May 24th - May 27th
Seattle, Seattle, Seattle.... I was so excited to get to the capital of "Starbucks," I kind of got overwhelmed before I even arrived. My husband managed to get us two upgrades to first class.... and lets just say I did NOT act like I have been in a first class lounge before..... 7 gin and tonics later, we finally boarded our flight!
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| First Class-y ! |
So our first full day in Seattle, sadly, became a half day! However, that slightly hung over lost and wandering stupor became my favorite day of the trip. Something about wandering aimlessly with no agenda allows for you to find the best parts of a city. We walked along the waterfront in the sun, yes the only day of sunshine, we were lucky! The Olympic Sculpture Park in Belltown was amazing.... sunshine, great pieces of art, plus great views of the Sound and the Space Needle. It was very relaxing, peaceful... and the best part, no crowds!
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| Olympic Sculpture Park |
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| Olympic Sculpture Park |
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| Olympic Sculpture Park |
We also stumbled upon this amazing place called
Biscuit Bitch. It was delicious, plus it was our hangover cure. I had an amazing cappuccino (yes I hate to admit it, but it was better than Starbucks) and the hubby got this egg, biscuit and gravy, sausage, spicy cheese fest.... with grits! Being a vegetarian, I couldn't eat the gravy or sausage, but they had many vegetarian options and I LOVED the grits! If you go to Seattle, you must try Biscuit Bitch! It was our little safe haven away from the crowds. We got two seats in a window and sat there for an hour just people watching and enjoying our food and espresso. It was perfect.
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| Biscuit Bitch aka Hangover Cure! |
We attempted to hit up Pike's Place Market around 3 pm that same day and it was a nightmare! We couldn't get into the market, tried to find the first Starbucks, and could barely cross the street. On top of that, what is up with all the tourists walking around with their FREAKING iPads in the air? Who seriously does that? (well obviously a lot of people do)! I encountered this in Boston, but just thought it was a rare occasion. Nope! Don't get me wrong, iPad's are great and fun to play games on, stream movies, look at previously uploaded photos.... or at least I think so because I don't own one, but I've played on my brothers before. However, lets be honest. You are lugging around a huge piece of equipment that is giving you less that spectacular photos! Plus, you are the idiot blocking us "old school' tourists view of anything relevant with your gi-normous iPad. If you can afford an iPad, you and afford a nice camera to take with you on vacation. Plus most cameras have WiFi now and will automatically upload to your iPad. Problem solved! So iPad users, do not use them on vacation because you will look like a tool! Rant done...... sorry!
Any who.... My husband and I both love food, so we made it out mission to get up early the next day to be able to enjoy Pike Place at our own pace.
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| Original Starbucks! |
Well, when my husband and I set off to do something, we do it! However, we may have gotten there too early, but it was amazing. I recommend getting overly excited and arriving too early. We left our hotel around 7:30 am and got to Pike's Place around 8 am. It was a ghost town, but half the stuff was open and/or the vendors were starting to prepare for their day. We went to my Mecca, the Original Starbucks, and it was empty! We got to talk to the barista's, take photos, buy one of our "you were here" Starbucks Mugs to add to our collection, and most excitingly, watch the flower shop put out their flowers and the fish markets put out there fish. WITH. NO. ONE. TO PUSH US. OUT. OF. THE WAY. WITH. AN. iPAD! It was great!
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| empty! |
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| Fish Market at Pike Place |
After the super cool ghost town that was Pike's Place Market started to become more pumping, we decided to leave and take the
monorail directly to the
Space Needle. So, this experience was AMAZING. It was the Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend and pretty quiet; as we're walking up to board the monorail it was like we instantly entered a time machine. We were heading back to 1962 when the monorail first opened in preparation for the World's Fair. I don't think there have been many upgrades to the monorail or the Space Needle since 1962, therefore making this a pretty awesome experience. Being one of the only ones in line at 9:30 in the morning, waiting for the first monorail to the Space Needle was pretty hilarious to us. Here we were, standing in the rain, and all of a sudden we see a space ship-esque train heading our way. It was fantastic, great fun, and best of all, a walk-free and wet-free trip to the Space Needle.
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| say "cheese!"... free photo before getting to the top! |
As the true eager tourists we were, we also got to the Space Needle before it opened and got to enjoy its 1962 amazing-ness. Now, both of these sites are "must do's" in Seattle and are good fun, but with no one around we really got to see and imagine how extraordinary it must have been to see and be inside both of these in the 1960's during the Worlds Fair. As we were early, there was hardly anyone on top of the Space Needle.... we attempted to get some good photos, but as it was Seattle, it was a bit cloudy and "rainy" so we did our best!
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| View from the top of the Space Needle |
The best views of downtown actually won't be from the Space Needle, but from a ferry. I really wanted to take a ferry to Vashon Island as I have a friend who grew up there, but we ended up boarding one to Bainbridge Island. After the Space Needle, we made our way back to the waterfront to see the Ferris Wheel, Aquarium, and to board a ferry. We went into the first station we saw, bought our ticket and hoped we would make it back in time for dinner! Thankfully, by late afternoon it had stopped raining and the views of downtown were phenomenal. We managed to get the skyline, Ferris Wheel, and Space Needle in the entire shot.
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| an iPad can't do this! |
After about 35 minutes the ferry was getting ready to land in Bainbridge Island, which looked like there was absolutely nothing to do. We took one look at the huge line of people waiting to board the ferry back to Seattle, and decided to get off. Then, we hopped right back on the Ferry! We decided it was best to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful scenery and relaxing Ferry ride back to Seattle. By the time we docked, it was early evening and we had to make our way back to the hotel soon, but not without stopping and having some seafood on the waterfront. We went to
Ivar's to enjoy some good old deep fried seafood.. We didn't go to the fancy-smancy indoor restaurant, we went to the outside quick part to share our food with the seagulls. I had deep friend clams, which were amazing. I LOVE clams and to deep fry them? Well, that obviously made them taste delicious! It was a great way to end a site-filled day in Seattle!
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| In Downtown Seattle |
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| view from our hotel room |
Seattle, definitely is a "sleepless" city with all the Starbucks on every corner! Not only were there a million Starbucks, there were a ton of local cafe's. It is safe to say that Seattle became my Mecca and contributed to my coffee addiction. Some places I've been too I've struggled to find my coffee fix to keep me going, but not in Seattle. We only had two full days in Seattle, so we didn't get to go into a lot of the museums I wanted to or have time to do some outdoor nature hikes. However, we managed to walk, monorail, and ferry our way through the city. It is a bustling place that manages to keep everything local. I absolutely loved it. It was a big city that had a small town feel. It is best to wake up really early to see the quiet side and feel like you have the entire city to yourself. Seattle had a ton to offer, great food, great coffee, and it was beautiful! It was a nice city break and weekend vacation for anyone who has a coffee addiction!
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| coffee, coffee, coffee! |
