Exploring Seattle
It's not as easy as it looks, this diary lark. A lot can happen in a day. There can be things you mean to mention, but forgot to. For instance, last night I was in Seattle, barely able to keep my eyes open, after a 23 hour day, yet I completely failed to make the obvious, and compulsory, Sleepless in Seattle comment. For that lapse I can only apologise.
Today, a lot more happened. I have photos to help me try to remember, but it's going to be a challenge.
Having gone to sleep at 8:15 (failing our 9pm target), we were up and ready for our complimentary coffee and pastry in the motel office at 8am. Not long after that, we were waiting for a bus into Downtown Seattle. The bus stop was two blocks from our motel, but there was a sign for it there to remind us where we'd come from.
In our first excellent decision of the day, we opted for all day bus passes, rather than single tickets. As a result we used the buses a lot, and I'm glad we did.
Our first bit of sightseeing took us to Pike Place Market, something of a bazaar. I can honestly say this is the first time I've been to a market before it was in full swing. Eventually a "collectibles" shop, and a Magic shop weaned some money our of us. We bought some delicious fresh sandwiches from the Three Girls Bakery (Hummus salad on sourdough bread) and ate it in the little park by the market. Then we strolled away from the market and down to the waterfront, where we look at a few souvenir shops, bought nothing, then mounted a tram ("streetcar") to take us closer to the Space Needle. We had to see that. It was a steep climb from the streetcar station to the needle, but we made it.
It turned out there was some kind of music and food festival going on, but our sandwiches hadn't left us hungry enough to sample any of the delicious looking morsels on offer, and we didn't have time to spare for music.
We decided to visit Fremont next, I was keen to see the troll, but in walking to the bus stop we though we needed, we stumbled on the starting point Ride the Duck tours. This is a guided city tour in an ex WWII amphibious landing vehicle. It turned out to be a good decision.
The duck plays 70s disco when there's nothing to narrate, and the number of passers by who wave as it passes is remarkable. They sell bright yellow bill-shaped duck-calls (we abstained), and people at several points in the route bring out theirs and quack at the duck as it passes -- most amusingly, a couple of traffic cops.
A guided bus tour is always a good way to get an overview of a place, before you go on to explore the parts that interest you in more detail. This one took as on a pretty thorough route through Central and Downtown Seattle, a float around Lake Union, and back through Fremont.
The houseboat owners on Lake Union are lucky, lucky people: either they are millionaires, or they bought their homes for a few thousand dollars 30 years ago, and now find themselves with multi-million dollar assets. The unlucky ones are the ones who didn't have insurance when their boats burned down three weeks ago...
Our glimpse of Fremont from the duck only whetted my appetite, so we bussed our way back there. When we arrived we had a lovely sandwich each, a nice coffee for me, and a browse of some free local papers. We visited a terrific independent record shop, stocking the most 7" singles I've seen in a long while, and spent some money on CDs.
The two things we wanted to see in Fremont were the Lenin statue and the troll under the bridge. These we managed to find.
Satisifed by our Fremont sightseeing, we made our way back downtown. Attempting to kill some time before dinner, we took the tram again to Pioneer Square. Pioneer Square could be very pleasant, but at the time we got there, the only other people around were dozens of homeless people. Seattle appears to have something of a homelessness problem -- we've seen more obvious tramps today than you would expect to see in London, even.
We ate dinner at Ivar's Acres of Clams, Clam chowder followed by rock salmon with sesame seeds, wasabi and ginger for me, teriyaki salmon followed by fish and chips for Debbie. The idea of ordering fish and chips was to compare and contrast with British fish'n'chips. It turns out the apostrophe'd out a and d signify extra grease. For once American "chips" signified "fries", and not crisps. Both meals were delicious, and afterwards Debbie requested that I roll her back to the bus stop.
We'd been promised a great sunset by the duck guide, so we hung around to see it. It didn't disappoint.
We went looking for a bus stop to get us back to the motel. On the street where we got off this morning (a fair climb up some steep hills), we found that the traffic was one-way. It turned out we should be two blocks back downhill. We waited a while, then got on a bus. The driver decided we'd be better off on a different route, so he dropped us off somewhere we could catch it -- one of the less salubrious parts of town, outside a mission. Thanks. Half an hour later, listening to the locals hollering at each other, we were on the right bus, straining to spot a landmark that would tell us where to get off. Debbie was sharp eyed enough to spot the motel sign from the top of this page, and here we are, back at La Hacienda.
Tomorrow we pick up the pick-up. That's exciting.