Seattle be the Day
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
23
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
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Seattle,
Washington,
United States
Monday, November 26, 2007
The bus turned up and we boarded and decided to eat our butties before crossing back into the States, what with them being so paranoid about the movement of meat and veg across borders. Probably just as well really. When we got to the US border, we went through Passport Control and Customs. As we waited in line for the Immigration bods, a customs bloke walked among us with his sniffer-labrador. His sniffer labrador which sniffed Jacob's bag, wagged its tail and sat down at our feet. Bollocks. What you don't want a sniffer-dog to do, pretty much, especially at a United States of Ignorant Paranoia border crossing.
After telling the chap that his dog had merely smelled the residue of our bacon and sausage butties which we had not long eaten, he gave his dog a sweet, and let us go...without checking our bags. So, that's how to get through US Customs. Tell them the dogs have made a mistake. Good-oh.
We arrived in Seattle, called our host, James Garner (about whom we made not a single Maverick or Rockford Files joke) from the lobby of a nearby hotel, and he arrived to pick us up. In his Lexus. Oh yes. Landed on our feet with that one. He took us back to his place, we settled in, had showers, drank beers and nattered whilst he and Sunny (his other half) prepared food. A couple of their friends popped round, we wined and dined, and eventually, reluctantly and with much protest, we went out to a karaoke bar. Yes. Us. A karaoke bar.
As it turned out, it was a cool little local bar, which happened to be running a karaoke night, and the atmosphere was pretty good. Everybody knew how terrible everybody had the potential to be, and it was just a good night with a bunch of people being silly together in a pub.
Eventually, Jacob did a song with James (Found Out About You by The Gin Blossoms), and rather enjoyed himself. It was quite true what we'd been told, nobody cared about any bum notes, everyone applauded and sang along...all in all a lot less tragic than we would have expected karaoke to have been. Kirsty and Sunny did Don't You Want Me Baby? by the Human League, and unfortunately, there was a fair while between her signing up and her singing in which she could get really nervous. Still, went pretty well.
Back at James' place, he broke out the guitars and we had a bit of a jangle together, then tottered off to bed. To get some Sleep in Seattle. Sorry. James was working the following day, but we went out for breakfast first, then he drove us round a few bits of Seattle to get us some bearings, pointed out a couple of good coffee shops and the Pikes Place Market, then let us use his office to sort out renting a car for our onward trip to San Francisco.
We walked down to the rental lot (didn't fancy booking online without checking headroom for Jacob), and found that it was going to cost us something crazy like $500 to pick up a car in Seattle and drop it off elsewhere. That was before considering insurance and fuel. This was from 'Thrifty' car rental, who on the phone had said it would about $20. After standing in the car park, swearing in disbelief, we went back in to check...we reasoned that it couldn't just be too pricey, it was so ridiculous that it had to be a mistake.
The lady assured us it was correct, and that Thrifty's prices had gone haywire after a recent takeover. She then said she would 'prove' what she had been saying was right, by inputting our requested journey into a generic car-rental search site, and that we should watch carefully, and we would understand. Sounded a bit mysterious, but then, all became clear. She had used a generic car-rental price-comparison site, which clearly pointed out that Avis would be over $300 cheaper. Very good of her. She wasn't allowed to tell us that, as such, but effectively, she did.
After a lot of argy-bargy trying to find the Avis office (looked up what turned out to be their old address in an out of date phone book), we checked for car rentals in a Lonely Planet Seattle guide in a bookshop, called them, got an address and found the depot. Everything was fine and dandy, we got a car booked, we told the lady at the desk that the people on the phone had offered us a completely ad-hoc discount so she let us have it too, and finally, we managed to get out into Seattle to look around.
We spent most of the day poking around the Pikes Place Market, a huge public market down at the waterfront, which still has all the fish, fruit and veg and other assorted market stalls one would expect, as well as all the arts and craftsy stuff which takes over in buildings like that once supermarkets have started to take over the way people shop. The fishmonger's was incredible: the guys were putting on a real show, shouting and chanting, getting the crowd involved, throwing and catching the fish between them...and occasionally chucking a big rubber fish into the crowd to make them squeal.
We found the original Starbuck's, and didn't buy any coffee from them: it was as busy (and unwelcomingly corporate) as you'd expect the original Starbuck's to be, so we went down the road to the 'Local Color' coffee shop, as recommended by James that morning. Good mocha.
We went and took photos of the market, and walked up to the Space Needle and Science Centre, into neither of which we went, but took various "we've been to Seattle, look, here's the Space Needle" pictures, and Jacob cursed having forgotten to go to the Sci-Fi Museum. We'll be back though, in all probability.
We went to find a phone in the food court of the Seattle Centre, and witnessed the horror that was the amateur flamenco display and the nasty little Christmas themed model railway. We called James, who came to collect us, and, feeling inexplicably peculiar and unwell (bit queasy, God knows why) by that point, we just hung out at his place for a bit, drinking tea and trying to stop feeling quite so odd.
We went out for food later on at an Irish Pub (they're everywhere) across the street, recommended by James, who stayed in and dozed 'cos he was knackered. After a couple of pints of tomato juice, a couple of pints of the brown and foaming and a plate of bangers and mash, Jacob felt right as rain. Kirsty continued to feel a little run down, but that may just have been a convenient excuse for how rubbish she was at the box of Trivial Pursuit questions we found in the corner.
Back to James', to bed, and up for our ride downtown to the car rental place, via a stationers for Washington, Oregon and California road maps. A couple of signatures and a credit card later, we had ourselves a shiny red Chevrolet, and a southbound highway...
