Greetings from beautiful British Columbia, where I am writing from the kitchen table in my friend Janet’s house on Sunday, August 5 at about 6:30 PM PT. It has been a busy past three days, and I’ll get into all of it in a few moments.
My cousin Aviva and I decided to make Friday morning a lazy morning, so I slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, and downloaded my email for the first time in days (no Amtrak train has Internet capabilities, and I doubt the Empire Builder will anytime soon). Shortly before noon, we walked out to a nearby bus stop, and took a King County Metro bus to near the Westlake Center in downtown Seattle. 
The last time I was in Seattle was in the summer of 2004, at which time the Seattle Center Monorail was not in service due to some sort of mishap. Therefore, I was unable to ride it then. (Luckily, the bus tunnel was open then. It is now closed for work pertaining to the new light rail that is under construction). We rode the monorail to the Seattle Center, and then walked over to the International Fountain. There are some very creative benches in the circular walkway around the fountain, and I got some more photos of the fountain with the Space Needle as a backdrop. 
I also got some photos of the benches in the area. After some time, we walked around the Seattle Center some, and then went to the new sculpture garden located along the waterfront. I found the sculptures to be quite interesting, and we then found a bench whose back was designed to look like an eyeball (there were other similar benches nearby, appropriately positioned to create pairs), and made some phone calls to family back on the East Coast. The bench was also within earshot of a grade crossing for a BNSF freight line, so I was able to get a few photos of passing trains.
After this, we walked along the waterfront in the direction of the aquarium, in search of some food. 
Since we were going to the Seattle Mariners baseball game that night, we didn’t want to eat too large a lunch and not have an appetite for ballpark food. At about this time, Aviva’s husband Jonah called to say he was off work, and we agreed to meet him for falafel at a place near 4th and Main. We took our falafel to a courtyard with waterfalls that was the birthplace of UPS. After finishing this, it was nearing time to head over towards the ballpark. and I made another phone call back to the East Coast while doing so.
I think that Seattle is a very interesting city, and I like it a lot. I find places such as the Seattle Center to be wonderful urban paradises in the middle of bustling cities, similar to Central Park in New York City or Millennium Park in Chicago. Additionally, I enjoy the waterfront (and will be interested to see what is done with the elevated highway running along the Alaskan Way) and find that Seattle is a very easy city to get around, despite its steep hills. So far, I have been able to enjoy excellent weather when I’ve been in Seattle, and seeing what are supposedly more “normal” conditions might change my opinion of the city, but I think it is an exciting and fun place, and hope to be able to go back again soon.
Before the baseball game, which seems to be my Friday night Seattle tradition, Aviva, Jonah, and I went to Pyramid Brewery, people watched, and chatted. Then at about 6:20 or so, we went to buy food from a vendor outside the stadium, and then went in to Safeco Field from the main entrance. For that night’s game, in which the Seattle Mariners hosted the Boston Red Sox, we had sections in the upper level looking straight out along the third base line towards left field. The Red Sox lost for the first time at a game that I have personally attended (that I can recall), mainly because they were unable to produce runs in the first two innings when they got 6 of their 11 hits.
Overall, I like Safeco Field. 
Last time I was there, my seats were in right field, and I didn’t enter the park through its majestic foyer, which I liked a lot (the new stadium for the Mets, CitiField, is supposed to have a similar foyer, which was a feature of the old Ebbets Field that was home to the Brooklyn Dodgers). Safeco Field is very similar to Citizens Bank Park, where the Philadelphia Phillies play. The concessions on the lower level are set up so that one can see from the concourse to the playing fields, there are views of the city skyline from the stadium, and the scoreboards are large and easy to see from many vantage points. I especially like that they show how to score most plays on the scoreboard, since I keep score at the games I attend and occasionally miss something (such as the 9-4-2-5 play that resulted from Manny Ramirez’s poor baserunning. However, I found the frequent promotions and sound effects, especially between each pitch made by Seattle closer J.J. Putz, to be overkill.
After the game, we drove back to Aviva’s and Jonah’s, and went to sleep. The next morning (Saturday), after a quicker breakfast than the day before, I was driven to the King Street Station to take Amtrak Thruway Bus 8948 to Vancouver, BC. Yes, that last statement was a bit of an oxymoron, since this was a bus where my ticket was purchased through Amtrak and was timed to meet the Empire Builder from Chicago, but the bus was operated by some Canadian company whose name I forget, and was most definitely not a train. (Janet, the power behind the scenes as she calls herself, thinks the best description would be a “bus that is pretending to be a train”, among other ideas, but I’ve gone with the wordy description above). Since Amtrak can only operate one Cascades round trip a day between Seattle and Vancouver, it operates additional bus service for the times the train does not run. The bus ran non stop to the border, where we arrived at about 1:10 PM PT. For buses crossing the border, every bus must unload its passengers, after which they claim their luggage and proceed to a customs inspection. Meanwhile, the bus is inspected (we were warned not to leave anything on board or else it would be confiscated). After every passenger went through customs, the luggage was reloaded onto the bus, and we set off again at about 2:10. This wasn’t too bad of a border experience, since only one bus can be processed at a time, and we only had to wait 10 minutes for the bus in front of us to finish once we arrived, and no other buses were in front of us. After a stop in the Vancouver suburbs in Richmond to let a few people off, we arrived at Vancouver Central Station, which is served both by buses and trains, at 3:07 PM PT.
I only had a few minutes to wait for Janet to come and pick me up, after which we went back to her house, before setting out to see the University of British Columbia campus. The campus looks like that of a school in the United States in many ways, with lots of utilitarian buildings that seem to have been constructed in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, based on the exterior designs. 
However, there are a number of vistas that overlook the Pacific Ocean which are quite pretty. We returned to the house to eat, then set out on a long walk through the UBC campus down to the beach, then walked about 7 kilometers (5 miles) along the beach to Vanier Park. Each summer, there are four fireworks displays as part of a competition. The three countries each have one night where they make their own display, set to music, that goes off over English Bay. 
Then, the fourth display is a finale, in which all participants each do about one third of the entire display. That fourth display took place Saturday night, and we watched it from this park. Being from the Washington, DC area, I get to see fireworks each July 4th on the National Mall. However, I found that the Vancouver display was interesting since the people who made it had more leeway in the music they used since they were not limited to patriotic songs. They also used a number of effects I had never seen before. After the display ended, it was back to the house to sleep.
This morning, we drove out to Whistler, an alpine village about 110 kilometers from Vancouver where a number of 2010 Olympic events are scheduled to take place. 
The drive from Vancouver to Whistler is quite scenic, and it goes along the ocean for much of the first half. This road is being widened to accommodate Olympic traffic, and it is quite interesting to see how they are widening the road that runs between a cliff leading down to the water and a steep rock face. While on our way out there, we stopped at Shannon Falls. Once in Whistler, which is a village that seems to be trying to be European and isn’t exactly succeeding, we had lunch, and then went for a walk out to what is called Lost Lake, but Janet and I decided that the lake is no longer lost since we found it. The scenery on this walk and at the lake itself was simply breathtaking, as we walked along a blue-gray stream that probably originated at a glacier, and then reached Lost Lake with its blue-green waters set among a variety of trees, including evergreens, and tall mountains still capped with snow. We walked around the lake after sitting on its shore for awhile. We didn’t have bathing suits so we were unable to go in, although it would have been quite refreshing to do so. Then, in the interest of time, we took the less scenic but most direct route back to Whistler Village and headed home, where I write this post from. Today was quite tiring, so I think it might be an early night to bed after some reading, before yet another packed day tomorrow.
