LA

Tegan is now on Catalina Island to start her time as an invasive plant intern! Here's some pics from our week visiting Brenda and Bill. We had a great time going around town and lazing by the pool, and had fun hanging out with them, Grandma Penny (Bill's mom) and Alesha (Bill & Brenda's granddaughter).

We've come to the conclusion that the lack of sun in the NW just makes us surlier. Everyone in LA is so polite, its weird, like overly helpful. Not that people in Seattle and Portland are rude, just jaded maybe and half depressed all the time from the grayness. Like all the ushers at the Disney Concert Hall were beyond friendly and helpful, we were so surprised! No one's that chipper up here.

We also loved that this is perhaps the only place in the world where you can go to a theme park attraction featuring footage of the current governor- that's right, I'm talking about the Terminator 2 show at Universal Studios. God bless America.

Universal Studios

They had all these signs and stuff from Fast and the Furious- Tokyo Drift, made me so nostalgic! Even a Suntory Boss vending machine. Sigh.











This is totally where they filmed the Genovia part of the Princess Diaries.

Downtown LA

We found some sweet finger puppets on Olvero street.













I was excited to check out Famima, the kinda newly introduced American opening of the Japanese Family Mart convienence store chains. They had Konbu onigiri, which excited me, and some other stuff I've missed, but were sadly lacking in Dars chocolate and Lemon Water. And also, Little Tokyo is so dissapointing after having actually lived in Japan. I kept speaking to everyone in Japanese and they'd answer me in English, and I didn't find everything I was looking for in the bakeries. Oh well, it was still fun.


Here's Tegan in Chinatown, we had some nice pastry things and bubble tea. Did a bit of marketing for some cool bags in the market. The lady asked where we were from, Tegan said Seattle, and she said oh, that's how you know how to bargain! I felt I must have done a pretty decent job of it, though I've never bargained in Seattle, it's all about the markets in Asia baby! A backpacker's gotta learn how to bargain there, no choice.

Santa Barbara

We went to the lovely botanical gardens, the boardwalk, and a hippy restaurant that served delicious food.

Sightseeing fun times

Friday was our major sightseeing day, starting off at Venice Beach- those are vegan chili dogs we found, I still think I'll stick to my no-hot dog policy.

We went to Hollywood and found lots of cheesiness on the Walk of Fame.

Shen Wei Dance Company

On Friday, Brenda took us and Alesha to see the Shen Wei Dance company perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This is the garden on the balconey, very lovely. This is a beautiful venue, the acoustics are perfect, and there couldn't have been a better place to see this particular piece. The director wanted to combine painting and dance, and the dancers paint with their hands and feet to give you a concrete picture of their movement, it was fantastic. We were sitting in one of the balconey sections, the perfect position, because we could cleary see the canvas (the stage floor) and the patterns being created. This venue is a theater in the round, so there was no covering over the stage giving us a great view. If you have the chance to see something here, do it!

I've found my new career path

I'm totally going to be a pro surfer! Check me out riding the baby waves, sweet! Bill took us surfing twice, so I feel I'm ready to go on tour now. It's really fun, makes me almost wish I lived there.

sidenote about Tegan's graduation

I forgot to mention before, but the people in charge of the Senior Class Gift at UW raised about $30,000. What did they do with it? They bought..... a tree. No joke. Apparently it's a descendant of Sir Isaac Newton's famous apple tree. All I can say is- what a waste! Seriously! It's so ridiculous that they spent all that money on a tree, unless it has magical healing powers theres no way its worth so much money. Why couldn't they do something useful, like put it in a scholarship fund or something? I can think of so many better ways to spend $30,000.

Congrats Daddo!

Daddo's graduation

Daddo finally caught up to us kids and got his BS from Eastern Washington University. We all went to the graduation ceremony on Saturday morning, man is Eastern washington a long drive! Even longer as this is the first time since I was in high school I think that we've all been in the car so long together :-) Had no idea it took 6 hours to get from one side of the state to the other. One of Dad's classmates, Terry, came to the ceremony as well. They took courses through extension in Vancouver and had never been on the campus before this weekend. It's a really pretty campus, but out in the middle of nowhere, reminded me why I chose to go to school in Seattle, I like me some civilization.

Unlike Tegan's graduation, it wasn't raining the whole time so we all got to stay pleasantly dry. The student body president's speech was also much better. It seemed so tiny to us since the UW is so big, but it was nice how people seemed to know each other and that they called out everyone's name and took time to pose them for pictures as they walked across the stage. For some number perspective, the UW has I think around 25,000 undergrads, about 35,000 with grad and med students. Eastern had about 2,500 or so undergrads, quite a difference.

After the ceremony they even had this $3.50 lunch thing for everyone, pretty nice, especially since I suspect Cheney is severely limited in fine dining establishments. We spent the afternoon in Spokane, walking around the river and parks surrounding it. The Spokane river is really pretty, and I had a Smoke Signals moment, as pictured below. Went to a few near empty brew pubs, couldn't figure out where the nightlife in Spokane is, maybe there isn't much of any. Then Sunday made the long drive back. Tomorrow, California!

So small!

It was weird being on such a small college campus, the

football field was the size of the one at my high school! And look how tiny the graduation class is! It was a much more personal ceremony though which was nice, they called out everyone's name and faculty members from the various departments stood by to shake hands with their students at the appropriate times.

Such shiny helmets

Cheney is way more patriotic than Seattle. Everyone was actually paying attention during the flag ceremony thing, and people were singing along during the national anthem! I'd never been to anything where people actually sing along, it was bizarre. The students also knew Eastern Washington's Alma Mater and were singing along with that too which completely amazed me, I'd never heard mine until graduation day and wouldn't recognize it now.

Smoke Signals Reenactment

This isn't the same bridge

from the movie's end scene, but it's the same river. Ah, Sherman.

Sweet Ride!

That's right, I am finally, for the first time, a car owner. I feel so American. One minor detail- its a stick shift, which I don't know how to drive. Dad is going to try to teach me, until we end up getting mad at each other, and then I'll just recruit one of my friends as pretty much everyone can drive a stick but me. Who wants to give me lessons?

Tegan's Graduation from UW

This Saturday Tegan graduated from UW, the same uni I went to. She's a copycat that way.

Of course, the weather was sunny and fine on Friday and Sunday, but on Saturday it was pissing down rain. Here she is, in her room, hat still flat and intact. Everyones hat got all curly and warped by the end of the ceremony. Since it's in the stadium, everyone graduating is on the field. They all got a poncho and most people brought umbrellas, but it was a long 3 hours for them!

I'd forgotten how "American" graduation ceremonies are- the formal presentation of the flag by the ROTC students (for you non-Americans, thats the students who are in the Military, I can't remember what it stands for. But if you want to make fun of them you can pronounce it Rot-si, as in rhymes with Nazi). Then the singing of the national anthem. With all the rain it was a bit chaotic though, and sometimes the mics would go out.

The commencement speaker was a last minute addition, a House of Representatives dude who basically just made a campaign speech, and it went on WAY too long. It was so irritating that the crowd started to get rowdy and were stomping their feet on the bleachers to try to get him to stop and even booing a bit, though I don't think he could hear. Near the end he said "And one more thing" and there was a collective groan that went up from the crowd. It was especially tedious as everyone wanted to get out of the rain and wished he'd just get on with it.

Usually, after everyone walks across the stage (when the undergrads do this its 4 lines at a time, amazing organization) you go back to your seat for a final little speech by the UW President, then he and the rest of the faculty that were presiding over the ceremony walk down the center aisle of students. But this year, the Ph.D.s and M.A. students bailed as soon as they did their part, and most of the undergrads did too. There are so many it takes an hour just for the undergrads to walk across the stage, and they don't even call names, they only do that for the Ph.D.'s. Tegan bailed too and came and sat with us while people were still going up to the stage. She was soaked, and her cardboard hat was all mushy, pretty gross. When I graduated, afterwards the stage area was full of people hanging out, taking pictures, saying goodbye to their friends they wouldn't see again, but this year no one could be bothered.

We had dinner at Carmelita, the best vegetarian restaurant in Seattle, and maybe the NW. Sandy and Joe Brooks joined us. Afterwards Tegan and I packed up some of her crap into Mom's car, and the next day the parents packed up more furniture in the truck, and back to the couve we went after a last bowl of Pho.

This weekend is Dad's graduation in Spokane, then Tegan and I go to LA for a week before she goes to her internship on Catalina island. More pictures will be posted of these festivities for sure!

At Drumheller fountain, after the ceremony.

Check out how her hat is all warped from the rain. They should make NW edition caps out of gortex or something.

See that sunflower umbrella? She's kinda behind that.

Ah, Seattle

Tegan's somewhere in this group of people walking in. Gotta love the poncho's they gave them all to wear. Classy. You can't see it in the picture, but behind that big scoreboard is Lake Washington. The UW stadium is in a beautiful location.

Post-Graduation Dinner at Carmelita

Yes, we are both wearing

black cardigans and polka- dot dresses. Cause thats how we roll.