Hey from the west coast!
I know I probably say this about every place, buy I'm in love with Seattle! Why wouldn't I be, there's a coffee shop on every corner:)
I survived the loonnng bus journey here, and got here about 7am on the Friday morning. I got my free breakfast from the hostel while the guy sat down with a mp and told me where to go. All the staff are so friendly in this hostel, and its definitely the liveliest place I've stayed so far! I had a bit of a problem with my room. When I booked I only managed to get the Friday, Sunday and Monday nights. So I emailed the hostel and asked if any availability had come up, and someone replied saying I would have to change rooms for the night, but yes. Even though I replied saying yhatvwould be fine, I hadn't been booked in, and they were full on Saturday. The owner told me not to worry, he'll sort something out, and he did so happy days.
I'm in Seattle, for the first time, where's the first place I would go.. Yes, the first ever starbucks. It's still got the old school sign. Although I went on a tour yesterday and they destroyed my dreams, it's not the real first starbucks but the 4th. The first 3 coffee shops were rented out spaces in the bottom of hotels etc. The original site was in a hotel a few doors up in 1971, but a fire destroyed the place. However, the machines survived and they're now in the 'first' shop from 1974, so that's how they get away with callig it the first. Apparently it was opened as a shop just to buy the coffee produce, then you would go home and make it yourself. A guy who knew the owner went to France and saw the whole cafe culture there so suggested it to the starbucks owner. He didn't like the idea, but sold his business over. This guy turned them into coffee shops and 40 years later still owns it, genius! Right i'll stop talking about starbucks!
I went to the biggest tourit attraction in Seattle, the pike place Market. It's like a permanent farmers Market, but cooler. It's all organic, unique or local produce. I went on a savor seartle food tasting tour around pike place Market yesterday, and it was so worth my money! The your guide was really good, with his poirot style moustache, and we got samples in all the places we were taken to. The donut shop, with the Seattle born donut machine had the best donuts. We had some spiced tea, crab cakes, clam chowder, mac n cheese (the cheese is made in store and you can watch them make it), fancy turkey sandwich and some smoked salmon. It was the best smoked salmon I've ever tasted. We got a Discount card after the tour, soil going to buy some salmon for dinner today. It was from the famous fish throwing guys in the Market. They're famous because one guy would stand on one side of the counter and when someone orders a fish he would chuck it to the other guy to pack it up. And these aren't small fish, some are like 2 feet long!
There's a giant gold pig money box at the door to the Market, and apparently not so long back a drunk driver crashed into her. She's modelled on a pig called rachel who won a pig beauty contest, yes that actually happens here! If she hadn't have stopped the car, he would have taken out two shorting posts, and brought down the whole front of the Market on top of him. Rachel the pug had to be taken away to get repaired, and while he was away for two months they put her picture there in her place. People started laying flowers haha! But she's back!
I haven't been up the space needle because it's quite expensive and I was told it wasn't really worth it. But I went into the sci fi and music hall of fame next door. It was quite cool! There's obviously lots of stuff on nirvana, with all the pieces of the many guitars that kurt cobain smashed up. There's a little exhibition got jimi Hendrix, with his guitars in one piece! I got to go into a little recording booth and play guitar, that was fun! The sci fi side was battlestar galatica, which I've never seen so I skipped, and avatar. Got to stand in avatars shoes, they were a little bit too big. All the props were there, and you got to have a go on the machine used by the director to film some scenes.
I also went on a boat trip through the locks on Saturday when it was nice and sunny. They have all these floating homes, which Seattle is famous for, and they're gorgeous. The ones at the end can reach over a million. We saw the floating home used in sleepless in Seattle, I took a picture but I've never seen the film so maybe I should watch it. We then got to see the skyline with the volcano behind (because I haven't seen enough volcanos)!
Anyway this hostel is a lot better than the other places I've been. Managed to find people to grab dinner or go for drinks with each night, so that's been fun! We went put to some bars on Saturday night, I met some people from Vancouver, so going to meet up with them when I go up tomorrow. There's a computer game convention in town, so Saturday night here was rammed, hence me struggling to get a room. Debbie it's not quite comicon, but I managed to find some fellow geeks haha!
Well that's all the news from here. I've got a taste of the true Seattle weather today, it's all cast over and cold! It seems to had a reputation for rarely being sunny, like the UK of the USA.
Love to all at home xXx