There
is nothing like getting up in the morning with plans in your head
totally enthused about the day that loomed before you with all its possibilities and then an attack of 'lazy' comes
and embraces you so tight that instead of jumping out of bed at 9am sharp
(which you absolutely intend to do in the first place, really, honestly!)
instead you punch the 'off' of your alarm clock and go right back to
sleep.
Something
like this may have happened to me that bright Monday morning. I did get
up thinking Vancouver but another long drive suddenly seemed
unappetizing. Also, I think all the traveling about had finally caught up
with me because my stomach wasn't feeling happy at
all. Sitting cross-legged on the big comfy bed, I
sipped seltzer water and watched the news. Actually I was watching
the weather. Rain was nowhere in the vicinity and I had to wonder if
I was truly in Seattle at all. Not in the mood to wander
too far from the erm...facilities, I stayed put till my annoyingly restless nature shoved me out the door.
Since
the rest of the week was now pretty much solidified with unchangeable plans,
the only option I had was to finally do the whole touristy downtown Seattle
thing. Since I had been there as recent as Saturday night I was fairly
confident regarding where I was going. Busting out the backpack, I
shoved two bottles of water, my camera and wallet as well as cell, gum, lip
gloss and shades. I was all prepared. My stomach still wasn't
thrilled but I told it to shut up because the day waited.
It was indeed as beautiful a day as the weatherman promies as I drove into the city, a short 15 minute drive as the
GPS guided me toward the Seattle Space Needle. What is this you ask?
Here you go:
After parking, I hoofed it to the desk to purchase a ticket and then zipped up several feet to the observation tower. What I saw was breathtaking and although I had to battle plenty of people to get a good spot in order to take pictures, I indeed won (with a few gentle pushes and equally gentle nudges with my elbow...all accompanied with respectful 'oh excuse me' and a smile). Here are some of what I saw. I can't necessarily tell you what it was I was precisely gazing at but still lovely:
That
big house you see? My summer home, of course. Nice, right?
Ahem. And of course the last picture is the ferry, oh how well I know
it. Naturally I took about two million pictures all of which now
look exactly alike thus I have decided to prudently not post all of them here
however my FB friends will not be so lucky since I have every intention of
uploading a flurry of pictures that will make them either groan in frustration
or wonder if they aren't seeing the same thing 10,000 times.
Moving
on...so after enjoying a drink while almost wistfully watching groups of people
taking pictures, laughing and sharing the spectacular view together, I had to
push away the longing for my family and friends while soldiering on
bravely. Even though I had already spent many days alone, I thus far
never felt quite so isolated as I did that day. Independence is well and
good but togetherness is so much better, lesson learned.
Back
on land...okay on the ground floor, I took these pictures of the museum next
door which boasted amazing blown glass sculptures. I didn't actually
go inside; there was a garden outside so that's where these pics were
shot:
Yes,
these are blown glass. I was in awe. Not so much awe that I would
spend the bucks to actually go inside but awe nonetheless. By that time
it was about 3 and I realized I hadn't had anything other than seltzer
water. My stomach grumbled in protest yet once again but I told it to shut up
simply because I didn't have much time on my hands to do all that I wanted to
do, namely find out where the hop on/hop off tour buses were located. In
the meantime here is a band I stood to listen to for a bit, tapping my feet in
the process.
And
as you can see I found the bus kiosk also therefore I was set. Armed with
another ticket, I found the stop and waited patiently in rather sweltering
heat. In case you have no clue as to what these buses are all about, let
me tell you quickly. Basically they offer routes. You can get on
and off at will, however many times your sightseeing heart wishes and for as
long as you wish (of course you best catch the last bus back to wherever it is
your car is parked). The pimply bored kid at the ticket counter took pity on me seeing the
late hour and gave me a half-pricer so that wasn't a bad deal. I'd like to think it was my winning nature that compelled him to give me the discount but I suspected that it was probably that he wanted me to get the hell away and leave him alone.
Typically
in the past, when in Rome (no, literally, the city Rome), Barcelona, Nice, P
and I had quickly realized that these buses were the optimum way of seeing a
city fast with limited time on hand, no matter how dorky and touristy we may
have appeared. Hey, if I need to use a bus like this, the fact is I am a
tourist. Why be ashamed of it?
Usually
we would stay put in the bus, doing one large circuit and then go back to
wherever we were interested in seeing for longer than 2 seconds as we zoomed
by. Since I was already late in my exploring that day, I picked Pike
Place to stop and really have a long stroll figuring that after this if I
wanted to see anything else I would do so, time permitting.
Here's
what my peepers peeped (only but a few) as the trolley (yea so I've been saying
bus but actually it was a trolley) zipped along:
As I mentioned before, on Saturday more than 90% of the vendors had already closed shop therefore I wasn't able to see much or get the full experience. That Monday afternoon as I scrambled off the loud clanking creaking vehicle at Pike Place, I was practically slapped in the face with the whole loud, colorful, smelly wonderfulness of this outdoor/indoor market. My senses were overwhelmed almost immediately as the powerful stench of seafood engulfed me. I hate using the word 'stench' because it was far from disgusting, just...fishy!
First stop was this place:
As
you see its "World Famous" so It must be when so prominently
proclaimed on the banner, right? But all kidding aside, in fact this place is well known, recommended to visit on nearly every tourist pamphlet or
even by word of mouth and as I approached I saw a vast
crowd standing about in anticipation. Of what you wonder? Why the
fish flinging of course! Yes, you didn't read that wrong.
Apparently, when someone orders a fish (a whole one, not cutlets or steaks),
with a mighty unified war cry the guys behind the counter (and the ones in the front) scream
the fish type and let fly. See the pic above? You get the idea? Did
I get to see this happen? Well yes, however I hadn't expected it and the
fishy fish flew before I could put camera to eye. Bad, bad photographer. Pity though. They
rarely, if ever, miss or so I have heard. And if you're brave and not adverse to getting fish goo on your hands, I believe
they'll let spectators also throw around a few salmon. It's odd I
confess, to see a whole bunch of folks just standing around hoping that seafood
will go flying but hey I wasn't going to miss out so I
joined them. In the process I caught these pics also:
Seriously, don't ask me who any of these folks are. I don't know them.
By this time, my stomach was pretty pissed off at me and was retaliating by giving me the shakes. It was late and I had yet to eat a darn thing, not even trail mix *gasp*. I found a stall, bought some shrimp tempura, stood by like a homeless waif and wolfed them down with a bottle of Izze Orange. I barely tasted what I was eating simply because the interest wasn't there but I do recall it being quite good. I was ready for some more wandering and here are a few more pics (of course):
Oh,
oh the selection! The smells! The colors! It was all so
absolutely beautiful. I didn't mind the bumping and dodging of humanity
since the happiness of being there was enough. I tried to figure out
whether I could reasonably cart one of the gorgeous bouquets of flowers (which
were dirt cheap) back to the hotel with me but rejected that idea as
silly. After all I had a lot more gawking and taking of pictures to
do so I reluctantly walked on. What amazed me was that in this space
you could find anything from baby’s bibs to cheesy t-shirts to stunning jewelry
all scattered amongst the fish mongers and jams/jelly sellers. What to
see? Where to go? It was so much that surely I could take more than
a day to go hither and yon yet still not see it all. And, later, I
discovered there was even a second floor to the darn place.
Moving
through that half covered (half) indoor market, I came to the outside part where more
vendors were set up hawking their wares and smiling in such a friendly fashion that you couldn't help but grin back. I gave everything a good look see but walked on to the park where I sat and called P while
eyeing the vista. Here are a few pictures of this part of my wandering:
Plonked on a bench out in the blazing sun, I
could feel the spirit of these beatnik folks all around and laughed a bit self-consciously.
I realized just how un-cool and non-beatnik I truly was. Still I sat and
listened to the sounds of life around me, this time though instead of waves
crashing on the shore and gulls flying by overhead, it was the laughter of
happy folks, the strumming of guitars, the soft singing of someone in the
distance, the exhilaration of cars and the rumble of trucks not far away.
I told P what I was looking at and he sighed a long drawn out breath, expressing to
me (again) how he wished he were with me experiencing all that I was. I totally got it.
Soon though my mind went to
coffee, which made sense seeing as where I was but more importantly, I wanted
Starbucks. Why Starbucks specifically? Well hello, in case you
didn't know, the first SB opened up right at that spot in 1971. I was
however praying that the lines, which had been literally out the door and down
the street all day long, wouldn't be as bad at that time of day. To my vast relief it
wasn't, at least not when I stepped into the queue but within minutes sure
enough behind me was a snake of human coffee lovers that went at least 30
long. "Sucks to be them," I thought to myself with glee.
After nearly a half hour of
waiting, ordering, waiting, scoring, waiting while they fixed the drink that
they had gotten wrong, then leaving, I ended with what you see here in the pic above,
a peppermint mocha Frappuccino (yum yum). It totally hit the spot.
On I went, sipping the cold
frosty drink while the condensation rolled down my arm but I didn't mind since
it was hot outside, even then while I eyed more stalls, more goodies. At
one point I came across a French bakery where I had to buy myself some fresh
made macaroons. Don't be too jealous while I flash you.
In case you were wondering, these were indeed as scrumptious as they looked although it took me 2 days to eat 4 of them. Okay enough torture, check out some other stuff I gawked at:
This
picture is a panoramic shot of the trolley from within. Um, this was
taken using my iPhone so I know it looks super disjointed but whatever,
I'm not rich enough yet to buy me a lens that would do the same. Meh.
The
weather had cooled a bit by the time the trolley had reached its final
destination, back at the Space Needle. The clock read 6:50ish at which
point I should have climbed into my lil Sonic to head back to the hotel but as
usual nothing in my life happens as I actually plan hence I did not go home.
Instead this is what I did:
***Wait
before I show the next set of pictures, let me take a moment here to tell you
how tiring this blog has been. Good God it's ridiculously, obnoxiously
long and I'm going cross eyed from all the writing and picture hunting. Sigh,
I apologize if you too have suffered significant vision loss due to all
this. I don't have a lotta cashola right now so don't bother sending me any
bills from any doctors. Read on at your own risk. If you're bored
mindless, stop now, this ain't gonna get better. Moving on...***
Duck
tours!!!!! Yes indeed, a tour on an amphibious truck. Anyone who
knows me can attest to the fact that I absolutely love these goofy tours, I
mean hugeeeeee fan. When I see them puttering by in D.C. I have been
known to screech out loud (no matter who I'm with)
"ducksssssssssss". Ahem, wow I am such a dork. My
love for this tour is so deep that I have taken one in San Fran
subsequently dragging my buddy with me who was horrified yet couldn't deny it
was a blast. The tours start on land, drive right into the water, motor
around for a bit and then back onto land leaving a trail of water behind.
And the quacking, oh my goodness the quacking!
The only thing that I didn't like about this particular tour (the only thing) was that since I was alone and also because it was so late in the day, I
was the only one (or so I thought) scheduled for the 7:20 departure. As I
sat in the bus/car thing alone feeling super conspicuous, a tour that was
ending pulled up absolutely full of laughing folks next to mine and the driver was going through
his final farewells to his guests when he spied me and using a microphone, yes
because just quietly calling over to me wouldn't have been embarrassing enough,
the dude says "hey sweetie, all alone?" :| What the hell!
His bus occupants started to snicker, giggle and even a few LOL's. I blushed beet
red, shrugged nonchalantly as if I had no interest in being with anyone else anyhow, sank into the
busted up leather seat and tried to appear as if I were texting someone, that I
too had another human soul in the world who cared for me...a friend.
Damn. This is that jerk acting like a total spaz:
Thank goodness though that about 9 other people joined my tour eventually, everyone was able to have their own row. The driver was a crazy guy who made us laugh, put on goofy hats with every song he played, demanded that we sing as well as dance along with him and kept us thoroughly entertained. He was in essence, a riot. Oh, did I mention the quacking? See that plastic beak above? Most of the people with me had bought one and were happily quacking away as we drove through the streets of Seattle. When people waved at us the quacks became louder, when people abjectly ignored us the quacking reached levels of obnoxious loudness to the point where I was fairly positive someone clear across the country could hear us.
I got some gorgeous pictures from this trip:
Y'all
a lil jealous, right?
Anyhow,
by the end of that day I felt as if I had done all that was humanly possible to
do in the span of a few hours. I think I closely resembled a bunny hopped
up on speed and caffeine zooming around here, there and everywhere but no
regrets. Although my feet were really pissed off at me that was alright also
since I must have lost like 4 bazillion calories from all the hoofing about I had done.
Back at the hotel (sigh, I'm ashamed to admit that my GPS threw me for another loop) and after depositing all the crap I had with
me, hunger pangs forced me out into the quiet night figuring I'd have a nice dinner somewhere,
really treat myself to something that wasn't consumed while standing.
Finding a Thai place I got there just in time for the woman behind the counter
to apologetically inform me that the dining room was closed but I could take to go.
Shrugging I ordered, waited outside while flipping through some outdoorsy magazine,
collected the food and was back to the
hotel within a few minutes. It was a wee bit frustrating that nothing in
Bellevue seemed open past 9:30pm but oh well, so it goes.
The
next day I was mentally preparing myself for Vancouver. Let's see how
that turns out, shall we? Okay I already know but it's a mystery for you,
now isn't it?
Bye
for now!
