Washington...finally

I awake at 8 am and eat an egg white omelet with goat cheese and spinach, then chocolate yogurt, and my remaining cupcake.  Can that be considered healthy?  I doubt it!  I take a shower, pack my bag (which takes an hour since I have to weed through the things I have acquired here), and check out.  I leave the Portland Northwest Hostel at 11:15 am and walk down Glisan Street arriving at the Amtrak Station at 11:40 am.  I write in my journal, while hundreds of passengers line up in front of me for seat assignments, I figure I will wait until the line disappears before I stand to get my seat.  I am last in line.  I receive the last seat in the last car.  People are of course selfish, so they push you around so they can put their luggage precisely where you were intending to put yours.  I see an empty luggage shelf in the car next to mine.  I run back to my seat to retrieve my bag.  As I reach the rack a woman says "excuse me" rather rudely and shoves her 6 bags on the shelf just as I am lifting my own bag in expectation of placing it there.  Then, she has the nerve to act annoyed at me for standing there in the narrow isle for a fraction of a second.  Ahh! I hate selfish American women.  I hate people who travel with too much luggage, who feel the need to screw everyone else over, and especially any one who acts as though my need for just a little space (space that they themselves could waste themselves) is merely inferior to them.  The train waits 20 minutes for another train's passengers to join us.  The ride is beautiful as we climb through the Cascades, passing Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier.  I sit beside a woman my age and take notice of the interesting caricatures she sketches for the four year old in the seat in front of her.  She is a talented artist and I laugh as she trades pictures of absurd characters with exaggerated eyes and lips for colorful scribbles from the little girl.  When the train arrives in the station, a woman I meet in the train station helps me find the free zone bus that leads to the new Green Tortoise Hostel.  This new hostel is beautiful.  It is nothing like the shabby mess the other one was.  It is clean and has big friendly common areas, 10 free internet access computers, free dinner, and friendly staff.  I check into the hostel, get my room, put my things in the locker, and head to the Seattle Art Museum (which is free the first Thursday of the month).  I explore the museum for three hours, then I make it back to the hostel to grab some pasta, grilled vegetables and an ice cream sandwich for free dinner.  I meet another girl, named Lindsay who has just returned from two years of teaching English in Korea.  She and I talk and instantly become friends.  We decide to go on the hostel's free pub crawl, although neither one of us wants to really drink.  We meet two brothers from Blue Hill, Maine who are also staying at the hostel and they become our friends for the evening.  We become inseparable through all six bars (where I chat and drink water all evening).  At one bar, we notice that all four of us are wearing down vests, and we see a woman by the bar wearing one as well.  We decide to ask her to be in our photo.  When I ask her, she places my accent and says "are you from Maine?" I reply "yes...how did you know?"  She and her three friends are from Maine as well!  Weird!  Our night continues with random photo taking, jokes about Maine, and our sudden need to find more Mainers in each bar.  We arrive back at the hostel by 2:30 am (two of the pub crawl participants are extremely drunk and it takes over an hour to make it the 8 blocks back to the hostel).  We all exchange emails, promise to stay in touch and then head to our rooms to sleep.  I am to meet my new friends at 9 am for breakfast...if I wake up in time.

In my first 10 hours in Seattle, I see the museum, have free dinner, make 5 new friends from Maine, and see rain.