Ever since I was a very young child I have always had a very deep love for Pike Place and the community that surrounds it. It has a completely different feeling from the rest of Seattle and almost makes it feel like you are in any regular small town at any market. There are of course, an infinite amount of things that make this old fashioned market so special. There’s the golden pig near the entrance that most tourists and young children sit on for good luck, there are the fish tossers (men who basically just throw fish around at eachother while people buy it), the tiny, hidden corridors filled with shop owners from Nepal and India trying to raise money for their temples back home, the old women with the wire wrapped stones, the buskers (of course), the food shop owners, the homemade baby clothes, the old men and their magic tricks, the Russian shop with incredible piroshkis and the old man who always greets me with the always kind “Dobroye utra!” (good morning), the first Starbucks to ever exist, the fresh flowers and produce. It’s beautiful. It is a very small and jampacked family and most of the buskers who play at the market, have been playing since I first started going around the age of ten. The market is truly a small family. A community in which you are always safe. Surrounded by the smells of french cafes, horchata, apple cider, regular conversations you catch the tail end of the sound. A beautiful thing about the market is that it is right on the waterfront of Puget Sound. When you step outside to get away from the business of the stalls, you are instantly barraged with fresh, blue, salty air. You can see all of the tiny bookshops, the ferris wheel, all of the tattoo parlors and the aquarium and everything that has been around for so long. Pike Place is a beautiful location because it doesn’t matter how many years passes, it does not change. It is familiar, the smells are familiar, the people make eye contact with you and smile. Unlike many markets I have been to, Pike Place is full of people who are not trying to get in eachother’s way. That’s not to say that people are not interacting with one another, but the buskers are shy and when I asked them questions a lot of them failed to keep eye contact or seemed shaky/nervous. Most buskers in the Seattle area are there purely for the music. Not even for the money. They are there to spend their time with their instrument and everyone else is just background noise. One of the men who I have seen as a regular busker at the market for as long as I can remember, did not even want me to use his real name. He is so kind and friendly I was pretty surprised when he declined a video and said he was willing to help me with my project, but that he just wanted to “get back to my job” in which he meant busking; which gave me a lot to think about. I began to think about how busking wasn’t just a hobby for some people, but their entire lives are dependent on how many dollars are going to make it into their case today. There aren’t just older buskers, but ones as young as eight years old performing to practice talent, or save money for college/various other expenses. I was able to make it to the market on Mother’s Day and with the help of my mom, was able to get around and take a nice variety of pictures. We went to the french cafe Le Panier and had thick cups of hot chocolate and watched the sun rise with the moon still resting over the sound and watched all of the flower stands begin to set up. I was able to purchase two bouquets for ten dollars because we were there so early. It was absolutely lovely and there was an incredible amount of people. More than I had seen at the market in a very long time. It was also interesting being back at the market because the program that I was in last year had us visit the market on a field trip, so it felt nice to be off leash, to slow my pace and take my time and look around at all of the things I had never noticed about such a familiar place before.

Due to an unfortunate turn of events I have been diagnosed with a medical condition that makes it virtually impossible to walk and I am currently experiencing the worst pain of a lifetime. This condition has made me unable to go to class and say goodbye to my family of peers and wish them luck and happiness on all of their journeys. This has also stopped my travels to Portland until any sign of recovery is better, and seeing as to how I am in and out of the emergency room every week, I do not have any idea when that could possibly be. I am extremely saddened by this because now my plans will have to wait another two to three weeks (if I’m lucky), and seeing so many pictures of my smiling classmates in beautiful places makes me wish that I could be in my own beautiful place. At least I have had plenty of time for some reading…I am currently on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel: Fugitive’s and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon. As always, Palahniuk never disappoints. He is an incredible writer, one of my favorites actually, so when I learned that he had written a book about Portland I was very pleased to learn this.

This is the last I was able to post before I had to spend the next month of my life in and out of the emergency room/hospital. I have to walk with a cane and have felt extremely isolated. I look at my classmates with nothing short of complete and utter admiration after this incident (well, even more so). There are so many different types of travel, and whether it’s somebody pushing you in a wheelchair to be able to go outside and smell the sunshine, or whether it’s getting on a plane to Spain with nothing but twenty dollars and a one way ticket, travel is something that we experience every single day, even in the smallest ways. Sadly, I will have to change my musical city to Seattle (a place in which I’ve been raised for a good majority of my life). I know plenty about Seattle and a lot of its nooks and crannies so let’s keep our fingers crossed that I will be able to get to as much of it as I can as I recover. I am extremely grateful to be coherent enough to write this post, however I am also incredibly distressed not only because of my lack of posts, but because I feel that I do not have enough to post about! I know that those feelings are just me invalidating myself but I just wish I could have been able to get on a plane and go make a new, exciting, and temporary life somewhere like my peers were able to. I will admit there is nothing more calming than closing your eyes and imagining your fellow classmates landing all over the world and leaving their mark like falling stars where they land. I am grateful that out of all the cities, I will be able to explore one that I am extremely familiar with, and one that I feel welcome in. I will be exploring Pike Place Market, various parks, but mostly just wandering the streets and looking for the friendliest faces. I am so grateful every day that I have been given the opportunity to recover and get at least a few chunks of this project done. I am sad to know how much I have missed, but I know that once I am back and listening to everyone’s presentations, I will feel as if I were right there experiencing everything new with them. I will be changing my reading list and trying to include videos of buskers and if not videos then pictures if that is what they are more comfortable with. It’s really insane what life can throw at you, sometimes. Throughout my surgeries and time spent in the hospital everyone would always ask what would I do because I was missing so much school? And every time I would always answer that I was blessed because this half of the quarter was dedicated to exploring cities around the world and what they have to offer. I have never been so proud to call myself an Evergreen student and I look forward to posting much more.

Before I leave I need to:

• Estimate my expenses for the trip.
• Decide how long I want and can stay. At this point I am deciding between staying in San Francisco with some frustrating family, or staying in Portland with an open-minded good friend. I want to stay for at least three to five weeks, so I’m leaning towards Portland.
• Save up money
• Stop Smoking