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Sunnyvale -> Seattle -> Vancouver, BC -> Toronto -> Chicago -> Sunnyvale Read more
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  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 4

    Pike Place Market

    March 6 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 43 °F

    After we returned to the pier, I decided to head over to nearby Pike Place Market.  This is the one touristy stop in Seattle I have already been to many times.  It turns out that in the middle of the week, outside of tourist season, the market is pretty empty.  

    One new thing I did see was the back side of the market, which is a cool colorful mosaic.      Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 4

    Public Transport

    March 6 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 45 °F

    Upon leaving the market, I grabbed a small lunch to eat on the go, because I didn't want to do the thing I did yesterday (wait too long to eat lunch that I ended up spoiling my appetite for dinner). There is a cheese shop at the market that makes a yummy mac & cheese with salmon, so that was an easy choice.

    I decided to venture further afield than my feet could take me, so I needed to figure out how to get a bus.

    It sounds easy, but there are a lot of problems to solve: what bus do I want? where does it stop? when is it coming? how to pay once I get on the bus? I solved all of those and soon I had an app on my phone that displayed the bus ticket to the driver and I was aboard a bus heading in the right direction.

    Unfortunately, I spent most of the ride solving another problem: how to clean mac & cheese from my coat front and sleeve because it is now demonstrably true that I am not coordinated enough to walk and eat at the same time.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 4

    Fremont Neighborhood

    March 6 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 43 °F

    I ended up in the Fremont neighborhood. My original destination was the store Archie McPhee's, which is famous (infamous?) for having a very eclectic mix of gag gifts and tchotchkes of all kinds. It was fun to wander around there for a while, but fortunately, I was able to resist their extensive offerings of rubber chickens.

    I found a cat cafe, but I decided not to pay $16 to play with the cats for an hour. I really didn't want to explain to our own cats why my coat smells like strange cats (as well as mac and cheese). I did enjoy their cuteness through the window and a cup of tea while I got my second wind.

    Eventually, I headed down the hill to meet up with Russell at one of the Google buildings. On the way, I passed the Fremont Troll sculpture under this huge bridge. I also encountered a statue of Lenin that had an interesting story of how it traveled from Poland (where it had been toppled in 1989) to Seattle.

    The Google building where Russell was working this afternoon is right on the canal that leads from Lake Union to Puget Sound. It's a canal I hope to cruise through some day (I do enjoy going through locks).    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 4

    Dinner

    March 6 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

     After a bit of internet searching, we settled on a nearby restaurant that had a great wine selection.  The food was also very good.  The atmosphere was low key and just what we needed.  OK, maybe we drank a little more wine than we strictly needed, but this was the first night Russell felt really well from his cold that he came down with on the weekend, so we may have overindulged.

    After dinner, I tested out using the yellow cab app to call us a ride to the hotel.  We are going to have to do this very early on Friday morning to take us to the train station, so I wanted to work out at least some of the kinks ahead of time. It went pretty well, but I think I need to build a fair amount of slack into the schedule on Friday.  It was not a particularly fast process.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 5

    Bagel and buses

    March 7 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 41 °F

    I was still in a bagel mood this morning, but I decided to try a different shop and a lox bagel instead. Who says I can't branch out of my rut?

    Then I decided to grab a bus to Capitol Hill, another Seattle neighborhood that is known for a vibrant scene.

    Unfortunately, it turns out I had not completely mastered the bus travel. Who knew there would be two bus stops just around the corner from each other? And that I would wait 10 minutes at the wrong one before I figured that out?    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 5

    Capitol Hill and Volunteer Park

    March 7 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 45 °F

    After some false starts and course corrections, I eventually made my way to Volunteer Park atop Capitol Hill. It has this very well placed statue that frames the Space Needle perfectly. It is also home to the first water tower for the city (built in 1906) which is now just used as an observation platform. I climbed all 105 steps (yes, I counted) to reach the summit, only to find that the fencing over the windows made it pretty much impossible to take photos. And the trees in the park made it difficult to see anything in the distance anyway. But it was an interesting climb, nonetheless.

    Then I walked all the way down the hill, through some of the more busy sections of the neighborhood and all the way back to our hotel. I did stop off for some Thai soup on my way, because it feels like I may be coming down with Russell's cold.

    By the end of my walk, it was so bright and sunny I actually needed sunglasses. Not at all typical Seattle weather.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 5

    Zoom and dominoes

    March 7 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 46 °F

    I got back to the hotel in plenty of time to eat lunch and get set up for my weekly session of dominoes over zoom with my family.

    Unfortunately, by the time we finished that, it was very clear to me I was sick, so I sent Russell off to eat dinner by himself, while I drank Airborne and got packed for our early morning departure.Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 6

    Train to Vancouver

    March 8 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F

    [Written March 11. Sorry for the delay! The sickness turned into a cold that wasn't terrible, but it did sap my energy so much that I couldn't blog. So now I will get this caught up!]

    Even though we did all the packing the night before We had to wake up at an ungodly hour (6 am) to get ready and get to the train station. Rhonda reminded me on the zoom call that we could take Airborne to try and get over our colds ASAP.

    We had booked slack into our schedule that we ended up not needing, so we got to the station really early and before long we had our high tech (impossible to counterfeit) boarding pass. That's the pink card for 2 passengers to Vancouver (V2) in business class (BC).

    The train ride went very smoothly, but I did wish I had known that most of the best scenery was on the west side before we grabbed seats on the east side. Note for the future.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 6

    First meal in Vancouver

    March 8 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 43 °F

    We arrived in Vancouver and there was a Canada goose there to greet us right outside the train station.

    Before long we had made it to our hotel (Exchange Hotel). It was before checkin time, so our room wasn't quite ready, but we were able to drop off our luggage and head out into the city.

    The hotel building was the original stock exchange in Vancouver. The building was completely remodeled, so there's no interesting historical architecture to be seen on the inside.

    First stop was a cleaners to drop off our dirty laundry. Then, a few blocks away was Nightingale restaurant. I wasn't feeling up to drinking yet, so Russell drank for both of us. The food was great and just what we needed.

    The hotel called with our room number before we had finished our meal so we were able to go straight back to the room.

    I decided I needed a nap so Russell went off to rent a bike and bike around the city for a couple hours.

    After he got back, it was time for him to nap. Our clean laundry was delivered, and I took a Covid test just to make sure (negative).

    Russell told me about a bike tour that looked good that was run by the same shop that he rented from, so we decided to book that online for tomorrow morning and just call it a night.    Read more

  • Sarah McCabeNorth America Circle
    Day 7

    Bike Tour Vancouver

    March 9 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 46 °F

    After a good night's sleep, we got up and dosed with Airborne. The bike shop is just a few blocks from the hotel, so we stopped at a Tim Horton's for coffee and a little snack on our way.

    We got our bikes (I was the only one on an e-bike - I really didn't want to stress myself). It was an international assembly. Our guide was German (but she has lived in Canada for decades). Then there was a couple from Mexico, three people from Australia (a couple and a solo traveler) and us.

    We biked through Stanley Park and then boarded a small ferry that took us over to Granville Island, where we had lunch in a food market. I was feeling good enough to split a beer with Russell for lunch.

    Then we looped back through other parts of the city and ended up in Chinatown and then Gastown and back to the shop. All told it was about 6 hours and even with an e-bike, my legs were feeling it by the end.

    The weather was cold and sometimes rainy, but it was never wet enough to be miserable.    Read more

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