Seattle, WA – 2010

Apologies for the lack of updates. I have been furiously working on grad school. I did, however, make a little time to fly over and visit my friend on the west coast.

Fremont Troll

I started out my evening in Seattle by meeting up with my friend who works at an amazingly delicious organic fair trade chocolate factory called Theo. After getting a wonderful tour and lots of free chocolate samples, we headed out past the Statue of Lenin, and past the Fremont Troll (who appropriately enough lives under a bridge) and back to Becca’s house where I could drop off my stuff. True to Seattle mythos, it rained the entire time I was there, but that did not stop me from having a good time! We took the bus to Capitol Hill to a delicious bar and grill called Smith, and then called it a night.

The following day, Becca had to return to her work at the chocolate factory, so I continued on my own mission around Seattle. Getting the hang of the bus system was a little complicated because sometimes you paid when you got on and sometimes you paid when you got off depending how far out you were from the city limits. If possible, I would rent a car, but the bus system is totally doable (with of course a little help from the GPS).

I grabbed the bus into the downtown area and got off to wander around the Pike Place Market. I found lots of fresh fish, produce, a wall of gum, and tons of floors of strange shops selling interesting things. I continued my wandering through the rain next to the harbor making my way further into town. I arrived in Village Square where I happened upon a tour of the Seattle Underground. There really wasn’t a whole lot to see underneath the streets, but the stories were fascinating. I learned all about the invention of the “crapper,” the fire, the flooding, and the rebuilding of the city 12 feet higher than it was originally.

Space Needle

After the tour I headed back the way I came to the Seattle Center to take a gander at the Space Needle, but most importantly to visit a science fiction museum. It was a nerd’s paradise. My ticket also allowed me to get into the Experience Music Project (I love being a student again) where I was able to view and experience a variety of technology and instruments. I met up with Becca again and we had a lovely dinner at a delicious French restaurant and called it a night.

The next day Becca did not have to work, so she was my own personal tour guide! We went to Puget Sound to see the lochs and the ships get raised and lowered from the fresh water to the salt water and out to sea. It was very interesting to watch. This was also the place where they put the salmon ladders. This allowed the salmon to continue their migratory process upstream and through the loch. We sadly did not see any salmon jump, but we did see a giant wild sea lion chomp down and devour a salmon! I was lucky enough to catch it on video. We then met up with Becca’s mom to go on a hike through the forest with her. We saw a couple walking a goat, but no vampires After refueling at her mom’s house, we headed out to a lovely Mexican restaurant for dinner. This was followed by a brief wedding reception and then gay karaoke. I cannot tell you how amazing gay karaoke is in Seattle. We were rocking everything from Lady Gaga to Garth Brooks.

After 3 hours of sleep, I managed to take the bus to the lightrail to the airport and head on back to New York for countless hours of homework and studying during my first term in grad school. Until next time globe trotters.

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