After spending 4 hrs on the train I arrived in Seattle, I reclaimed my bag and immediately set off on completely the wrong road to find the hostel. Discovering that I couldn't go any further because of the rather large expanse of water ahead of me I set off back to the station to ask for directions. I had gone in completely the opposite direction of where I needed to go. So it would be fair to say the ol Lou Wood sense of direction is still no better than it was before and this time its worse as I haven't the benefit of google maps because I've been too tight to buy an expensive sim card. I eventually finish dragging myself and all my gear to the hostel. By this point the travel adrenalin had given up the ghost and I was feeling really rough again. Plus the fall from earlier didn't help as it would appear I have given myself rucksack whiplash! Great, another pain to add to the beginning to get infuriating cold that just doesn't want to go. So having dumped all my stuff I went off on a little walk to sus out the food situation, by this point I am absolutely starving, the hostel is situated in Chinatown and I ave to say feeling as I was the last thing I wanted was chinese food. So I managed to find the only non-chinese restaurant/take out joint and guess what it was……..yes, a pizza place, so yet again pizza for me! And it actually wasn't that nice.

After a long day I got into bed and made a big dent in my book. Thanks to the Hoopsters I am still running off the kindle vouchers that they kindly bought me before I left, which is a good job as Im finally getting a chance to read and getting through my Martina Cole books at a rapid rate of knots, this has been really nice to have whilst I've been feeling ropey as hell. There have been a few times this week where I have longed for my own bed and familiar surroundings and people, but hey you can't have everything, so daily skypes with the parentals have kept me going through my snottiness and general feeling sorry for myself phase.

Determined that I can't spend the day in the prison cell that is my dorm room, I haul myself out of my pit and drag myself to breakfast, having had breakfast 4 hrs before I finally left the hostel, and had to go back to the room at least 5 times, I forgot my camera, then purse, then tissues, then the plan for the day (helpfully provided by the hostel) and finally the all important maps (and an earlier full stop!) By the time I left there was much swearing at myself, my brain had obviously gone on strike and wanted to stay in bed. I only had two days in Seattle and wanted to see as much as I could despite not feeling brilliant. I make it to Pike Place Markets, mainly to the see the fish markets that I had heard so much about. To my surprise there were actually only 2 fish stalls that I had seen, but I did see them singing the orders and throwing just one fish which I missed taking a picture off as was dealing with my runny nose….again! The market was a great, a mecca for all sorts of weird and wonderful little shops, including lots of lovely jewellery shops selling antique items, I had to step away before the 'lou wood shopping justification' started. It was then off to find the first ever Starbucks, which I did, but it had a huge queue of tourists, my idea of hell, so I went to another one where there was less of a line. I have been astonished by how many startbucks there are here, although not surprised, this has done me little favour in trying to ween myself off of frappucinnos (dunno if thats spelt right ). Having spent an hour in Starbucks I was beginning to feel quite rough again, so I admitted defeat and took myself off back to the hostel.

I needed to not do anything for the rest of the day, so decided I would treat myself to the latest box set of 24 and watch it in bed. Eight episodes later it was time for bed. And yes I am still addicted to 24 as much as I was when I left and will probably now have the same dreams that I am Jack Bauer and capable of saving the world no matter how battered up!

Day two in Seattle, still rough, still not wanting to get up, I again go through pretty much the same as yesterday morning but am now heading for the Space Needle to go and have a look at the views of Seattle. Having walked the 2 miles and actually not having got lost, although I did have my little Frappucinno stop :) i arrive at the Needle. The walk on the way was lovely, through a really nice neighbourhood with lovely little cafes and bars, a bit of a contrast to where I am staying. I arrived at the needle along with many other camera wielding tourists, the needle is quite something, the locals don't like it apparently, it is in stark architectural contrast to the rest of buildings, even so amazing 360 degrees were guaranteed and thanks to mums weather forecast over Skype I was pleased I didn't try to see it on my first day. The rain had gone and the sun was shining. I made the 40 second journey to the top in the lift and yes the views were great, a vast expanse of water on one side and skyscrapers on the other. Well worth the money, then I treated myself, no not to a frappucino and a slice of pizza, razor clam chowder in a bread bowl. Yum! Having admired Seattle from up high I headed back down to ground level and started the walk back via the Olympic Sculpture Park which was pretty cool, lots of different sculptures, I have to confess I didn't actually read anything about them as I was knackered by this point…..damn you cold! But what they did have were some funny headphones which had a pipe that went to the street below, so what you could hear was the amplified noise from the traffic, a bit weird but quite cool. The sun was now out with a vengeance, I was really pleased I was wearing black jeans! The walk along the waterfront was lovely, a view of the massive wheel observation thing, the aquarium and markets, a nice day for a nice little walk.

Eventually I made it back the hostel where I cooked, I use this term lightly as I just shoved soup in the microwave After that it was back to bed for a rest and to finish off 24, which didn't disappoint, what was a little unfortunate was that my new room mate turned up 10 mins before the end of the series finale…….I hope she didn't think i was too rude when I said I would speak to her in 10 mins…….. So that was my two days in Seattle, it seemed lovely from the very little I saw of it, I would have liked to have gone to the rock museum but wasn't well enough to stay out longer, so a bit gutted I missed out on a lot, but thats the way it goes sometimes I suppose.

The good news as I sit and write this from Santa Monica I'm beginning to feel a bit more human. Good job really as the Contiki tour starts the day after tomorrow and our first stop is Vegas for 2 nights…….the third time for me…………third time lucky on the gambling perhaps.

And just some advance warning, I'm on a bus again for 26 days from LA to NYC, its going to be pretty full on, so you'll have to excuse any lateness of these…….but actually thinking about it I think you are all quite used to that anyway.

Much love! Lou xx