USA 6

Day 24 - Monday 17th September 2018 - Seattle

(posting this one day on its own as I should have posted it in the last USA post as after this we are in Canada again - so sorry for the short post! Except it's me, so it's not even short)

Up and moving by 8 - feeling really rough again but definitely getting better. On a bit more of a schedule today as we had tours booked we had to be on time for. It was going to be an hour on the bus and take two bus changes to get to where we needed to be but only 20 minutes in an uber, so we justified the cost vs the time saving and booked an uber. We were in such a rush though that Lily booked an uber to pick us up whilst we were still getting ready because she was worried it might take them awhile to get there. Ended up arriving in under a minute and we had to run out the door half ready. This resulted in my leaving my jacket behind - but Lily had brought two so we made do.

First up in Seattle we had a food tour. The one at Granville Island in Vancouver had been so good we were pretty excited to do another one. We met our tour guide - Kat - at the head office and got the usual safety course (we are in America, so we had to give her consent to save our lives by calling an ambulance or performing CPR etc if anything went wrong on the tour) and introductions. Once again, all American except us. We headed off to the first site - the Gum Wall. Apparently the second germiest tourist attraction in the world (the only one that beat it is the Blarney Stone) it is just a wall where people stick their gum to (apparently this started back in 1993). The story (according to Kat) is that it is rude to chew gum in the theatre so patrons one night just started sticking their gum on the wall on their way inside. Pike Place Market Preservation & Development Authority, who’s job it was to maintain the appearance and historic integrity of the market place, and whose office coincidentally overlooked the theatre, ordered the theatre to clean the wall. They did. The same thing happened the next night. Theatre was told again to clean the wall - they did. Third night it happens and the Pike Place Market Preservation & Development Authority tells the theatre to clean it again and they come back and say “actually, it’s on the outside of the building, isn’t that technically your job?”, and they were less than enthusiastic about cleaning it every day so they called it a tourist attraction and left it. This is all according to Kat, so I’m not sure how true or accurate that is but it does make for a really good story. They were cleaning it the week we were there (they clean it once a year now) to try and prevent the gum eroding the brickwork. Lily and I Were actually a bit grateful they were cleaning it because they were at the end of the week of cleaning and it smelt awful, no idea what it smells like usually but it was horrific.

I won’t bore you with all the amazing things we ate (it was all incredible) but I will bore you with a bit of the history. Before Pike Place Market was created in 1907, farmers would sell their produce through a middle man. Partly due to the amount of time it takes to run a farm and partly because a lot of the original farmers were Japanese and couldn’t speak the language. Eventually the inevitable happened and the middle man jacked the prices up, charging the consumer exorbitant fees and pocketing the profit. They also ran a lot of scams (pretending there were shortages of certain produce so they could charge more etc) and the farmers only occasionally earned any of the profit, mostly they just broke even. Pike Place Market was created by the local council as a way to appease the increasingly angry customers and farmers. The farmers could set up a stall and sell directly to the customer. It was so popular that it took awhile for the supply to meet the demand (everything kept selling out by midday). It is one of the oldest continuously running markets in the world and is a heritage listed site (which means that you can only buy or own a stall in the market place if you are the descendant of one of the original market stall owners AND you work there - ie you can’t own it and franchise it to someone else). Unfortunately due to WWII, a lot (not all, but a LOT) of the original farmers were forced to liquidate their assets and move to an internment camp. To this day none of them have returned (according to Kat).

Anyway, the food was amazing and it was really interesting to walk around learning the history.

Once the tour ended we did go for a bit of another wander through the markets (there are 6 levels to get through so we hadn’t done all of it on the tour) before going for a walk to see if I could get myself a replacement jacket (weather seems to turn at night so Lily wasn’t sure if she would need two jackets - and she definitely did in the end). Managed to find an OP Shop although I’m pretty sure it was a chain OP shop and I’m pretty sure they’re actually called thrift shops here…any way got a nice jacket for a really good price and was pretty happy with myself. Lily also bought a handbag for a good price too.

After that we had to hustle as we had another tour to join and weren’t 100% sure where we needed to be. Ended up finding it okay and arriving with about a minute to spare. The tour we were doing was called the Underground Tour - similar to the one we had done in Portland but obviously for Seattle. It was also pretty interesting, but the focus definitely seemed to be on the theatrics of it all so Lily and I didn’t enjoy it as much. It was definitely entertaining, but it ran shorted than we expected it to and wasn’t as fact heavy as we were expecting after the Portland tour. Also were a few things we wouldn’t have understood if we hadn’t done the Portland tour so weren’t super impressed with it (plus we spent a lot of time underground in the dust which did wonders for my cold).

After the tour I was feeling pretty miserable because I was tired and fluey so we walked to our next destination (walking along the water front to try and get some of the view) and then just sat down for an hour in the sun. I definitely needed it and eventually worked up the energy to go to Chihuly Garden and Glass museum. It was pretty incredible the things they had done with glass and Lily and I were pretty blown away. Glass blowing seems to be an incredibly difficult art form and he had taken it to a new level.

After the museum we went to dinner at a sports bar across the road. It was pretty rowdy thanks to a baseball game AND an NHL game playing at the same time (I have no idea if they were both live or not but everyone was very into it all and there were tvs everywhere so you wouldn’t miss a second of the action no matter where you were sat). I got salmon with potato and asparagus and I think it’s the first sit-down meal Lily and I have ordered on this trip that wasn’t drowned in oil. Was really really good. Lily got a burger and chips and said hers was pretty good as well.

After dinner we had tickets to go up the Seattle Space Needle. Views were spectacular - could see right to Mt Rainier and there was no cloud cover for once. We stayed up and watched the sunset (about 7:30pmish) and then took some pictures of the city at night. Was just after 8pm so we decided to catch an uber home rather than try and figure out the bus situation. I think I was just too tired and Lily was too.

Made it home safely, and just packed ready for the next day. We were both pretty nervous about the next day because we had another border crossing to get through - which was horrific last time. So we got completely ready the night before and tried to have an early night.Read more