Moving to Oly has brought about so many fun new past times for me including: getting coffee at Mud Bay, cold press at Café Vita, seafood at the farmers market, karaoke at The Clipper with deejay Starling and reading The Volcano Weekly. The Volcano Weekly is a newspaper that is distributed throughout cities south of the Puget Sound such Tacoma, Gig Harbor and Olympia. I recently read an article entitled Rise of the New Atheism- Godlessness Takes the Offensive ironically by writer, Christian Carvajal. Anyway, I read some interesting statics in it that I thought might interest you too.

In 2008, a Pew Foundation poll found the percentage of atheists in

America had risen from 3.2 to 4 percent in only a few years, and a

whopping 44 percent of Americans abandoned the denominations

of their childhood. Only the percentage of Catholics (23.9) out-

numbered the percentage of the “unchurched” (16.1). A year later,

almost a full quarter of Americans surveyed by the American

Religious Identification Survey professed no belief in a personal

God.

Washington is hardly the most fervently churchgoing state in the

union. Even in 2001, before the rise of the New Atheism, a full

quarter of Washingtonians polled claimed no religious affiliation

whatsoever, the highest fraction anywhere in the country.

These are some pretty serious statistics I’d say, but also not shocking. Anyway, I love this newspaper. If you’ve got a craving for some liberal writing this will indeed. You can check it out here.

Spending time downtown has been a blast. I met up with my new friend Carrie at Eastside last week. It was so fun getting to talk with her and meet some of her friends. This girl knows everyone in town too, no joke. It’s been awesome getting to chill with her. We have so much in common and some of our backstories are so similar. I feel like we really relate well with each other. We’re meeting up for lunch at The Bread Peddler, a little café downtown, on Thursday. This past Saturday one of my best friends from home, Tyler Parnell, came to visit Olympia and we all went downtown to the Clipper to sing karaoke. Carrie and I sang “What a Girl Wants” by Christina Agulaira and I sang “Private Eyes” by Hall and Oates with Tyler. It was a stellar time. We definitely made some great mems.

Tyler’s visit to Olympia was long anticipated, and I took some time to document our weekend to share with you all.

BBQ Sandwiches and live music at the farmers market

Hanging out downtown along the waterfront

Puget Sound and the capitol building

I tried to snap a shot of Mt. Rainier, but this doesn't do it justice. It was such a beautiful day!

It did my heart good to sit and talk with Tyler in Cafe Vita over coffee and Scrabble

After singing karaoke downtown we got hotdogs from Jakes. In Olympia, people put cream cheese on their hotdogs. Sounds crazy, but it's delicious! :)

Lehua, Carrie, Me, and Tyler