Tuesday - Day 5
Today I was very lazy, I may have had a little too much microbrew and not enough Tacos during last night’s free hostel dinner. Anyway lunchtime rolled around and I was still hanging around the Hostel as was Naoko, another girl in my room. So we decided we’d do something together and we visited the Frye Art Gallery.

The Frye is a small free gallery which, when we went had 4 exhibitions. By far my favourite was an exhibition of poetry by local school children, the kids had visited the gallery then been tasked to write a poem about one of the pictures they’d seen. I spent about an hour reading these poems written by kids aged from about 6 up to 16. I laughed, I cried, I was touched and impressed by the things these kids had written and their interpretations of the paintings, totally enthralling and unique.

On the way back from the gallery Naoko and I were talking about cooking and Naoko said she couldn’t cook. She then proceeded to show me a picture on her camera, a picture of a SANDWICH! Naoko is 23 years old and a few weeks previously she had made her first sandwich and to celebrate took a picture of it! We were walking down one of the fairly steep hills in downtown Seattle at the time and we laughed so much I almost fell and went rolling down the street. It was really interesting to talk to someone who’s life experiences are so different to my own. Personally I learnt to cook as a child and at the age of 11 when my Mum went back to full time work I was responsible for cooking the evening meal for our family. Anyway as a result of our conversation I decided, that evening I would cook for Naoko and a few other friends at the Hostel. I actually love cooking for others and get great pleasure when people enjoy what I have made.

My speciality dish and on the menu that evening ……. Tomato and Rocket Risotto.

My risotto when down fantastically, I made a big batch and it fed about 7 people including me! In thanks I was given a beer by each person with a full belly, result!

One of those beers was provided by Alfred, who after that night became my closest friend in the Hostel. It was ‘Open Mike’ night at the Hostel that night and I think my friendship with Al was cemented when I watched him play his mandolin. He played a song by a band called Belle & Sebastian, a Scottish band with a reasonable following but not their not exactly mainstream, they also happen to be possibly my favourite band on the planet. Not only did Al play a song by Belle & Sebastian he played my all time favourite song by Belle & Sebastian! No mean feet considering there’s 5 albums and a number of EP’s worth of material to choose from. I was dumbstruck, here was this 22 year old guy from Connecticut playing a pretty obscure song, a song which I adore, I knew at that point that he and I would become friends.