Seattle

  Seattle, Washington, United States
Thursday, July 19, 2007

I had my first experience of the Greyhound coaches on the way to Seattle. They aren't nearly as bad as I had been lead to believe. Only one weirdo spoke to me; and I won't be ringing the number he gave me. And if I remember to sit away from the loo, next time my feet should stay dry.

I had one unfortunate incident on the first night here. I find it quite hard to meet people at the hostels so, on my first night in a new city, I tend to go for a big "comfort food" meal (which is not difficult to find in the States) to make me feel more confident. So I was just tucking into a juicy steak, when the waiter, in his eagerness to serve me (and they are all way too eager out here), knocked my drink into my lap, leaving me with a damp patch. That made it more difficult to meet people at the hostel.

There isn't a lot to do in Seattle. I went on a tour to see it all today. There's the first ever Starbucks (there's actually a million Starbucks - they're very proud of it here), the Boeing factory and lots of large plastic pigs (see photos). In fact - it's a wonder they ever made a film called "Sleepless in Seattle" - there isn't much else to do other than sleep. Maybe Tom Hanks had drunk too many Starbucks.

First ever Starbucks

Given the lack of things to do I booked myself on a trip out of the city on Monday. I went to Mount Ranier (it's a big mountain). Unfortunately, it seems I booked myself on the "middle aged couples from the Southern US" tour. I ddin't really fit in. I moved from my first seat on the bus because I was facing Spanish inquisition type questions on "Why wasn't I visiting Oaklahoma?" on my trip.

My second seat found me wedged in next to an obese Texan man. That was ok, but I couldn't get on and off the bus too easily. Despite the fact that we stopped at dozens of beautiful waterfalls, glaciers and gorges; the Texan only ever left the bus twice. First, at lunch. We were given two hours to hike round the mountain. By the time I finished my hike, the Texan had just about managed to hike the 20 yards to the picnic tables. The second time he left the bus was at the cafe stop on the way home. The driver let slip that the cafe served award-winning blacberry pie - I've never seen anything so large move so fast! The bus was shaking! Anyway, Mt Ranier was great, really pretty and I saw a deer and a marmot.

Finally - just a quick word about the hilarious "open mike night" I'm sitting through at the hostel. For those of you who don't know what an open mike night is, it's when the hostel staff go round bullying guests into performing songs, poetry readings, magic tricks etc in front of the other guests. All the hostels seem to have them. Anyway, they've signed five "acts" (aka freak shows) up to perform at the one tonight. But so far the first act has hogged the microphone for the first hour or so. It's a Gerrman girl who's singing German folk music. She's just finished her fifth song. And now she's started yodelling, They've tried to persuade her to let someone else have a go, but she's having none of it - if she wasn't German, I'd think it was some kind of comedy routine! Enough for now - more soon.

Slightly disconcerting sign in Seattle