Museum Hopper

as soon as we arrived in seattle (just about), we headed to the seattle space needle even with storms rolling through.  it was pretty crazy! the ticket sales are on the outside and actually, sort of difficult to find.  we headed up with just about no line.   it was quite breezy at the top with it swaying back and forth.  the needle has spectacular views at the top.  i also enjoyed that it had sections on the history of the space needle, the different neighborhoods you could view from the top as well information on a number of the different monuments/important places you can see from the top!  there is an indoor portion of the space needle and an outdoor place that is where pictures can be taken.  the gift shop was surprisingly awesome.  i was amazed.  jason bought a ton of seattle stickers for his extra fridge.  i almost bought birthday presents for my father.  the fudge for sale looked delicious.    ...

i went to the getty with my boyfriend and some of our friends that live in LA. it had been raining in LA for the past few days. we were lucky that we hit about a 4 hour rain-free hours. the great news about the rain is that it cleared a lot of the smog...we could see all the way down to long beach (supposedly). i had no idea what to expect when we went to the museum. it is up on this hill that you take a cable car up to the top of the mountain that overlooks LA, the valley, etc. the museum is composed of lots of separate museums, so going on a day with good weather is more important than i realized. they also have these pretty gardens that wind about the place. another nice thing about this museum is you just pay to park ($10). we saw a couple different exhibits while we are there. the first one was the belles heures (the beautiful hours) of the duke of berry. they were on loan from the metropolitan museum of art in new york city. we also checked out the tango with the cows:...

i went to governor's island last weekend because the island was advertising free bike rental. so, i headed over to check it out, since the weather was pretty close to perfect. the island (during september at least) is open friday through sunday. the ferry , which is free, runs more often on the weekend. on my weekend, the ferry ran every 1/2 hour. i got over to the island and went over to rent a bike. the line was over 300 people long...so, that was the end bike riding possibility. i would have even paid for the bike rental. i was a little frustrated that they advertised it and they did not have enough to follow through on it. so, since i was there, i decided i should walk a lap around the island. as i walked, it reminded me a lot of mackinaw island. it was trying hard to do it, but wasn't quite there yet. they had a lot of construction going on and most of the historic buildings had yellow construction tape across the front. another point to note is that the ...

i went on the statue of liberty and ellis island tour with sam chan the last weekend he was in town. we were also joined by his wife, my roommate and two other male friends. so, a crew of 6 of us. we bought tickets about 2 weeks in advance. i would highly recommend this (especially on weekends) since we saved an estimated 1 (or more) hour in line. we purchased tickets from the internet . when figuring out logistics for our reservation, the website was very unhelpful. it is not very descriptive about where to go to get on the boat, when to get there, etc. if you want to go up into the statue of liberty, i'd recommend buying the tickets at least a month in advance. it doesn't cost extra, but only a limited number are available. we left from nyc and got off at the 4-5 bowling green stop. there were people dressed in statue of liberty costumes leading the way. our reservations were at noon, but i am not sure that the specific time really mattered. i think we could have shown...

i went to the cloisters with my sister who was is currently in town. we took the subway. it was actually running as an express train, so it only took about 30 minutes to get up there. it was beautiful since all the flowers and the trees were out. it was relatively cool inside the museum, which was ideal since it was 98 degrees outside. another good visit. times visited: 2 average time in the museum: 2 hrs overall: A