We were too busy during the week this week to figure out what we wanted to do this weekend, so when we woke up late Saturday morning, we didn't know what we were going to do. We decided to start the day by reviving our old Saturday tradition of getting bagels. Whereas we used to be able to get bagels less than half of a mile from our apartment, the nearest bagel place to us now is about a mile away and up a steep hill. It's not very easy to find parking in that area of town, either, so we decided to take the bus. It was a short walk to the bus stop, and once the bus arrived (a few minutes late), we got on and purchased a day pass so that we could conveniently get to the other locations we had started to plan on. It was a fairly short ride to the bagel place, and the line wasn't too long. We used to pick up three bagels and take them home to put cream cheese on, but since we weren't taking them home this time, we just requested three bagels with cream cheese. We realized once we got our bagels that they were larger than the bagels we used to get and that they had a lot more cream cheese on them than what we would normally apply. After wiping off some excess cream cheese (the first time I realized that there is such a thing as too much cheese), the bagels were quite tasty, and while a little different than the ones we normally got, still very good.

After bagels, we headed the opposite direction on the same bus line toward newly-opened Olympic Sculpture Park. I had found out about this from a Seattle magazine that one of our neighbors was geting rid of and wanted to go as soon as we could. We found our way there without much trouble. Olympic Sculpture Park opened in January, and is basically a park/garden with a bunch of sculptures, as the name implies. It immediately reminded me of Dallas' Nasher Sculpture Center since the're both park-like areas with sculptures. However, unlike the Nasher, which is a secluded retreat in the middle of downtown, Olympic Sculpture park bridges the dense surrounding urbanity, the outdoor greenery and running trains, and the open expanse of Puget Sound. Olympic Sculpture Park offered a quick and peaceful escape from the city while still being connected with it and I enjoyed our stroll through the park, observing and interacting with the interesting sculpures along the way. The main reason I went, though, might excite a few other native Fort Worthians aside from myself. When I was young, I didn't go to downtown Fort Worth very often, but I remember a large red sculpture in front of the Bank One Tower (pre-tornado). This sculpture hasn't been in downtown Fort Worth for a decade, but for some reason I still remember it. That's why I was so excited to read that Alexander Calder's "Eagle" is the centerpiece of Olympic Sculpture Park, it felt like what it must be like to run into a former teacher who you didn't appreciate at the time but now are happy to see again. I was able to take a few pictures before my batteries ran out. If you're interested, here's an article about how Calder's "Eagle" got in Seattle.

Anyway, after this, we walked along the waterfront, past Pike Place Market, and to Pioneer Square, where we had wanted to learn a little about the history of Seattle by taking the Underground Tour, which is kind of a tourist attraction, but we thought it would be a fun way to get better acquainted with the city. Before the tour started we toured a small museum about the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1800s, which brought a lot of people and properity to Seattle. The tour started with a brief and amusing introduction into the early days of Seattle, which weren't portrayed glamorously. Where downtown Seattle sits now used to be a lot flatter and the hills to the east were a lot steeper, but this caused a lot of problems such as floods and difficulty ascending the hills, so the city decided to gradually raise the ground level. However, all of the buildings were at the old ground level and all the city could do was raise the roads, so a lot of the storefronts were about one story below the roads. Eventually the city paved sidewalks at street level and buildings raised their entrances by a level, and now the underground tour is done at the old entrance-level under the current sidewalks. Kind of weird but kind of neat. Apparently there were at one time 32 underground blocks which were no longer used, and we got to tour about three blocks. Still, it was an entertaining lesson about the city and I found it neat to be underground.

After that, we rode another bus over to some dinner on Broadway and then headed home and called it a night. While it wasn't an overly exciting day, it was an enjoyable day around town.