Friday 4 June 2010

Wednesday 2nd of June - Seattle - Peep Meet!

Awoke at five , and pootled around a bit, managed to get to sleep again a bit later and awoke again at ten to nine, packed the rucksack and headed out. Tried to work out the underground system but with no joy, walked to pioneer square (triangle), which is quite interesting, late nineteenth century architecture, some of it quite posh, but generally utilitarian, which is really good, of course most of these buildings around the world have had plateglass windows put in if they haven't been knocked down, so it was really interesting to be able to see them almost unaltered. The main problem here, and to be honest in a lot of Seattle is that every third person seemed to see me as a human cash machine, which got most irritating after a while.

Waited around in the square for the tourist bus, one drove past but didn't stop, and I couldn't see where I was supposed to catch it, walked back to the hotel and caught a bus out to the space needle (some buses are free, some you have to pay for, I really have no idea and I paid), when I arrived there was a McDonalds and decided to pop in for breakfast. I ordered a sausage and egg McGriddle because I thought it sounded interesting, it was an omlette and sausage patty inbetween maple syrup pancakes (little ones, so it was like a burger with US pancakes on the outside) to be honest I found the sweetness quite unpleasant, however I guess that it a) because I generally don't care for sweet and savoury together, and b) I am very unused to that sort of thing.

After finishing my repast I walked over the road to the park with the Space Needle in it, as I walked in I noticed the Science fiction museum, the chap selling tickets tried to con me into buying a city pass "if you are doing x y and z it will save you money, it only costs 54 dollars" me "X costs 15, y costs 17, and z costs 18, how am I saving money?". Forked over $15 for the sci-fi museum, and got free entry to a "music" museum as well. The science fiction museum was very interesting, original outfits from Star Trek, Twiki from Buck Rodgers in the 25th century, The Death Star and lightsabres, all very good, spent quite some time there :-) really a highlight!

Then to the emp, I lvoe, lvoe, lvoe music, my tour of the hard rock vault in Floridia (shut down now alas) is one of the highlights of all of my trips, unfortunately I have some musical blind spots, whilst the museum suggests that it covers all music with a lot of Jimi Hendrix I couldn't find much that wasn't Jimi, and I just don't get him at all. Other weaknesses, Robert Morley and the Wailers, and Mickie Jackson.

Spotted a double decker bus on exiting the museums so I walked over, discovered that they drop off the pickup signs as they go round and don't reach the square until well after I was there. Purchased my ticket for 48 hours and boarded the bus, the weather was very changeable, was up and down to the open top of the bus any number of times!

The driver seemed to take a fancy to me and the guide (Cheryl) had lived in the UK (Branston in Lincolnshire, I didn't know anyone in the US had even heard of Lincolnshire!) so we hada very nice chat.

Seattle seems to be a city on its way up, there are a lot of old and new buildings, quite a few places by the waterfront at a surprisingly inexpensive cost (and some at a phenomenal cost!). The bus went round to pioneer square, Pike market, the shopping district, the waterfront, and back to the space needle, I rode it all the way round, and then got off at Pike Market, ambled round a bit, it seems like a really big farmers market, a lot of little stalls, fruit, veg, seafood, honey, t-shirts, hand made hippy tat, went into the Athenian, where Rob Reiner and Tam Hanks had a meal in Sleepless in Seattle (which I haven't seen) and had a crab, which was very nice, although I think I have been spoiled by the King Crab that I had in Oakland!

Ambled around the market a little more, and purchased a Starbucks, not at the original, but at another one just opposite the market, although this one did use the original logo (the mermaid is topless in the original, Americans being what they are when Starbucks went national they changed it). Then stood waiting for the bus where I met Eleanor from North Carolina who had been in town for a teachers convention and was now quickly riding the bus before heading home. Her chappie was from Liverpool, or maybe north wales, and she had been to the UK a few times, we chatted as the bus went round and at the end she tried to interest me in a health drink (I think) from Australia for which she and her chappie are the US and European representatives.

I got off the bus in the Square at about fourish, where Cheryl yelled Andrew is coming down, and the bus driver held the crowd back saying Andrew is getting off the bus, there was much welcioming of me by name by the people waiting for the bus, flustered I managed to throw all of my pressed coins into the tip box, and Cheryl chased after
me to hand them back.

Quite tired I went back to the hotel, had Raul talk to me for a quarter of an hour on what I had done in the day, and then went to my room to bathe and pretty myself up for my evening out! Put on one of my new pink shirts (second one saved for the visit in Calgary! And my lovely new (still frightened by the price) jacket, and my I think they are jeans but I'm not really sures, and at a quarter to six went out to the hotel entrance. Unfortunately the hotel has two entrances on two streets, although if one stands on the corner one can see both. Up at the main entrance there was this chap with a mustache, and a small rucksack. Karchita had said that her husband might meet me in the lobby, when Karchita pulled up it turned out that he was Mr Karchita, and I apologised for having ignored him, but I was popping up and down the hill to check both entrances (and of course chatting to Raul).

The traffic was apparently quite heavy, although I have to admit it seemed very light to me for rushhour (I still flash back to Romania for bad traffic, that was amazing, stationery or 90mph no inbetween, but mostly stationery), some chap had broken down and was blocking one lane of a dual carriageway, once we were past that it was clear sailing all the way. When we got to Ray's cafe their car park was full, so we parked on a street just a little way off.

On entering the restaurant Karchita confirmed her reservation and we were shown upstairs, the view of the Puget sound was lovely, so green and pleasant over the water. We were given menus, and I ordered the Globalrita (sauza hornitos tequila, jagermeister, cointreau, lemon lime, & fresh orange) which was OK but didn't really grab me, and we chatted for about ten minutes before Sharnina, her husband and two of her lovely daughters turned up. Ordered the food, and Mr Sharnina said Grace, we shared hummus and calamares to start, the hummus was fantastic, so much lighter than I am used to but still packing the flavour, and the calamares were almost perfect, a light batter, and not just the rings but also the tentacles which I adore!

I then had Blackened Red Rockfish, the fish was nice, haven't tried Red Rockfish before, although the sauce was a little overpowering for it although the guacamole and corriander & lime sour cream worked really well, the polenta was a revelation, I am used to the Romanian version which is nice, but again heavy, this was light and really a very good textural accompanyment. Finished the meal with a Key Lime Cheesecake, which was a little heavy and needed a little more oomph.

Throughout the meal Karchita, Sharnina and I chatted, often about RTVW and the peeps there, but on a wide variety of other things as well, it was a really lvoely evening, it's funny how one sort of knows people from an online forum and worries a little that they will be serial killers (or at least aggressively boring) in real life, although one knows that they aren't just from their online selves, and how they are just even more faceted, fascinating individuals in real life, the evening flowed so easily, although it may have been a little dull for the non OTers there. After what seemed like ten minutes we needed to leave, what with tomorrow being a school day, and with Karchita needing petrol, and sadly the party broke up.

Karchita gave me a lift back to the hotel, Raul welcomed me back, I had a couple of cigarettes, and went upstairs to bed. What a lovely day :D

1 comment:

  1. awww... I had such a pleasant evening with you and my family was not bored at all. My girls enjoyed themselves and the food and my husband is generally a quiet guy anyway. What a great summary of a lovely evening.

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