Seattle

For a city know for its rain & only having two seasons, winter & August, we were lucky to have an absolutely stunning day on Friday exploring what is a very nice city in the sun (but then most are). After much frustration with the metro’s awful website, Google Maps told me what I wanted to know simply & we headed downtown after a much needed sleep-in. First stop was the Underground Tour, which came highly recommended from Karin. The tour was insanely popular, but very well run, informative & most amusing. When Seattle was built originally it was in the intertidal zone & twice-daily flooding was a bit of a problem. Not to mention the smelly waste-disposal problem – sewage tended to come back in with the tide. Like all good American cities it seems, Seattle had a big fire in its history which went a good way to wiping out the whole city.

For the rebuilding phase the engineers wanted to take a long time to raise up the height of the city. However, the building owners didn’t wait so rebuilding started almost immediately. Eventually the City put huge retaining walls along the perimeter of 33 blocks worth of the city. These were then filled with whatever they could find & so the street was now up on the second story, while the sidewalk was still down on the first floor. Eventually a new sidewalk was built bridging the gap between the street & the building, leaving a underground network of tunnels where the old sidewalk used to be – this was what we toured through seeing all manner of relics. Well worth the time & money to get that interesting insight in to the city’s history.

The coil of the first electric elevator in Seattle & other paraphernaila.

The ferry to Bainbridge Island was a good way to get out on the harbour & enjoy the sun & good views of the city. So we spent a few hours riding out to the island, poking around & tripping back.

We strolled over to the famous Pike Place markets, saw people throwing fish around to order & wandered out. Valerie had decided some time ago that she wanted to buy me a Stetson in the States (I could hardly refuse such an offer) & as this was our last chance we eventually found the shop we were looking for. With me having no fashion sense, it was a long deliberation before I ended up with a grey fedora – which I hopefully will find occasion to wear a bit. That night we managed to tick off a very slight desire to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. It was crazy busy on a Friday night, but we had a nice meal & the cheesecake was very good & not too intense.