Museum Hopper

on the fourth of july, my boyfriend and i rode the ducks of seattle .  i booked the tickets in advance and we left from the westlake location in downtown seattle.  i figured it would be a good way to get us around seattle, end the weekend and get on the water for a little bit. we arrived at the stop a half hour early like we were supposed to and waited in a line a bit to get on the duck/boat/bus.  we were a little late taking off since two ticket holders arrived late to westlake.  this was the beginning of a not so great ride with these two.... we headed directly from westlake up towards the north side of lake union, hopped in the lake there, boated around, then headed down on the pier, up 1st avenue past pike market to wrap up the ride.  we spent about equidistant time in the water and on land, which i was really happy about.  it was great to be on the lake on the 4th of july.  we could see everyone gathering to watch the fireworks as well as the ...

for my birthday this year, i decided to go on the underground tour with some friends, jessica, pascal and sarah!  i had really good things about the tour from both seattle locals and nonlocals, so i figured we should give it a go! i bought tickets online although the website was not very quick and took 15 minutes (and counting) to process.  i ended up calling to confirm that the purchase went through.  it had, but did with the wrong date.  they quickly fixed it and i was still given the student ticket price. on the day of, we arrived at the ticket building (for lack of a better word).  they did have a nice little restaurant in there with decently priced drinks.  it looked quite quaint and fun.   at tour time, we were all shepherded into a large room with seating to get the kick off of our tour (~20 minutes).  this gave us the foundation of what we were going to see in the underground.  after this, we left the building and headed ...

to take advantage of the beautiful day in new york city, i thought i would try to take the lower east side tenement museum walking tour. i hustled down there and got there right in the nick of time. i have been to the lower east side museum for their tenement tours, but wanted to try this 1 1/2 hr walking tour, immigrant soles: a neighborhood walking tour . i saw some areas of the lower east side which i had never seen before. the tour guide was very good; he did a great job pointing out the interesting architecture making us think about what certain architecture features might mean. for example, a building with only three windows, what does that mean? answer: that it was meant to have a single family live there as opposed to twenty, since there was no partition splitting the building in two. he also brought up some of the different political tensions running through the LES that had not been mentioned in some of the other tours. perfect for a beautiful summer day. times v...

the lower east side tenament museum is an interesting museum. it isn't so much of a museum as a guided tour through restored rooms in old tenaments. i have been twice for two different tours. once by myself and once when my family was in town. the tours are really well run. the guides are very knowledgeable and if they don't the answer, they'll find it for you. that being said, some things to remember when going on these tours. - they are very limited in space, so if you have a popular time (say 1 pm on a saturday) with a large group, consider reserving in advance. - they are limited in space because the rooms are so tiny. - keep in mind, very limited air conditioning (if any) on the tours...and these rooms get hot. overall, definitely worth a visit. just be cognizant of when you're going. i am looking forward to going back and trying some of the other tours. times visited: 2 time in the museum: 1 hr (each tour lasts for about an hour) overall: A-