Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Seattle, Day One


Sorry for the crickets around here last week; turns out I'm the world's laziest jet-lag recoverer. I had such grand plans for my last few free days before heading back to work (including documenting my Seattle trip), but instead I slept, a lot, and binge-watched Marcella on Netflix.

Anyway, Seattle was amazing. I'm so convinced that I need to live in the PNW some day. I hit the ground running around noon on a Monday, after what will likely go down as one of the worst flights of my life. I've never been a terribly nervous flier, but this one did it for me. The turbulence while we were ascending was so severe that people around me were gasping and crying, and before we landed, the pilot came over the intercom to warn us that we were about to hit some more and asked us to "make those seat belts as tight as you can get them." Add that to the older guy next to me who slept most of the flight--except when he would wake up every 30 minutes to pop a pill, a kid in the seat behind who asked his dad literally every 15 minutes, "Are we in Seattle?", and a middle-aged lady with a mohawk across the aisle who started doing origami midway through the flight, and it was......weird--and not in a good way.

Seattle was also weird, but in a very good way. After my plane was finally safely on the ground, I made my way to Capitol Hill, where Layne and her husband live. I walked in, dropped my bags, and we set out for the waterfront.

We headed first to Pike's Place Market, which was full of people bustling around, even on a Monday afternoon. It had the most amazing energy and I realized pretty quickly why it's considered a Seattle must-see.
From there, we walked down to the waterfront, and rode the Great Wheel, which gave us a great view of the city and Puget Sound. I'm pretty sure I could have spent an entire day on the waterfront alone, watching the sailboats glide across the water and staring across the water through the blue mist. Even with the energy of the city buzzing behind me, it was incredibly calming.




From there we headed to Post Alley to see the famous Gum Wall (gross in a strangely awesome way) and past the original Starbucks--which had a line so long that we decided we'd just head up the street to one of the hundreds of non-original Starbucks that are on every corner. When in Rome and all that.





Our last touristy stop of the day was the Space Needle--because how can you not? 


We also made a little scooter trip to Lake Washington, which pretty much single-handedly convinced me to buy a scooter. Layne was the most amazing tour guide--we managed to knock out most of the super touristy stuff in half a day. The rest of the trip was a perfect combination of tourist spots (like the Fremont Troll) and local favorites, wrapped up by a role-reversal on the last day, when I played tour guide for her in my beloved Portland. I can't wait to share the rest of my trip!


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