a visit to an institution

It's hard to imagine a time when there was only one Starbucks. Actually, after travelling through the US and Canada, it's impossible to imagine. But for a little while at least, that was the case. The first Starbucks opened in Seattle in 1971. The store was originally on Western Avenue but moved to Pike Place about four years later. Other Starbucks stores were opened in 1987. I was curious about Seattle's coffee craze. What came first? Did Seattle's love of coffee inspire Starbucks? Or was it the other way around? Unfortunately I didn't get to find out. The coffee walking tour I wanted to go on was booked out. So instead I explored on my own, starting with a coffee from that famous Starbucks store in Pike Place. Apparently the store looks rather similar to when it opened. The only addition is a bar, which was put in when the store went from selling coffee beans to also selling drinks, as it does today.

 

The Post Alley Gum Wall

But before my visit to Starbucks, there was another institution on my list. I don't know if is actually an institution, but it should be. The Crumpet Shop. Does a store get any better than that? Now there were more 'gourmet' crumpets available, with toppings featuring cream cheese, ricotta, peanut butter and the like. But I stuck with a personal favourite: honey. Once breakfast and a coffee hit was taken care of, I went in search of the 'gum wall' in Pike Place's Post Alley. It is what the name suggests...a wall where people stick their chewing gum. It could almost pass for a work of art, however really, it's a bit gross isn't it?

I left Pike Place Market behind and walked to Columbia Tower. A customer at work had recommended that I skip the Space Needle and instead go up Columbia, which is taller, and cheaper. It's an office building with an observation area on the 73rd floor. The building is 75 floors but the top one is 'members only'. I pictured secret handshakes and codewords but the security guard said it was the Columbia Building Club and as far as he knew there was just a restaurant and bar up there. Not all that exciting, I tried to tell myself. The observation deck offers a 180-degree view of the waterfront side of the city. The weather wasn't fantastic but it didn't hinder the view too much. The tower is twice the size of the Space Needle, which looked quite tiny in the distance.

Hurricane Cafe

I walked from the tower to Pioneer Square, supposedly an arty, hipster place. But while I was walking around I remembered a suggestion from a friend to visit the Hurricane Cafe. That involved heading back into the city a bit more but I decided I might as well as I didn't have long before my bus, and it was closer to the station. The Hurricane Cafe is open 24 hours and is exactly the kind of place I see in American movies: juke box as you walk in, red leather booths and a few stools lined up on a bench and a menu of all-day breakfasts and burgers. But despite the dingy appearance, it had a quirky atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed the Mr Potato Head Collection above the kitchen. After lunch I walked back into town and had a cup of Clam Chowder from Pike Place Chowder, which I had been meaning to do all trip as it's rated as one of the highlights of a trip to the city. Then it was back to the Greyhound station for the bus "home".

a thing for ferry boats

Seattle from the ferry to Bainbridge Island

The great thing about travelling alone is that you don't always have to be alone. I've found it a lot easier to travel solo and find company when I want it rather than travel with company and find alone time. A German guy called Ralf posted on the Vancouver CS group that he was going to Seattle from Wednesday to Friday if anyone wanted to join him. I was leaving and returning a day earlier, but I offered to catch up if he wanted a travel buddy for a day. He accepted so on my second day in Seattle I went back to the Greyhound bus station and waited for a strange guy to come say hello.

Ralf is living in Vancouver at the moment, but about to move to Banff for the ski season. He's finished school and on a bit of a 'what do I want to do with my life' mission. He caught the early bus and was in need of food so we headed to Pike Place Market. We walked around for a bit before heading to the waterfront. When I sent out some couchrequests for Seattle, one host replied that he couldn't host me but suggested I go to Bainbridge Island and have lunch at a place called the Public House. I've travelled enough to know that a suggestion from a local is a lot more valuable than a guidebook.

Mount Rainer in the distance

The ferry ride from Seattle to Bainbridge Island is 35-minutes and is quite cheap at $7 for the return journey. It was another gorgeous day in Seattle so Ralf and I had good views of the city as the ferry headed to the island. Seattle is a lot more hilly than I realised, but its centre is also quite compact. Sitting at the back of the ferry we had the Space Needle on our left and the port area and Mount Rainer to our right.

View from the Harbour Public House

Once we docked it was about a 15-minute walk along the waterfront to the Harbour Public House. It was a 21-and-over venue, and Ralf isn't 21, but I figured who's going to check at 2.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Luckily, I was right. We took a seat on the deck and if it wasn't for the masts of the boats in the marina, we would have had a great view of Seattle. Seattle is big on its seafood so I order a grilled salmon burger. I'm still coming to terms with the price of salmon in Vancouver. It's not pretty.






Grilled Salmon Burger...yum

After lunch, Ralf headed back to the ferry to meet his host. I ventured into town. Bainbridge Island is a bit of a tourist destination but it doesn't feel like it. It has a great collection of boutiques, galleries, bookshops and cafes. When I walked into one gallery, the owner immediately introduced himself and asked my name. Although I warned him I was the worst customer he could hope for because I had no intention of buying anything, Jack was happy to chat to me for a while, which was nice. Close to the gallery is a store that specialises in tea and knitting products - the wife is into knitting, the husband loves tea.

I headed back to the terminal in time for the 5.30pm ferry back and made my way back to John's house. Waiting there was one of the most amazing people I've ever met - Jamie, the girl John is dating at the moment. Jamie currently has a business advising credit unions on poverty-reduction schemes, but her resume includes running a newspaper and producing television shows, among a host of other adventures. She was the type of person I need to meet at the moment. Someone who has just pursued anything she felt like and not let things get in her way. Over dinner, John basically had to listen to Jamie and I talk all night. But it really was great to meet someone so inspiring.

Dinner was a place called Barrio, a restaurant John had always wanted to check out and that we'd walked past the night before. It features a wall of candles, which the server said were lit by the busser every night. The feat takes more than an hour. We left a special tip at the end of our meal and made sure the server knew who it was for.

The cyclists get ready to disembark

wide awake in seattle

Between work and well, work, I've become somewhat of a homebody rather early into my time in Vancouver. So when my work schedule revealed three days off in a row, I decided to dig out my passport.

Seattle is just a four-hour bus ride away so I settled on that as my destination. Bus tickets are quite cheap (another bonus) and I found a Couchsurfing host. Despite being pretty exhausted after seven days straight at work, I booked a 7.45am bus, so it was an early start to make it to the station to collect my ticket an hour beforehand.

The bus ride was uneventful: no dramatic change in scenery, no dramas at US customs, and we even pulled into Seattle early. The only thing I really knew about this city before arriving, was what I had seen in Grey's Anatomy. So not much. But everyone I spoke to about my trip had plenty of suggestions so that was helpful. Fresh off the bus, I went in search of a tourist information office. I was staring at a map outside a shopping centre when a man approached me and asked what I was looking for. "What lovely people Seattle-ites are" I thought, before he then stuck a cup out and asked for money. I said I only had Canadian money on me and he said that was OK as he would go and exchange it. "The last people I helped gave me $5 Canadian," he said. I gave him 50cents and walked off...angry at myself for not realising I was being scammed.

But it did get me to visitor information. A couple of maps and directions to Wells Fargo (apparently the best place to get my cash exchanged) and I was set. I love a good market so when I heard about Pike Place Market, I thought that sounded like a good way to spend a few hours. The market has a collection of permanent shops, including the first Starbucks, and then an array of temporary vendors. Not all the stalls come every day, and there are rarely in the same spot if they do. It keeps the customers guessing, one vendor told me. I browsed some of the stalls and made an exception to my "no buying" rule and invested in a necklace that has a dried flower pressed in between the glass. The woman said they picked them from their garden and pressed them by sticking them in big books for a couple of years. The flowers in my necklace were picked in 2009.

The market has a lot of flower stalls run by Hmong people (a Chinese ethnic minority), fruit and vegetables, and fish. One of the stalls is well-known for its fish-throwing antics. The staff are more showmen than salesmen. Every time someone buys a fish the guy at the front near the stands picks it up (usually a big tuna, trout or salmon) and throws it up to the guys doing the filleting. Those guys often throw it straight back and this goes on for a little bit. Draws in the tourists anyhow.


When buying a peach from one of the stands I asked the guy for a recommendation for lunch and ended up at the Steelhead Diner. It had a good view of the water and a decent menu too. I didn't get around to having a burger the last time I was in the States so I made up for it today. What is it with North Americans and their sour pickle? Urgh.


After lunch I headed to the antiques market, which is by the waterfront. I resisted the urge to buy a typewriter and headed over to the water. Despite an average forecast, the weather was beautiful and I was kicking myself for not bringing sunscreen. I took my time along the waterfront, stopping at some of the piers. One of them had several bright yellow deck chairs chained to it so I took a seat. I was nearly drifting off before a woman approached me and said she was about to jump in the water and not to worry, she knew how to swim. Damn hippies.

I continued my walk to the Olympic Sculpture Park and up to the Space Needle. That's the tower that's shown in every shot of Seattle, not that I knew what it was called until a couple of days ago. A customer at work recommended I skip the Space Needle and instead visit Columbia Tower, which is cheaper and higher. So I just admired the needle from below and caught the monorail back to the city centre. I spend the rest of the afternoon wandering through town and checking out a bit more of the market before I headed to my host's place.

Although I sent out a few couch requests, I didn't have much luck and ended up posting on the Seattle last minute couch requests group, as I did in Paris. A guy called John, along with a couple of others, offered to host me. John moved to Seattle a few years ago. He works in IT and joined CS because his kids live on the East Coast so he was thinking it might be a good thing to do when he goes there to visit them. Although he's been a member for years, he's only started hosting recently. I'd told him where I work and took him some of our bestselling tea to try so we ended up grabbing dinner at a little place that sells 150 different teas. I'm really getting into trying lots of teas now so that was fun for me. After dinner we went to a bar called Tavern Law and had a couple of cocktails. I ordered an English Fizz - earl grey gin, honey, lemon and soda - although that was a bit of a miss, so next time I chose a different one. The bar was very cool - there is an upstairs section that we think is only accessed by reservation. When people arrive to go up there they have to ring on this little old-school telephone downstairs before they are about to open the door to go up. The conversations are quite lengthy but I have no idea what they are about.