Seeing it all in Seattle

Day 8, Sunday
Seattle, Washington
Overcast to start, sunny later (first cloud they’ve had in 3 weeks!)
This post by: Craig

American TV sure does centre around food. Easily 2 out of 3 ads in the daytime are selling some artery-destroying cheesy, fried, caramel covered, triple-sized cholesterol bomb, and then 2 out of 3 ads at nighttime are selling the amazing, quick, expensive product to give you that ‘body you’ve always wanted.’

This is something we pondered while eating savoury pancakes, drowned in Hollandaise sauce, at 1 in the morning upon landing in Seattle. The International House of Pancakes (iHop) was open, we were hungry, there was regret. We would go on to feel completely drained the next day, not from lack of sleep, but lack of nutrients. Blurrrrgh.


The hotel was a confusing maze, and we felt like we’d stumbled into the Widow Winchester’s Best Western, but the room (when we found it) was really comfy and great! Slept like logs! Big, pancake-stuffed logs!

But anyway… SEATTLE! We’d never been to Seattle before; it was just up the coast, so we thought we’d check it. And it’s good! Clean city, Space Needle, good peeps, and everyone is just SO CLUED IN on recycling, reusing, community vegetable gardens, and generally being responsible.

We started with much-needed cereal and fruit for breakfast, desperate to leave the hotel bar before we smacked out a few racists engaged in a "why America is so screwed up" discussion.

We took a hotel shuttle to the airport and swapped into another bus that was headed to the city. Now, the rugged, burly driver lady (who plays ACTUAL roller derby) COULD have just happily driven in silence, but instead chose to give us this excellent, funny commentary as we headed downtown! It was great!

And then there we were, in the heart of Washington!

"Eyyyy"

We were headed to meet Hilary and Pascal’s friend, Jasmine, who had never heard of us before but was STILL happy to show us around! Swoit! We were quite late meeting her, though, as we decided to walk from bus to hotel… which didn’t actually look like a FORTY MINUTE WALK WHILE LUGGING THE WORLD’S HEAVIEST BACKPACKS AND CASES UP HILLS… but we recovered well after meeting her. :)

Jasmine’s great! She took us to the Pike Street Markets,


where we saw the famous ‘Fish Tossing’ activities,

enjoyed really crackin’ cinnamon donuts,

The donut queue.
Sure, the guy running the stall was so stoned he could barely speak, but he made crackin' donuts.

and then found even more flowers to dazzle Crystal.




We were happy to see that some chaps had made the trip north, too.

Chaps in chaps

And some kids appeared to either have just tied the knot, or got dressed up in wedding gear and hung out at Pike Market.


We met Jasmine’s friends, Mel and Sarah, who work the market. Mel came out with us for beer and pizza later, where we met MORE of Jasmine’s cool friends, Lisa and Angela.

Us, hangin on the steps with Lisa and Jasmine

So yeah, it was me as the token male amongst the laydeeeez, listening to a no holds barred discussion of very rude stuff. It was like having a Cosmopolitan magazine that talked back. Gold! The night even involved a really good cover of 'Dead or Alive' by Bon Jovi, by a woman who made it sound like a Lisa Bonet cover from High Fidelity. Swoit!

And, just like with the Naked Mariachis, we’re slowly meeting people from a different group, the “bunch of ladies got smashed one night and ended up at a hospital in fancy dress, talking to doctors in bear suits and the like” group. We’ve met Hilary, Bibi, and Jasmine, we only have to meet the other, like, 50 people, and we’ll have the whole set!

We ended the night back at Lisa’s place with some lazy beers, great chats, and an impromptu jewellery shop opening in Lisa’s kitchen (she makes things, and Jasmine and Crystal bought much!)

Safeway booze aisle. $7.99 for a six pack -- IN A SUPERMARKET!

Hangin' at Lisa's cool pad

Great night in Seattle!

P.S. Oh yeah, I tried to increase the credit on my US phone. I went through the whole rigmarole, with the computer failing to understand what I was saying, then resorted to yelling at the phone in an awful fake Texan accent AND IT WORKED. “Forrr, Faaaaahv, Say-ven… YAYUSSS!”

Oh yeah, we forgot Junk Food of the Day (JFotD)! I’ll throw you over to Crystal:

We’re aware that we’ve skipped a few days without letting you know about JFotD. Does this mean we’ve been eating healthily since the
Bimbos Donas?

Hell no.

So allow us to backtrack a few days to San Francisco’s Pier 39, where we indulged in a small snack from Mrs Field’s Cookies:


Yep, it’s a cookie – in fact it’s a sugar cookie – COVERED in blobs of coloured, sugary frosting. Perhaps I am acclimatising to all this sugar because I didn’t feel ill despite scoffing this one in about 5 bites.

We’ve noticed that Americans love to cover their baked goods in frosting.

I’m not complaining ☺