How to spend only $20 on a Seattle weekend

This weekend Tony and I found ourselves with three days off and very minimal money to use to enjoy them. We did manage to have an awesome weekend however.
Friday we planned to go snowshoeing, but we got off to a later start and the trail that we wanted to go on closed at 3:30. Instead we got our little hiking pack and took ourselves to Discovery Park. It is a several thousand acre park about 8 miles north of us with 5 miles of hiking trails, a beach front and even a military base on it ( although civilians are not allowed on the base.) We hiked first to the beach where we could see Mt. Rainer and the Olympic mountains perfectly. It was a nice sunny day, probably about 40 degrees. After we walked the length of the beach and around an old non-working lighthouse, we finished our hike through the park and headed home. Our plan, since we were rubbing two nickels together in hopes to make a dime, was to make Greek lemon rice soup and a giant Greek salad. Our plans quickly turned when we were walking home from the bus and saw ( and smelled) what may be our favorite Indian place since the one we fell in love with in Virginia.
After dinner we got back home in time to start to watch Transformers, though we were much too pooped to finish it.
Saturday was a relax day. Tony had a lot of homework and tests to do, so I went to the gym for a bit. Afterwards, when he was in dire need of a break, we walked to Pike Place market to get bread, so that we could make the dinner that never came to fruition on Friday. I bought a newspaper and spent the rest of the evening reading the Sunday paper ( I don’t know how since it was only Saturday, but that is what it said on the front.)
Today ( Sunday) we were ready to go back out and explore the city, but we don’t get paid until next Friday. I have to interject with a quick story on why we are so broke J First of all, we took a month off so that we could be home for the holidays. Then as luck would have it, we arrived at our new assignment in the middle of a pay period-which is biweekly. So our first check from this assignment was a tiny one that covered bills and tuition, thus leaving us no money for our time off.
Anyway, put away the Kleenex, we have enough dough so that we are not living off ramen like college kids.
Back to my story, today I was browsing yelp.com for those of you who don’t use it, you should. People rate restaurants, bars, etc in many different towns. Well luckily someone put a list of her favorite things to do in Seattle with no money and we took her advice.
We drove-first time in about a week that the car got used- to the Conservancy and spent a good amount of time in the greenhouse enjoying the warmth and the beauty of the different types of plants that they have there. Once I got my fill of orchids, fuchsia, anthurium, cacti, mini banana trees and Tony got his fair share of carnivorous plants, we went to the Seattle Asian Art museum (both are almost free, they ask for a donation of 5 bucks, we could totally afford.) They had some astounding pieces from the year 2 bc all the way up to a mixed media piece that involved a woman’s view of the ink while she was cleaning her brushes. It was really cool. After that we came back to our place so I could try to perfect this vegan “clam” chowder that I had at Pike Place when we had money J
Anyway, we get paid on Friday, so hopefully next weekend there won’t be a huge winter storm ( the other reason that we didn’t go snowshoeing) and we will be doing some more exciting things, while still adding to our house fund.

brain food

What a busy few days off. Tony and discovered how to get lost using only directions to a farmer's market, a bus, and a rainy day. It was worth it. We ended up on the other side of seattle. But we did get unlost just in time so that i could get a library card!!! from this place....

how amazing is this place??? I love it. and when we walked in there was a tribute to mlk going on with this awesome singer. So i got my book fix.
AND then... Sunday we slept in-funny how sleeping in feels much better when you still have the daylight when you wake up. Instead of a few hours wheny ou work midnights.
So we went to this cute little place for brunch in pike place market and then went to the seattle art museum. It is nowhere near as big as the dia, but it was cool and took up about 3 hours to tour. Tomorrow and Tuesday i have to work, and then Tony has to work on opposite days so nothing exciting will be going on for a few days-good thing i have some books to read. We are off the weekend though, so i am investigating some bike paths and perhaps a trip to the san juan islands ( just a few hours away from us)

Seattle bound

We left just in time from California, and if I haven’t mentioned it before, tony and I are two lucky kids. We missed ALL the storms that we were supposed to be driving through. When we got to northern cali ( like yreka) we were listening to the news on the radio and they were forecasting 5-10 feet of snow in the mountains by the afternoon and up to 100 mile an hour winds later in the evening. We all did drive through some nasty rain and the beginning of what was going to be an evil snow storm. But we got safely in Washington without any of it affecting us. Not to mention when we were in the middle of Oregon and had just passed all the nasty weather, there was an amazing rainbow outside.
So we got to Seattle, and took longer than I would like to to move in. But we are now settled and LOVING IT. We are 4 blocks from pike place market, 4 more blocks away from downtown and one mile from work. Tony and I have been taking the bus and walking to work because parking here is insane.
Our apartment is right across the street from Puget sound. Well, one block, but since we are on the second floor we can see it from our window. Our place is tiny, but cute and enough room for guests.
We have probably walked through most of the city already. We found a really cool track to bike and walk on that starts one block from our house. Yesterday I went running/walking ( mostly walking :) ) and today I went biking and both times saw seals hanging out in the water. I LOVE IT! Did I mention that I love it.
The hospital is an easy job too, NO trauma, NO kids ( although I learned to love working with them at Stanford) we are also working days so tony and I have completely flipped our lives around to be day people, and I think that so far I don’t mind it.
We have found a million things to do, now we just need to get paid so we can do them all. We are a little more than an hour from the olympic mountains and mt. rainier- so probably next weekend or the one after we are going to go snowshoeing/hiking there with a few friends of ours.
There are so many things to do around our place, so if we happen to have to work on a day that, say someone wanted to visit, it is ok. Everything is walkable.
I will try my best to keep this badboy updated regularly this time, since this will probably be our last assignment-although I really hope that it lasts until the end of the summer.

Holiday time-better late than never

No Surprise a month has gone by since my last blog and don’t think that my mom hasn’t questioned me about it. Tons of things have happened while we were home, but I will keep it to a minimum because most of the people that read this were there. So we got home early enough this year to make pierogi, only this year it was a two day event due in part to a late start ( no one is ever on time in my family) and perhaps too many drinks and genuine tiredness. Both days were serious business- the first one involved my mom and dad, tony, scott, Bridgette, jeff, mike, eric and maria. The second day’s slaves were my mom and I along with Barbie, tony and auntie rosie. Eric and maria swooped in later on to finish the job. That weekend a group of us took Barbie out for her belated birthday celebration. We were going to hit the old neighborhood and go to Chick’s again like last year, but Jeff was working so we went to the BIergarten instead. I think we all went home earlier than usual, but we were all stinkin tired.
That Saturday was Sarah’s Sostice party and good times were had by all, as always. Although for the first time in I don’t know how long, tara and Nicole were there and we all stayed really really late! I had snuck over to sarah’s a few days before the party so that I could get a peak at her new house. I have to say I am green with envy. It is so cozy and cute that I wanted to cancel all my plans and read a book in front of the fireplace. I LOVE IT.
It felt like we had just gotten home and Christmas Eve arrived quickly. Again we celebrated as we have been doing since as long as I can remember. We had our Christmas Wigilia with enough food to feed the masses. After everyone left we opened our gifts and hit the hay. In the morning, er afternoon, Tony and I went to Gwen and Tony’s for Christmas lunch/dinner.We spent some time with Brian and Tanya and then later on in the evening we got to see his cousin Johnnie and his finace Kathryn so that was a nice surprise.
Later in the week I went to Tara’s for a girl’s only dinner and to my surprise Kristine was there, This was a vacation of surprise visits. It was nice to catch up with everyone, I can’t wait until I move home and I don’t need to catch up
I can’t remember in what order we did anything anymore, but we did get to spend a good part of a day with Mark, Tiff and Nate, who I have to say is getting to be quite a little man. I know that I am partial, but he is one of the cutest kids that I have ever seen. And it wasn’t just his breakdancing that won me over, although it ruled. When we opened our gift to him he started to breakdance on the paper. I would put video up but I am an idiot. I did bring my camera to their house, but without batteries….BOOO well trust me he is super cute, and not a bad dancer either J
It seemed like our time was gone before we even got home, but we managed to squeeze a New Year dinner with Gwen and Tony in. IT is nice to get to break up our time. I feel like even though I get to see and talk to everyone at parties I don’t really get to catch up. So we got some time to do just that. It was really nice.
New Year’s eve came and we spent it at scott’s house. We were going to meet tara but the weather got crappy and even though we left scott’s just after midnight ( well 1ish) it took almost an hour to get home. STINK
The next day I made my mom dinner and a cake since I wouldn’t be around for her birthday-but she didn’t get home until late thanks to Michigan weather. So we ate a rushed dinner and went to bed, because Tony and I had to catch a plane at 7am.

If Brandy or Ant happens to read this, note that it only snows in Michigan on Christmas and new years, and then it heats up to a balmy 70 :)

We got to the airport at 5:45, and the line to get our tickets was out the door. For some strange reason, though it only took 15 minutes for us to get through the line. It was the same at security. I have never seen a line so long. It stretched past the roping and about 100 feet behind. Still, we were lucky, we got to the gate as they were boarding 1st class ( which we were not.)
Even luckier, we had a layover in vegas ( where I just missed Kristine by like an hour) but I won $100 bucks at a slot machine.

We got back to san jose and our friend Briana picked us up at the airport and took us to meet the rest of our cheese circle for pizza before brandy, ant and kelly had to work and so we could say good-bye ( sniff, sniff) I wish we could have packed them all in our little trailer, well or the car :) and they could all come with us.

We got a great night sleep at Briana's house and woke up at 3am to drive her to the airport and start our journey north