I am in love. This city is beautiful, the mountains are breathtaking, the wind is exhilerating, the clouds reflect off of all the buildings and the streets go sharply up and down and there are fountains and sculptures and the people are so nice and the trees are so big and...*sigh* It's amazing.

Okay okay, so I'm projecting my love for Andrew onto the city. Whatever! Love is love, right? I could totally live in this area; we keep driving through beautiful neighborhoods and little towns with fountains and restaurants and shops...All right I'll stop babbling in vague terms and get to the details.

Yesterday we played golf at a little course in Jackson Park--with only our pitch 'n' putt clubs, because that's all we brought. We sucked. But it was fun! I wanted to ask Andrew's dad if he could come play with us, although I was pretty sure he'd say no. Andrew didn't want me to ask him; he was afraid it would go badly. But he was really brave and finally agreed to let me call his dad and ask. Of course, he said no. But he seemed really polite and friendly. *laughs* So it wasn't too bad. Afterwards we went and ate dinner in Edmonds, at a really nice Thai restaurant. Edmonds is a really cute little town. Then we drove by Andrew's school!! He wanted us to come drive by his house--we were ten minutes away--but that would have been a bad idea, heh. So he told us where his school was and we drove by. It was really weird to think that this was where he spent every day and where all the stories he tells me about school take place.

In the evening we hung around the hotel and watched The Holiday, which was quite good.

Then today!! The cord we bought apparently doesn't actually fit into my camera, so I can't upload pictures yet, bah. We were gonna go to the aquarium, but at the last minute I wasn't in the mood, so my dad and brother went while I wandered around by the water where there's this amazing sculpture park. It was one of the best couple hours I can remember. I just felt so happy and I loved watching all the people and walking around and feeling the wind and seeing the mountains across the water and taking pictures of all the sculptures. I find it really interesting to watch people take pictures, too, seeing what they feel is worth capturing, what angle they choose...it's fascinating.

While I was standing by a fountain, two young women came up to me and said they were ESL students at UW and they wanted to ask me a few questions: my name, whether I live in Seattle, if not where I'm from, and what my favorite sculpture is. (At first I thought she was saying favorite "scripture", and I was confused...) They were really sweet! The fountain was quite compelling--there were two peaks, one surrounding a statue of a young boy, and the other a statue of a man, reaching out to each other. The first time I was there, the water completely covered the man but only came up to the boy's knees, and when I came back later, it was the other way around. I was taking pictures of it when a youngish man came up next to me.

"Now, how come they don't have one of them be a lady, huh? Just two naked guys--that's not what I call art!"

I laughed, and he asked me what I thought the sculpture meant and whether I thought it was art. I liked it, I said, the way they're reaching out for each other, with one of them hidden by the water. He suggested that the water represented life somehow, but he didn't quite get it. He asked me whether I liked it. "Well...I don't really mind that it's two guys," I said.

He laughed. "Well put, well put." Then he walked on.

I liked him. Afterwards we had dinner at a really good Indian restaurant near our hotel, and now we're just hanging out.

Tomorrow morning I'm seeing Andrew!

I keep thinking of little things I want to post, things I see or overhear or notice or muse about...and then of course I forget them. Gah! Oh well, hopefully I'll remember eventually. I should carry around a little notebook or something...

Mmmm, happiness.