Category: Travel
In the summer of 2013, Andreea came by to visit for a little while. This was her first time in the USA, first time in WA state, first time in Seattle. The weather was the perfect example of summer in Seattle, even though it was already middle of September.
BTW, funny story, Andreea arrived on a Friday and I was supposed to switch apartments over the weekend, so our first weekend together in 1 year was spent … packing, unpacking and moving the furniture around (it was only a move between floors, but still a move).
So, after we settled in our new apartment, on a sunny weekend, we took a tiny break from day to day activities and went around the city. First stop was University of Washington where we went into the amazing Suzzallo Library – I believe I have some other pictures from inside, will add them some other time. This inscription though is what stays above the cafeteria… (“Books well read fine tutors make”)
We walked a bit outside, went to the fountain…
After that, we decided to go to Gas Works park in Seattle – this park has an interesting story and a nice view of the downtown area. The park was initially a coal gasification plant – and you can still see the remnants of the factory / plant around. As to the view…
Last, but not least, there were two people doing a “color” photo-shoot that seemed to enjoy themselves a lot.
After the park, we went to the place where one takes the most iconic picture of Seattle: Kerry Park. From here, on a nice, sunny day, you can view the downtown (with the Space Needle, EMP and all the skyscrapers), while the backdrop is beautiful Mount Rainier. So, we took the opportunity to promote our university 🙂
See you sooner this time!8
After another half a year hiatus, coming back with pictures still from 2013. This is a trip that I took with my better half to Hurricane Ridge in September 2013.
The trip was a bit far, but really cool – the road was very windy and very fun to drive on while getting from Port Angeles to the ridge. And while we were doing the hike … we saw quite a few animals (we call them Alan and Steve):
Next up, we were “attacked” by chipmunks.
Last, but not least, on the way back we ran into some deer walking on the path.
We were a bit tired, but the views were gorgeous and we had quite a bit of fun.
/cd
Hi
Of course having no sleep is good for you, what are you talking about?
So, on a bright early Sunday morning, I decided to wake up at 6AM and head over to Kerry Park – see the sunrise. Half-asleep, with my mind set on a hot coffee waking me up, I managed to get there around 6:30AM. And while I was expecting 1-2 people with cameras … there were like 30 of them.
In any case, people are not why I’m here, so let’s try to get some photos.
Why sunrise? There is a concept in photography called the Golden Hour (or the Magic Hour) – it states that at sunrise and sunset, the colors given out by the sun are warmer and with a shade of red / pink. Why? The angle of the sun relative to the Earth (very low) means that light travels more through the atmosphere (therefore, the light scatters more so you have indirect light). The atmosphere filters out the blue color, resulting in more red. At noon, the reverse is true – the rays of the sun travel at a straight angle and therefore, there is less scattering and more blue sky.
So we have Seattle, in an orange / pink / red “shirt”, with Rainier barely visible in the background.
The morning dew and fog helps at this time as well, as you can see below (this is fog on top of Lake Washington, looking towards Bellevue and the Cascades).
The city is mostly sound asleep, so no background noise, just the lonely buildings.
And why golden? Look below.
And now with a broader view towards the Cascades and East Side.
Slowly, but surely – the sun starts rising, the orange starts fading and turning to just yellow.
Good morning, happy people, the first rays of light hit an apartment building. We can also see the Ferry’s wheel and the Centurylink field in the background and KeyArena in the lower left
The first rays of light start hitting places close to us as well.
Once the sun is out, the pictures start looking more and more bland, so decided to head back home. On the way back, I stopped by this blueberry farm – where the fog was playing a cool game.
And that guy on the trail …
Over and out,
/cd
Blanca Lake is one of the cooler, “in this for the end” hikes. It takes a while to climb up and down to the lake from the parking lot, but the lake… This is a hike that I intend to do again and possibly spend more time around the end of the hike, at the lake. Rough estimates for this hike: about 7h both ways, with 1h to spend at the actual lake. The hike is made of 3 portions: a long portion of abrupt switchbacks through the forest followed by a plateau with small ups and downs and an abrupt descent to the lake. All in all, a nice hike. More pictures, less words.
Here we are about 1h into the hike. Spirits still up.
After about 2 more hours of “are we there yet?”, short breaks for water and physical wear-out, we got to see this:
I had seen pictures of the lake … but this looks amazing!
Small glimpses of it.
Until we got to the edge of the lake. The water looks amazing, even though I would not drink it 🙂
The “source” of the lake is this glacier melting during the summer.
And finally, proof that I was there 🙂
On the way back, we stopped for a bit (even though the hike was a lot easier on the way down – go figure) to admire the northern view towards Mount Baker.
Over and out,
/cd
This is the last part of our New York trip. On a partially cloudy day, we started off from West side of Manhattan on a boat trip to take us around the bay and Manhattan.
It was pretty interesting and the views were of parts of the city where we could not reach (at least easily).
While we have had a view of Lower Manhattan when we went to Liberty Island, we did not have a view of the East Side. Here, the Brooklyn bridge and the One World Trade Center in the background.
After the boat trip, we took a stroll around the city, in particular, near the new One World Trade Center building that was just being finished.
And we walked around the place where the twin WTC towers used to be and enjoyed an icecream in the park just outside, on the shore, facing New Jersey.
Walking a bit more through the city – there was one building that I really wanted to see:
Yes, this is the “Friends” building. This is featured in the TV-show Friends as the place where Monica & the rest of the friends live. It’s not much, but I liked that show quite a lot, so it is a landmark for me.
We walked a bit more through the city and got to Central Station – I was expecting it to be more of a landmark. Instead, it is pretty covered by the tall skyscrapers just outside the building. The paintings of the ceiling show constellations and give a nice pleasant tone to the building. Unfortunately, not so nice were the officers that got their focus on me and suddenly really close to me as I was setting up my camera and tripod. It was all good, “sportsmanlike” conduct.
At some point, we also caught the sunset on the streets of the city. It is really amazing how many advantages a grid system has. Besides the obvious traffic and purely organized nature (and symmetrical and mathematical and deductive – you can find out where you are based on just numbers), if you are facing West, you are going to be treated by some lovely sunsets.
New York is a city of mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, it’s a big city, so there’s always something to do and you can easily “lose yourself” in the city and meet new people. On the other hand, it’s a big city – so it comes with everything that a big city comes with: shady areas and people, self-centered people, disorganization, pollution, crowded places, bad transportation (although better than expected) and many others that are also reasons I don’t like the city where I was born.
This ends my trip around the US from last summer. Now it’s time for more adventures.
Over and out,
/cd
Later on Saturday, the clouds left us be, so we were able to “walk the city” and, at midnight, go to the top of Empire State Building.
First we walked around the city for a bit and ended up around Times Square.
Everyone is going to Times Square. We actually went through Times Square, BUT (and this is a really big but) it was so crowded and loud and noisy (both audio and visual) that let’s say… it  made it’s presence felt on me.
Getting closer, you can already see that the camera can’t cope with the contrast. Hell, even my eyes couldn’t cope with the contrast in Times Square. Anyway… we went on top of the Empire State Building.
And the view was amazing. I have seen pictures, I have heard stories. But the feeling of being above the city, above everything that moves, being afraid to take that extra step… it is pretty breathtaking.
And being able to look everywhere and see the city and minuscule people and cars moving around – pure power and enjoyment.
Like this view of New Jersey in the background (above).
Because you sometimes feel jaded…
And the entrance sign. The Empire State Building is an amazing piece of architecture – being built so tall on a limb of land in the middle of the city, especially with the technology at the beginning of the century. Built like a tank, to last for generations.
/cd
Welcome to part 3.
On Saturday we went around town – we took a bus ride through Bronx, Queens and ended up the day on top of the Rockefeller Center. We also walked quite a bit around Central Park and around other attractions.
Here, Mom is photobombing (lower left corner) a picture just outside the Yankees stadium (it was a game day, so it was quite crowded).
As we went through the day, the clouds followed us up to the top of the Rockefeller center. Here is a view from the top towards Central Park (north).
And a view towards South, with the Empire State Building in the center.
And a closer shot with Empire State Building and a tiny tiny Statue of Liberty in the background, with New Jersey on the far right.
That’s it for now.
/cd
Trying to be agile, to make small incremental updates rather than big blog posts. See – software engineering applied to real life 🙂
Back to the story. After getting some well deserved sleep on Friday, on Saturday we headed out to visit the upper Manhattan and other parts of the town. Apparently, I was not in a very picture-taking mood on that day with the exception of these two churches: Riverside Church and Cathedral church of St. John the Divine. And I know that New York is not best known for these, but I like churches.
And these churches are interesting for me because they look like some of the oldest pieces still standing of the city, while they are still pretty new – late 19th and early 20th century.
And even though the walls are pretty empty on the inside, their greatness and majesty make me appreciate them.
Walking a bit further to the front of the church gives us a better view of the altar.
And even “behind” the altar.
And while I appreciated the main halls a lot, the side rooms were pretty … creepy. I understand that they are exhibition halls, but… does that really belong in a church? And the answer is yes – it does. Since this is America, the land of the free, everyone is free to make a contribution to their religion. And since the coasts are more diversified in terms of religious choices, the churches start running out of money – so, maintaining the church becomes a business that needs to be attended like one – with entrance fees, reprofiling towards gallery exhibitions in some of the rooms etc.
I found that room pretty creepy. It looked like some small-Satan-s marching with a dog in front, willing to stop them. “Art”.
The shadow of the cross is what caught my eye in this picture.
The entrance / exit was very impressive and the whole church had an European flavor to it.
Moving on to the second church… View from the middle towards the altar.
And towards the entrance.
I like the symmetry of the buildings a lot and that is most likely what picks my brain every time.
Over and out for tonight.
/cd
This is the last part of the 2013 summer trip that I did with my parents. After visiting me in Seattle and we went on our awesome Hawaii – Vegas – Zion – Grand Canyon – Seattle trip, we decided to add one more flag to the map of visited cities (this is a figure of speech, but I actually have a map of Romania and I have marked on it all the trips that IÂ have taken as a kid with my parents in Romania – it’s pretty cool and full).
This trip began on a Thursday evening / night when we left Seattle and caught a red-eye (overnight) flight to New York. My parents would then follow their path back to Bucharest and I would fly back to Seattle. Anyway…
We flew for 5 hours, meaning that we had to get at most that much sleep – it was not easy or comfortable. We got in New York around 8AM local time (5AM Seattle time) after only a couple of hours of sleep. We took a cab to our hotel (in Manhattan) and since the room was not ready, we had to go start visiting.
Short definition: New York has multiple boroughs – Manhattan being just one of them. The others are Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island.
So, we got breakfast (and MUCH NEEDED coffee) and we did what any tourist does – get tickets for a hop-on hop-off in the city and start visiting. We got on a bus with plans to head over to see the Statue of Liberty and possibly Ellis Island. Of course was not a good enough stimulant, so I fell asleep on the top level of a double-decker and I woke up with the sign above approaching me at a pretty high velocity (fortunately, it was a bit higher).
We got off the bus in Lower Manhattan, close to Wall Street and took a boat trip to the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, in order to actually climb in it, you need to book in advance – and moreover, the Statue was closed just until a day before due to Sandy (the hurricane). So, we strolled around for a bit.
That guy above ruins a pretty awesome pic. And below: Mom and Dad after a sleepless night, Lady Liberty and a bit of rain.
The Statue was nice, but it was also a bit disappointing. The statue is such a landmark that appears in so many movies – at least the ones that I watched as a kid – and it looks so impressive …Â and then you’re there and … it’s just not the same. I am pretty sure that all the movies just want to make it look bigger. Especially by putting the city with the skyscrapers in the background – see here:
As I mentioned, the island was just opening that week and you can see people were still working on remodeling after the hurricane.
After a while, we came back to the city and went through the city – just outside Times Square I got my very own version of the posters one can see everywhere with the yellow cabs:
Riding in the bus was pretty fun – on the one hand, you have a good perspective of the people on the street, of the buildings and everything going on around you. On the other hand, New York-ers look to be not so shy, so they don’t mind snapping photos of them.
In the picture above, there is so much stuff going on – first the person waiting while everyone else is moving, then the flag, then the blue building squeezed between the other two gray ones and the “American DollHouses” sign.
Even though we didn’t have the best weather for outdoors visiting – the clouds were pretty bad, but it did not rain – the trip was fun.
Switching to inside for the next post.
/cd
Last day in Vegas. About 1h away from Vegas lays one of the most impressive dams / lakes: Lake Mead formed by Hoover Dam. Lake Mead is the largest lake / reservoir in the US at maximum capacity (which it did not reach since 1983 due to various causes – let’s not get into the climate change debate just yet).
How was Lake Mead formed? Well, it’s a combination of nature and careful human planning: do you remember that river that carved the Grand Canyon (name is Colorado river)? Well, guess what! It’s not done yet. Hoover Dam is built on the Colorado river and led to the natural creation of Lake Mead. Here is Hoover Dam:
Doesn’t seem like much, right? Well, Lake Mead is big – it’s 110 miles (180 km) long when the lake is full, is 150m at it’s deepest and can hold 35km^3 of water (that can be used for irrigation and to produce electricity for Nevada, Arizona and California). So, while it might look small, it’s just part of what we actually see.
Hoover Dam is the one that is “responsible” for Lake Mead, so here is a peek down the wall. Long way down, right?
Even closer to the edge, looking down.
As you can see, it was a very sunny day in the middle of the desert (mom actually got sick from all the sun). But in this picture, like two bosses.
One thing I should mention – Hoover Dam sits between two states: on one side is the Nevada state (with Las Vegas just miles away) and on the other side, it’s Arizona state. The Colorado river flows through a couple of states before heading to Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. At Hoover Dam, there is a commemorative plaque that tells you through which states the Colorado river flows (in this picture, Colorado, California and Utah – also, Arizona and Nevada).
Last but not least, here I am at the border between Nevada and Arizona. Not very exciting to be within two states at the same time. It’s almost as if the state lines just belong to a map, not excising any force in the vicinity of their physical presence. Oh, wait…
Disclaimer: I did not help fill Lake Mead, but this sign is funny:
Even after turning a corner, we can only see a small portion of the lake. I understood it’s best seen from airplane / space station:
Over and out – done with Vegas. The story goes on – we went back to Seattle, I went to work for a week and then headed for the Big Apple – pictures coming soon.
/cd