – there’s not much more to ask for. Luckily, the Pacific Northwest has it all. I really love this area – I’ve been to Vancouver about 7 times now because I would visit my aunt and uncle, but hadn’t traveled this far down yet. Even though it’s been super rainy and kind of dreary, it’s been a lovely trip and we had 2 days of really lovely weather.

I got a chance to catch up with at least 1 little cousin (the other one was super sick and mainly sleeping the whole time) and I got to see her cheer practice (adorable) and their ending celebration; the ending celebration was decent until the magician made us feel guilty for sinning (it was a Catholic oriented cheer team), and went into this spiel of theft and redemption. A lot of it was something like “have you ever took something that wasn’t yours? I’ve taken something that wasn’t mine but that doesn’t make me a thief.” Actually, pretttty sure that does but I’d recommend apologizing for it and moving on, not denying it to make yourself feel better. Then he invited us up to his future house in heaven, which would have a huge driveway and a flat screen TV and a Wii.

Luckily that wasn’t the highlight. I went to Seattle on Sunday with my uncle an it was a stunning day. We went on the giant ferris wheel, saw Pike’s Place Market, and the first Starbucks and saw where the Emerald Comicon was held (but didn’t go 😦 ) and kind of just wandered around a bit downtown. Monday I got a bit of studying done, then Tuesday I went back to Seattle to see the Art Gallery, the Chihuly Glass Museum (amazing), saw the Space Needle (didn’t go in though), saw a bit of the Music Experience Project (just the inside, didn’t go through), and the Fremont Troll. Fremont is apparently where all the hipsters live in Seattle, according to a local I met on the ferry ride this morning. And it DID look super cute driving through it.

I can see how the grunge scene kind of stemmed from there – there are nice areas, but the touristy places kind of promote the gungy aspect (like Post Alley) – my aunt and I went to the gum wall there – people just stick their pieces of gum and now it looks like gum is kind of painted on. It was the grossest, most intriguing thing. People even made art with it – my aunt and I made a “K” and then washed our hands immediately after.

Fun facts about Seattle: Bill Gates was born and raised there (he has a super giant house), Jimi Hendrix grew up there, it’s the headquarters for a lot of places, and Bruce Lee lived there for a bit (attending the University of Washington) and is buried there.

My aunt and uncle don’t live directly in Seattle, but in Gig Harbour, which is a super cute community 45 minutes from Seattle – TONS of homes have access to the lake right from their backyard, and it’s gorgeous. My uncle kayaks and he has seen whales and seals many times on his outings. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to go kayaking (weather wasn’t the best for it) but it also gives me something to look forward to for next time! The downtown is small (Gig Harbour has about 7500 people) but the whole area is kind of a bedroom community to Tacoma, Bremerton, and Seattle – and actually, while the area is spread out you don’t really get any break away from communities (from what I can tell, anyway)

I’d love to try and make it back out in the summer if I can, but it’s likely not going to happen unless it’s next summer (and ideally I’ll be saving up for Sweden).

On that note, SO EXCITED ABOUT SWEDEN. Essentially what happened is I originally applied for Guatemala, which had a different end date from the other international placements because it’s kind of a separate program. But, I wouldn’t find out about Guatemala until after the international placement deadline and there was no guarantee I would get that placement anyway. So I went to the international placement seminar, found out that previous students went to the Karolinska Instituet, almost didn’t apply because I thought the fee was $150 but turns out that was only for out of province applications and to apply was just a cover letter and reference, so I handed in a cover letter. I didn’t hand in a reference because I thought I could only get one international placement (and reference letters were due later) but I guess my professor used my previous reference letter for Guatemala for this one too, and then I opened my email and found out I was accepted for Sweden too!

I’ve wanted to go to Sweden/the Scandinavian countries for awhile now – every picture I see from there is just awesome, and I’ve considered moving there to work in the past – if all goes well and I can mange to find a placement and keep up my GPA everything should be good as gold! AND I should be able to afford it since I’ll be able to work from April – August. plus I get $1000 for mobility costs. Which covers 1 plane ticket (barely, or maybe 70%) but still, money is awesome in any amount.

Wow this is a long post, and my trip isn’t even done yet – I fly out tomorrow, but am hanging out in Van with an amazing friend so I still have a bit of time before getting back to the grindstone!