Seattle

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  Seattle, Washington, United States
Saturday, June 2, 2007

Well after a long flight I landed in Seattle expecting to breeze through passport control and straight to my hostel to settle in. I was very wrong!

I am apparently a bit unusual in my plans and they decided to interrogate me for a couple of hours about my trip and how I was financing it.... they even made me empty my bags which I tell you was not easy. I had packed far too much stuff and was fully aware that I might not be able to get it back into my bag when they'd finished rooting through it!

Eventually they decided that, while my plans were not what they usually see, I was not a threat to national security and would be allowed into the country! As was Gooner the plastic horse.

I then decided that I would not try to get to my hostel by public transport but would treat myself to a taxi as I could not face further problems. Upon arrival at my hostel I had some good news... dinner was free 3 times a week including that night and starting in about 5 minutes. I ate dinner and managed to stay awake until about 8.30pm before crashing out vowing to put the airport incident behind me.

I spent the following 3 days being a complete tourist and exploring Seattle. I visited the Science Fiction Musem, Experience Music Project (loved the section on Disney and got to watch some of Fantasia, The 3 Pigs and The Old Mill (Jenny this is the cartoon we used to watch at Grandads!)), I went up the Space Needle twice, once in the day and then to watch the sun set over Seattle. I also went to the Science Museum which had an exhibit called 'collosal fossils' but compared to the Natural History Museum was anything but collosal! I ate fish n' chips on the pier and took a tour of old seattle which is underground!!! Gooner and I tracked down a statue of Jimi Hendrix and he insisted on having his picture taken with it (see Jimi's left knee). I took a ferry trip across to Blake Island where there was a show all about the native indians of Seattle and a dinner of traditionally cooked salmon. I met a lovely Seattlite couple who were celebrating their wedding anniversary but took time to talk to me about my travels and reccomend things to do. They invited me to the ball game (baseball) the following night as Jerry works as a seat usher part time.

I managed to go to the ballgame with Vicki (in my room at hostel) and it was awesome! We had ok seats and got chatting to an American who told us to we could wander around and walk down to the front to take pictures but that people didn't take too kindly to sitting in the expensive seats without tickets. At the 5th inning we walked around to the other side of the pitch (not sure if it's called a pitch or not?!) and took a few photos. Another American couple came up to us to say they were leaving and gave us their tickets which were in the most expensive section... Brilliant. We had such a good view and were in prime position to catch a foul ball! Unluckilty for us no balls actually came our way but we managed to get to behind the dugout and get a ball from one of the players instead... gutted I didn't have a pen to get it autographed!

Ths year Seattle is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Pike Place Market and to celebrate this they had Pigs on Parade! 100's of pigs (not real) were decorated by local groups and businesses and placed all around downtown Seattle... So funny to be walking down the street and find a pig dressed in top and tails with a monacle...

I'll be adding pictures once i've downloaded them from my camera... i'm heading up into Canada now... until next time, mwah xxx

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