Seattle Fun!

Seattle! Okay, so I definitely didn't love Seattle. I won't be adding it to my list of places I could live next. Actually, that list is quite short...I mean, where can you go after living in NYC? Hard to top the greatest city in the world! Anyway, regardless of the fact that I didn't love the city, I had fun with 3 girlfriends from Dallas and I always love exploring somewhere new...even if I end up not liking it so much. What I did like about Seattle is it's surroundings. You are completely surrounded by water AND you have mountain views. It is also very, very green there. I was amazed as I flew in at just how green it was - it looked like the emerald forest below! The city itself, is just another city and doesn't seem as nice or clean as other cities. And don't even get me started on the public transportation...I'm picky about my public transportation!

So, I basically had four whole days in Seattle. With a 7:40AM flight and the 3 hour time difference, I arrived at 10AM on Thursday. My friends didn't arrive until later that afternoon, so I had several hours to get started exploring on my own. I don't mind exploring on my own and sometimes wonder if I wouldn't like to take a major trip all by myself. However, I'm not so sure I'd have much fun alone after a day or two. Maybe I should try a minor weekend trip alone first. I was definitely glad to have some friends arrive later that day. But, I wasted no time in checking some things off my list of what to see/do/eat in Seattle. I checked into the hotel...Comfort Suites, which was in kind of a random area, but near the nicer Queen Anne neighborhood and close to all things downtown. Then I was off to Salumi, the cured meat shop owned by Mario Battali's father. I felt bad for doing this without the girls, but since the shop has limited days and hours it is open, this was really the only time to do it. It was great! It is very tiny and the line was out the door, but my prosciutto, fig, and goat cheese sandwich was awesome! I sat at a long table with about 8 other people, including 3 LSU boys who were in town (along with 20,000 others) for their football game that weekend. I ended up seeing those same guys 2 other times that day in 2 other completely different locations...weird!!

After Salumi, I walked downtown just a bit...stopping off to see the crazy library and the Fairmont Olympic hotel (as featured on episodes of The Bachelor and Bachelorette). I love Fairmonts in Canada and this one was just as nice. Cute shops, nice restaurants, etc...

Crazy Public Library

Fairmont!

I went back to the hotel and changed into running clothes. I forgot to take my camera along and so wished I had it! I ran along Lake Union and then ended up venturing into the hills of Queen Anne. Super, duper steep hills and tons of stairs...I could no longer run there, but walking those hills and stairs gave me the best workout I've had in ages!

As I headed back, I got the call that the girls were on the way to the hotel. We decided to go ahead and do the Space Needle since the weather was good that day and we weren't sure it would stay that way. The views from the Space Needle were great - it would have been better had it been a clearer day, but it was about as clear as we got all weekend. We went back to the Space Needle later that night so we could see the lights of the city, too.

With Andi at the top

Downtown Seattle

Worley & I

Seattle neighborhood with mountain backdrop

Puget Sound

All Four of Us with a gorgeous water view!

Heading back for the night view, we also saw

a couple of the sculptures at Olympic Park

Downtown was so pretty at night!

The four of us with the City Lights

Dinner our first night was definitely the biggest mistake of the trip. We went to Ivars...a seafood place on the water. I had read a lot about it and it seemed to get really good reviews. Although, I knew it sounded very touristy, I knew we would want Seafood in Seattle and thought eating on the water would be fun. It was AWFUL. Please, if you ever go to Seattle, do not eat here. The food was terrible and there were seagulls everywhere, making for an unpleasant eating environment. Not good. At. All.

This picture doesn't do the seagulls justice...

there were TONS of them.

Great pic of Andi & Michelle.  This was before they realized

how awful the food in front of them would be.

The one bonus about Ivars was the

sunset view of the ocean and mountains

We took a long walk along the boardwalk to get back towards home that night and stopped in several of the touristy shops along there. We even got our pics taken with Dr. McDreamy!

Friday morning, we were off to Pike's Place Market for a tour. This was excellent!! We met up with our tour guide at the Seattle Art Museum and she took us all up and down, through and around the market. We got to stop at many shops to sample food and/or drink. We also heard a lot of history of the market. It lasted over 2.5 hours, but it was a great tour and we all had fun!

Taste was the restaurant inside the SAM where

we had our first "bite".  It was yummy pizza.

Crazy Taurus exhibit inside the SAM

The Economy Market is where people used to

go to get day-old food for good deals!

We had delicious Nutella/banana

crepes inside the Economy Market

You mean, I came all the way from NYC

to eat at the New York Deli??

Andi sampling their pastrami sandwich.  It was possible my favorite

bite of the tour.  Can you believe I traveled all the way from NYC for that?

Best chowder ever!

Post Alley, so named because it is lined with the

posts people used to use to tie up their horsies.

Uli's Sausage!

There were cheap, gorgeous flowers everywhere!

We tried 3 different Dry Sodas. I'm not a fan.

These tiles were all throughout the

market, but here's the first one!

Fish Market!  We had really good salmon here.

They told us this guy had a line in Sleepless in Seattle, but

Jennifer watched it this past weekend and didn't see him

Rachel, the life-size piggy bank!

One of the top 10 most unsanitary tourist attractions

in the world : The Seattle Gum Wall

There were great views of the Puget Sound from the Market, too

Our last stop was at a winery where we tried 2 wines,

one with prosciutto and one with chocolate.

With our tour guide, Kristen at the end of our tour!

Beecher's Cheese Factory!  We didn't get to sample anything here, but if I ever

return to Seattle, I want to try a grilled cheese or mac & cheese from this place!

Depending who you ask, this may or may not be the original Starbucks!

The logos used inside this Starbucks WERE, however, the original

The fish place where they throw the fish to each other when a sale is

made.  In this pic, you can see a crab being tossed over the counter.

After our tour, we decided to check out Capitol Hill...one of the non-touristy neighborhoods I wanted to check out. It was not impressive, but I'm not sure we ever actually found the best part of the neighborhood. We did, however, find an excellent cupcake shop...Cupcake Royale. I seriously think their cupcakes may be better than any I've had in NYC. The cake part was just SO good!

These pics of the girls don't do the bakery justice.

It was SO cute!  All pink & white!

We headed home to rest up and clean up a bit for a later dinner on the town. We went to Dahlia Lounge, which is one of many restaurants in Seattle owned by Tom Douglas. It was a very cool restaurant - great environment. We weren't super impressed by the food altogether, but I thought my Salmon dish was pretty good. I also had Dungeness Crab for an appetizer because I read that you HAD to have that and salmon while in Seattle.

We had discussed going somewhere fun for a drink after dinner, but we were exhausted by then and headed back home to bed.

Details of our Saturday and Sunday excursions to post soon!