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The Rainy City & Coffee Capital
Entry 10 of 12 | show all | print this entry |
I LOVE THIS PLACE!!!
I don't know what it is about an American city hidden way up here in the North West but there is something that for the first time actually made me consider changing my travel plans to stay here longer, yet i don't know why.
Firstly it could be my hostel, which has to be one of the best i have stayed in so far, they provide me with free breakfast every morning, and not some crappy continental breakfast, no offence but who wants to be eating heavy ham and cheese at 8am, cough Germans, cough losers. The breakfast is all you can eat waffles, fresh fruit, which is like a luxury in America as about 1 in 20 shops actually sell it, toast with jam and peanut butter, its excellent. Then there is also the matter that for 5 nights I've been here I've had dinner for free on 3 occasions thanks to the hostel, a proper dinner with i dare say it vegetables. I'll mention that now, if there is something i miss, i won't say the most but alot, it would be vegetables, like a nice bit of broccoli, or maybe some carrot with a pie, because once again you can hardly find them in America. My hostel provides free internet too, something i would usually spend a fortune on, also my room, my bunk bed has black out curtains on so it doesn't matter when someone turns on the light at 2am. the showers are proper shower, not ones like the swimming pool where i have to keep pressing a button, but normal, house like showers!!
Now its not just the hostel as to why i love Seattle, right across the street from me is the famous Pike Place Market, where the fish fly. Now the reason the fish fly is because when you ask for a whole fillet or the whole fish a guy out the front shouts your order and the other 4 around the stall all repeated it together, then next thing you know is the guy has thrown a whole salmon 10 feet across the stall and one of the others has caught it and within seconds is filleting it. Its quite a sight to walk past for the first time and see this fish fly, and of course you then have a passerby asking the guys 'is someone going to buy that?' 'Of course' is the reply, 'its not like we throw them around for fun.' When this was said the guy takes a step to the side and then someone behind the stall shouts out an order which everyone repeats and next thing you know a fish is thrown to the guy on the outside which he doesn't catch and it ends up hitting this person or someone else random who proceed to shriek and run away from it, at which point they find out its actually a stuff toy, its a real laugh and you can see why this place is famous.
This isn't the only thing in the market, there are fruit, pasta, nuts, flowers, leather, sweets. art and jewelery stalls. Every food stall is willing to give samples so you can barely wonder 10 feet before stopping to try something. Pike Place is also home to many busker's, some don't even need to busk but do it for the hell of it, its not unusual to fine crowds on a corner watching someone hold a hula-hoop in his mouth whilst playing the guitar. Now probably the most famous thing around Pike Place market is the worlds very first Starbucks, dun dun dunnnnnn. I knew this yet on my first day here i walked right past it before turning around to cross the road and thats when i saw it, a tiny shop with a completely different logo, in brown instead of the standard green, but what surprised me most is that there weren't huge crowds around it, people didn't really seem to care, infact both local coffee shops on either side were just as busy, if not more.
Now with limited days i cracked on with my list of things to do, which was: go to the Aquarium and visit the pier, do absolutely nothing except window shop, (drink hot chocolate and watch movies because i accidentally woke up late), go to museum of flight, visit Seattle center where the experience music project and Space needle are and then go shopping and take lots of photos.
Now the Aquarium wasn't hard to find, i seem to start with the aquarium in many cities because its really easy to find, in Seattle it was insanely easy i wished my A levels had been as easy, alas they weren't, but i still managed to get to the aquarium in 4 minutes. Now when i first landed in Seattle i picked up a booklet, only because it had a map in but i realised it also had loads of coupons in for money off attractions, one was the aquarium but i used many others and I'll tell you know that i save $10 at least, I'm going to make a good student :)
The aquarium when i first entered had this huge window to look at, it was immense, 20 feet by 40 feet, and all the fish where native to Seattle and its bay but you wouldn't have guessed it because of the colors. I mean you think of cold northern hemisphere country you think ugly grey and brown fish, but swimming infront of me where dozens of orange and green and blues and an eel, from no where this random eel appeared, but some stupid school kid shouted out 'snake' clinging to his mum or dad or teacher, and i was going to kill myself because it appeared that I'd chosen the worst day possible because about 50 kids now filled in pressing themselves against the glass....little shits. So doing the obvious thing and moved on to see the octopus and squid and touch pool but in there i found the other 100 of so kids, prodding and pushing with numerous staff yelling out for them to stroke, not poke the fish.
Seriously, would you trust your 7 year old with a pan of boiling hot water, or a syringe full of crack....NO. Then why would you trust them at an aquariums touch pool, it baffles me!!!! The only highlight was the seal show where the little shits crammed onto the outside deck and when the trainer made 'manny' the seal jump he got all of the soaked...i smiled to myself on the inside.
Now the next day i decided to keep up the activities, press on but when i got up at 11am i realised that wasn't going to happen, so instead i went online and found a HSBC bank in Seattle, see if use them i save myself $4, which is a lot to me now, i could get dinner on $4. However, following the directions because i have somehow become a master a US street layouts and finding my way, its brilliant, this HSBC bank was impossible to find, i walked the whole of the avenue to try and find it but it simply does not exist which prompt a very angry e-mail to HSBC. By this time it was 1.30pm, i hadn't eaten and was starving, in the nearest coffee house, about 3 steps to my right i had for the very first time an egg, cheese and sausage bagel and it was delicious, absolutely fabulous and went well with my peach iced tea.
Now having eaten this i think i have discovered why Americans are so fat, its not all the fault of Mcdonalds, Burger King and Wendys', for i only found 2 Mcdonalds and 1 Burger King whilst walking the whole of Seattle, its because as you get your cup of coffee or whatever, you have to have a slice of cake to go with it, or you have to have the whipped cream on your hot chocolate. Its also because snack food is readily available like in a cafe they sell slices of pizza, or breakfast muffin that you don't think of it as fast food, or unhealthy. Now with my findings I'm going to get Morgan Spurlock to do 'supersize me....30 days of nothing but Starbucks.' Ok it won't be making millions but i think it'll still prove a point.
On Wednesday, once again with my trusty coupon booklet i went to the museum of flight and this time there wasn't a school trip on when i arrived so i got to take my time in the peace and quiet of the adult world. Ok that was scary, that I'm actually an adult now, i mean me how scary is that, i still can't get up for work on time without my mum telling me too and I'm legally able to vote, i can even get married.....'hello Jessica Alba', by the way everyone that is my child she is carrying, thats right we made sweet nookie in my Micra and i knocked her up. Anyway, planes...yes....well they're big and they fly....
The museum was quite good, i mean its really hard to take pictures because all the planes are either too long to get in one photo or they are hanging from the air so aswell as the plane you also get some ceiling fixtures and another plane or 2 in the shot, but i did my best. They have got some really cool planes like the SR-71 blackbird, a plane i knew straight away I'm proud to say because this is the plane the X-men fly around it, However my favorite area was the World War II exhibit with the planes of the Allies and the Axis being shown, from the Spitfire and Hurricane, to the Zero and Messerschmitt. It was good to learn how many of those Nazi boys we knocked out of the air in an iron defense of this realm, i guess I'm something of a nationalist, but in a good way i have nothing against minorities ;)
Now across the road i found out there are other exhibits of the museum including a fully functional concord and 1 of the first 3 presidential planes. You might be wondering how it can be one of the first 3, well when the president requires a new plane they are delivered in sets of 3, so if one breaks down another is ready. Also i found out the plane is only called Air Force One when the president is onboard, however if he is being transported by the army or the navy then there call signs are 'Army One' and 'Navy One' respectively, where as if its the vice - president the call sign is Air Force Two. Well there is my geeky fact for the day.
Something i forgot to mention and seen as it just came to me now, like 'the angel to Mary and baboom she was pregnant, cough yeah right cough cough, I'll tell you about it. On my very first night there once i had checked in and enjoying the free dinner, I'd sat randomly and so had everyone else and i started talking to this girl on how to make a proper tortilla wrap because she was absolute crap, and it split at the bottom and fell out, yet thanks to my experience mine was perfecto-mundo. So anyway chatting and so on with everyone else and she asks where I'm from, well i say outside of Oxford, most people know where it is, and then i add its Buckingham. Then she goes that she knows where it is because she has a friend who lives in Milton Keynes, so we carry on talking, turns out on Christmas day she was atop Mount Kilimanjaro which i found pretty impressive.
A couple hours went by and i remembered she knew someone in Milton Keynes and i asked who it was, now she says i won't know them and say 'Charlotte Lyman,' there it was, that name suddenly racing through my head, the neurons firings the nerves sending messages to my face to look completely and utterly in disbelief. This random strangers who just happened to sit next to me, knows one of my friends from my school, from my year, someone i talked to everyday and is infact going out with my best friend. Now i shouldn't have been shocked, I've met 2 people from Northampton and 2 from Buckingham, but i was, to meet someone who knew one of my friends from back home who'll probably read this; 'hi Charlotte', is just something that shouldn't happen when your traveling around the world.
This person (the reason i keep saying this person and not her name is because we got around to the introductions after about 2 hours of talking) (its Caroline by the way) was also going to Vancouver, and then the East Coast, like she'd reached into my brain and robbed me of my itinerary. She could be in this very hostel right now and i don't know...she might break into my room and smother me with a pillow because she can't stand to be without me....but its ok, i swapped beds with this old guy because he didn't want the top bunk, just means one more person of the state pension :)
For the beginning of the end of my time in Seattle, or the day before i have to leave if that confused you, i went to the Seattle center. Its not really a center but more of an area where some touristy attractions. The reasons was for the EMP, the Experience Music Project, which also got me free entry to the Sci-fi Museum underneath it...bargain. The EMP was a let down for one reason only...you are forbidden from taking photographs of anything except the 2 story high guitar tower, which is basically 200 or so guitars attached and stacked, it was really cool as its the first thing you see and just makes you standstill for a minute take it in. Immediately to my left was one of my favorite parts, the Jimmy Hendrix exhibition. Here they had dozens of his costumes and old guitars and even pieces of the ones he smashed and set on fire, they also had seats with Ipods built into the armrest and i sat there for about 30 minutes listening to Jimmy Hendrix and looking at this awesome collection.
The Sci-fi museum was amazing aswell, however i think it is targeted at audiences a bit older, i think Rob would have found it quite cool as it had all the Sci-Fi t.v characters from his childhood, but hardly any from mine, but i still enjoyed it, looking at how things have changed.
When i got back to the hostel i decided to wander around the market for a while taking pictures for all you lucky people to see when i get around to putting them on facebook, and i really enjoyed it. Usually i don't enjoy just walking around for no purpose but today i did. I ended like i do most of my days by heading to the original Starbucks, which i love, and maybe i bought someone a present there or not, we'll see when i get home ;)
So there ends my time in Seattle. Its a city I'm happy to say that I'll miss but am determined to come back to some point in my life, and if the the Green Tortoise is still serving free breakfast and dinners then I'll happy stay there again aswell. Well I'm off now to take a bus with all the other immigrants that can't get past border control at the airport and venture for the first time into the wild and wonderful world that is Canada.
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