Seattle – the home of grunge
Arrived into Seattle late on saturday evening and headed to the Green Tortoise hotel which fellow Bootie Kathy is assistant manager of. After i had check in to a great dorm room – the beds have curtains, a reading light and a fan – which is cool. Kathy was heading out to a wine tasting party and invited me to go with her. We met up with her friends and went to this house party full of people. Slightly scary but everyone was really nice and welcoming no doubt wondering who on earth was this person!!
On sunday I wandered down to the infamous Pike Place Market. Sometimes i wish i was on a short holiday as i could have bought many things on sale in there. Some of the arts and crafts for sale were amazing. Although thinking about it – its probably for the best as I would have spent a fortune on this trip so far. The market is huge and on several levels with individual stalls and shops, cafes and restaurants. At the main entrance is where the fish stalls are – where the men randomly toss a huge fish into the crowd! Thankfully its a fake one that they through otherwise would be a lot of smelly people wandering around Seattle. In the evening met up with Kathy and some of her friends and we headed to the cinema to watch the Golden Compass. It was ok took a long time to get into but once it did was a fairly good movie. The only issue was that the ending was blatantly set up for a sequel which i did not see coming. Everyone seems to have jumped on the band wagon as far as bringing out movies based on kids books – all slightly sci/fi or fantasy – think various mixes and types of Harry Potter meets the Chronicles of Narnia. I saw so many trailers of the same kind of movie it made my head spin. On the plus side cinemas are pretty good over here – the seats are comfy and loads of leg room.
Ok enough about movies. Spent next couple of days not really doing a lot – chilling out meeting people and visiting bars!! Went to Fado’s Irish bar on monday – which was pretty good place although there are so many of them (irish bars) all over the place. I even met an American who told me she was Irish! What she met is that she has Irish descent but considers her nationality is Irish. I find that bizarre although seems to be a common thing over here – many Americans consider themselves to be everything but American.
So i needed to do a bit more sightseeing and on tuesday walked down 2nd Ave through what was the home of grunge Belltown and past the legendary Crocodile Cafe which in its day had all the old grunge bands play there at one point or another. Those days are past unfortunately but the Croc Cafe stills has live bands and the area is full of bars and clubs. i would have loved to have come here 15 years ago to be a part of that scene. if anyone has a time machine i would pay good money!! I walked down to the Seattle Space Needle but decided as it was very foggy not to go up as really it would be a waste of money to see not a whole lot. I did go into the the Experience Music Project set up by Paul Allen of Microsoft. It is as the name suggests a museum dedicated to the history of Seattle’s music seen – from the jazz and blues of the 50’s through to the explosion of the grunge scene and on to present day. it has some cool articfacts – like original Nirvana lyrics and Pearl Jam memorablia. i was surprised to learn of bands that i didnt know were from here – like 80’s sensation Heart and 90’s band Presidents of the US. The only bad thing was they have taken down the Jimi Hendrix exhibition for the winter to protect the memorablia. In the entrance is a cool structure made out of guitars called “IF VI WAS IX: Roots and Branches” and is made up of over 500 guitars and musical instruments and thirty computers. Some of the guitars have robotic parts and play chords which is pretty cool. Opposite from this was the Gallery of Guitars and provided a history of the instrument and its continuing development. While a really good museum i had expected more from it, i dunno why just expected more stuff on Nirvana and Pearl Jam – maybe i had built it up in my head to too much.
I walked to the sky train station and met Kathy and we went to the Westlake Center to meet up with another bootie Liz and headed to a pub called the Elephant and Castle. Kathy went home after some food and Liz and I had a few drinks and waited for another bootie Daisy. The girls, well Daisy drove us across the river so i could get a nighttime view of the Seattle skyline which was awesome and then we headed to the lively area of Broadway to go to another bar. It was a cool night and we had a good laugh. I introduced Liz to the Diet Coke man who she hadnt heard of and urged her to check out You tube!! It was a great night so thanks guys!! So far its four out of four for meeting up with cool booties. The only scary moment was a picture i took where something weiird happened with the flash and the candles on the table – you will have to see my photos on flickr to see what i mean.
Decided that my brain needed to do something useful so on wednesday headed back to Fado’s for a pub quiz – and to try their infamous black and tan desset – chocolate brownie with guinness ice cream!! We started out pretty well on the quiz but rapidly went down hill with rounds on Bill & Ted and Led Zeppelin! After the quiz we headed back to the hostel and i introduced Shithead to a couple of the guys!! Susan and I met up in the morning and headed across the city to the area of Fremont. It was absolutely chucking it down – i give thanks for my wonderful jacket which is a godsend. The quirky area of Fremont as random sculptures of Lenin and has a troll under the bridge! Also in Fremont is a Factory for Organic chocolate and you can sample differnt flavours for free like coconut curry, chai tea and bread and dark chocolate. Yes they sound weird but actually they taste pretty good. The chocolate though is very expensive so we only purchased a small truffle each to make up for the amount of chocolate we had eaten!! We got onto another bus and headed over to the Ballard Locks which provide a link for boats between the saltwater of the Puget Sound and the fresh water of the Ship Canal connecting to Lake Union and Lake Washington. We walked over to check out the fish ladder, built to allow salmon to pass between fresh and salt water. Glass panels make it possible to view the fish as they navigate their way through the ladder, adjusting to different levels of salt each step of the way. Unfortunately decemeber is not a good time to visit and we saw one lonely fish who looked like he was kind of lost. We had a slighly crazy moment calling out to Nemo and speaking whale – there is a child in all of us!!
We caught a bus, well two back to the downtown area – its quite a long journey so we had a bit of a scenic tour of Seattle also which was good. The bus passed through the area of Capitol Hill a vibrant area and near to Volunteer Park where a nearby cementary hold the graves of Bruce and Brandon Lee. Taking another tour through Pike Place Market we grabbed some food and some dessert for later and headed back to the hostel where we got in for the free dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and settled in for the evening to watch a movie – and when in Rome and all that… we decided to watch Sleepless in Seattle!!
Im heading out in the morning to catch a flight to Chicago so adios Seattle you were great.
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