Days 9+10+11+12

We’ve been having so much fun in Seattle I forgot to update my blog, so here goes.

Day 9

We spend the whole day, pretty much, on the road. Seattle is 840 miles from San Francisco, we left at 1:30 PM and arrived in Seattle at 4:30 AM, we made a few short stops plus lunch and dinner at Eugene, Oregon (which is worse than State College). We checked in at the Crown Plaza Hotel on 6^th Ave and Seneca.

Day 10

We woke up at 2 PM, it was a long night and a really long drive, which I had to do fully because my name is the only one on the rental policy. We left the hotel at 4 and walked to the nearby shopping district then headed to Pike Place Market, a historic fish and vegetable market where the first Starbucks store is located. Then it rained and we got soaked, we were planning to go to Seattle’s annual music and art festival, Bumbershoot (http://www.bumbershoot.com/) but had to change plans because of the rain. We went back to our hotel, changed, and went for a drive in our car and ended up walking on the beautiful waterfront and ate dinner at a walk-by place called Ivan’s, good fish & chips.

Day 11

Today was tour day. We took a very interesting 3-hour tour of Seattle, led by our tour guide James Belushi. Ok, it wasn’t him, but our guy looked and talked like him, he was really funny. His tour isn’t “fixed” he kind of improvises as we go along, very interesting stuff. The highlight of the tour was a place called the “Locks” where you can see salmon returning from salt waters back to the river and streams, very beautiful. According to our guide, they are leave their birthplace in the streams up the mountain and swim into the Pacific Ocean, sometimes going as far as Japan, then a few years later they return to the exact spot where they were born, mate, and then die. Fascinating, sub7an Allah. He also took us up a place called Queen Anne Hill, a neighborhood with the most expensive homes in Seattle and the most amazing view of Seattle and Rainer Mountain. After the tour we went to Bumbershoot where I really enjoyed the place (and the good food) although not all the music was good, but we had a laugh looking at some people dancing (they were white J). After dinner at the Cheesecake Factory I met some friends for coffee then joined the guys at a shisha place called Zaina, veeeeeeery noisy and kind of trashy, we left soon after I arrived.

Day 12

I had lunch with a friend in Seattle today and then met the guys and we took the ferry to an Island called Bainbridge, about 30 mins by boat. We drove our car on the boat and enjoyed the beautiful and amazing scenery, but there wasn’t much to do on the Island, so we took the next ferry back (45 mins later). We then went to an area of town called Fremont, really cool café and restaurants and on top of the hill under the freeway there’s a huge troll holding an old (real) Volkswagen Beetle (which had to be filled with cement after the police caught people inside a number of times)! We had dinner at a seafood restaurant called Waterfront Seafood & Grill, really good food (I had the grilled Salmon) but it broke the bank (just over $70 each). Dessert and shisha followed at a place on Capitol Hill called B&O Espresso, the server was shocked when we ordered 3 shishas! I’m sure they’ll be talking all day tomorrow about the “crazy guys that came and ordered 3 shishas!