Wanderer Photography

I just came back from a pseudo-pub-crawl, so take all my words and wording with a grain of salt (and a bit of lime afterwards, just like a tequila shot). Anyway…

Secret of the trade: presentations should start with a joke or something to get the people hooked.  My take on it: Europeans think that 200km is a long distance and Americans think that 200 years is a history (managed to insult about 3/4 billion people with this). Yet, the fact that amazed me most on this trip that I took was the amount of stuff that was built in the United States while many things that should have damaged the economy were happening (e.g.: WW1, financial crysis, WW2). And then, you take a look at Romania and you take a look at the United States and realize that Romania suffered throughout the 20th century, while the United States have (almost) continuously flourished. That made me realize that most of the great “achievements” of Romania either were done before the 20th century or, if in the 20th century, they were not that great. As for the US, you can win wars by funneling just the right amount of resource at the appropriate time and keep your economy stable. Anyway…

The story is in part about my experience of Seattle and also of my parents’ visit which starts in Seattle, where they arrived after their first inter-continental journey. Of course they were tired and had lots of luggage, but I was happy to see them and they were happy to see me. I was even more excited to see them when we got at home and they pulled out a bottle of TUICA (or RAKIA or plum brandy) out of their bags and we got to celebrate with Romanian goodies. After that, we took a stroll around Seattle by car. Of course, I forgot to take my camera with me, so the picture taking was reduced to my phone (which, honestly, did a pretty good job). First we went to Kerry Park. This is, in my opinion, one of the first places that you should see such that you can capture all the breadth of Seattle, from Queen Anne and Capitol Hill all the way to Alki Beach. While you are here, you can get a view of where things are in the city and it will help you get a better understanding of where the Space Needle is, where the Columbia tower is and pretty much what’s in between. If you are really lucky, you can also see Mt. Rainier there in the background (unfortunately, I was not that lucky on that day). The view is impressive and it’s not just my opinion – the price of a 1-bedroom facing the city is very high in this area.  Just take a look here – I would love to wake up to this view every morning (please remember to click on the image for a bigger size):

We then took a trip to Alki Beach (furthest to the right in the picture above). This provides a whole new, contrasting perspective on the city. While at Kerry Park you can experience views of the city from above, Alki Beach is actually at the sea level and you can see the skyscrapers and the city from afar. The view is particularly spectacular at night when the whole city is lighted up (this is a picture from February – it took a bit of shivering on my side to get such an exposure, but well worth it, as always).

One last perspective of Seattle is from on top of I-90 (Interstate highway), at the top of Rizal Park. The view of the skyline is similar to Alki Beach, but you are now on top of a hill again (like Kerry Park). The difference that I feel is that you are now more “engaged” into Seattle, you can see the people driving, you can almost feel the heart of the city beating.

Time is creeping in on me and I have to get up in 6 hours, so I will stop here.

Out for now,

/cd