Young Hearts Spark Fire (Part III)

Entries logged on Saturday, January 30, 2010 6:36 PM PST – Seattle, Washington
———
Friday, January 29, 2010

We left for Seattle late Friday morning in hopes of pretty much having most of the day to waste. Our residence for the next few days was to be Hotel Max, a sister hotel of Hotel de Luxe. Think sort of the same idea as the de Luxe, but in black and hot pink. also, the bathrooms are tiny for a slightly larger guy like myself.

The doors at Hotel Max all have full door images like this.

After check in, we beelined it to Pike Place Market. The week before, Kelly had fallen in love with a Pastrami sandwich at “I Love New York Deli”, and conversely, I enjoyed the California Roll that a sushi place kitty corner to it had. This experience allowed me to really soak in the market. It’s hopelessly diverse. Foods, textiles, flying fish – everything everywhere. I love it.

I guess what’s so nice about Seattle is that it sort of feels like home, without the cold. It’s friendly, comforting, has a lot of record stores and a lot of great food. The way it’s laid out – almost everything we wanted to do was either in walking distance and reachable all together by car within five-ten minutes. Just great. Looking out on the water at the mountains? Breathtaking.

We sort of dilly-dallied around the city the rest of the day, ducking into the GAP, Urban Outfitters, and a bunch of places that we could have easily went to at home. Dinner was Ivar’s Seafood bar, the fast food version of the more famous seafood restaurant. Fish and chips was pretty good, but probably not worth the six bucks I paid for it. I sort of wish I budgeted it a bit more to truly appreciate the fish in the area. I guess I can’t always win.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Today we were pretty much dead set on accomplishing as much as possible. I had a very hard time sleeping last night and didn’t get to bed until after four AM. I woke up before my alarm a little after 8, and was pretty cranky. Kelly and I set out for Capitol Hill for breakfast, It was probably about a mile away in the rain – wet, and we kept getting lost. Not happy. Kelly ended up finding this great little breakfast place called Glo’s. For $5.45, I found myself with a scrambled egg, hash browns, bacon, and a biscuit in the shape of a muffin. Good stuff.

After our Capitol Hill breakfast, we went to the Space Needle (just to look, not go up) and to the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum. The EMP’s architecture is pretty wonderful – it’s a really colorful Frank Gehry design. The EMP itself? Thorough, for what it was, but sadly, somewhat underwhelming. There’s only a handful of exhibits – the Hendrix one was especially thoughtful. The interactivity was fun as well. I found myself at a mixing console, creating my own mix of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics.

The EMP is kind of a big mass of crazy. This was my best attempt at a full photo.

Lunch was at the “Man v. Food” cited Red Mill Burgers. Burger was above average for 4.39, and their onion rings were pretty much some of the best I’ve had. They’re also the reason I got sick later on.

Red Mill onion rings. So good. So bad for me.

The Fremont neighborhood was next up. Probably my favorite of the ones we’ve been to so far. Tons of places to find old rock records, vintage clothing and grab a bite or get some coffee or something to drink. I picked up a Bob Dylan 1992 tour t-shirt at some junk shop. Not too bad. We grabbed a London Fog and headed to Gasworks Park, which feels like some Steampunk drawing come to life. Really cool to see all the gas rigs set right on the water. It’s too bad that they were all graffitied. I got some great pictures of the Seattle skyline. We made a quick stop in the U-District at few stores, got bored, then decided to come back to the hotel.

Dinner was a bit of a struggle tonight. We walked around for a good 45 minutes trying to find a place before settling on Palomino’s. I got the worst Tomato Basil soup ever. I promptly came home and got sick, and since then have been sitting here. Kelly brought me back from a cupcake shop, banana with chocolate frosting. I ate when it felt better. Not bad.

I’m ready to head to Minneapolis tomorrow night. It’s been nice out here, but I think I’m ready for yet another change of scenery. Overall though, I guess there’s just three words to sum it up perfectly.

It’s been great.

———
View over 200 photos of the entire trip here.