Sunny Seattle

I just got back from a long weekend in Seattle and was welcomed home to New York by the gentle embrace of 20 degrees and snow. I had never been to Seattle before, which seemed like an oversight, but I'm generally bad at visiting places within this country. We had actually been talking about Montreal as sort of a post-birthday trip, but enough people told us that Montreal in January was a terrible idea, so for that, and a few other reasons, we switched it up for the Emerald City. As luck would have it, we happened to be there at the same time as the play-offs, and I must say, never have I seen a city rally around a team quite so much. There were Seahawks cupcakes, donuts, and macrons, every business in the city had some sort of Seahawks emblem, and the majority of people were wearing hats and jerseys. Granted, we were staying in a heavy tourist area and a number of people at our hotel had come in the the game, but still, there was some impressive team spirit.

Aside from their SeaHawks enthusiasm (and the fact that they apparently hardcore borrowed the 12th man thing from the Aggies), overall impressions of Seattle were good. You cannot find a bad cup of coffee there. No, not even at the airport Quiznos. As such, I think I drank more coffee this past weekend than ever in my life. We were mostly just enjoying wandering around and exploring different neighborhoods, so whenever we got cold or tired of walking, we'd stop into the closest adorable coffee shop. Also, I would like to note that despite what some readers may have hoped, it didn't rain once. We even saw the sun almost every day. I took a number of pictures to document this:

No sun here, but lots of good food. 

 On our first day in town, we mostly hung out downtown in the neighborhood of our hotel. We checked out Pike Place Market and the original Beecher's Cheese and ate many a delicious thing. We also went to the EMP Museum which is dedicated to pop culture. Sam had wanted to go to see some Jimi Hendrix exhibit, but the entire museum is definitely worth checking out. It actually reminds me of Astoria's own Museum of Moving Image with it's very interactive exhibits.

The museum was designed by someone famous, but I'm too lazy to look it up. 

Sam at warp speed. Would be more convincing if we weren't just standing there. 

This photo is from the front of our hotel. I took it to document how sunny it was. 

The second day we went further afield and wandered around the neighborhoods of Ballard and Fremont. We ate at a delicious brunch place that had quite a line by 9:30 (luckily we were still on Eastern time and got there at 8:15). Pulled pork and chipotle brussels sprout frittata and a pineapple basil mojito. Seattle is definitely up on the local sustainable food movement. Also the delicious food movement.

Walking along Lake Union is almost beautiful enough to make me be willing to live on a houseboat.

The Ballard Locks. During salmon spawning season you can see them jumping up the fish ladder from an underground salmon viewing place. In January, you can pretty much just see water. 

The Fremont troll in all its glory. Fremont's public art doesn't stop there. They also have a 7 ton bronze statue of Lenin. 

The next grouping of photos were taken from Olympic Sculpture Park and were mainly taken to show off some more blue skies:

Me, pensive, wondering if it will clear enough to see mountains. 

Sam took this one. Also, almost all of these. 

We didn't go to the Seattle Museum of Art, but we did manage to get one of Sam with the SAM.

I mean, I guess there are still a few clouds...

The last day in town we met a friend of Sam's for brunch in Capital Hill (another neighborhood worthy of checking out) and then made a donut stop and headed to a friend of mine's apartment to eat brunch, drink coffee, and watch the game. This was the first football game I'd watched all season. Now I don't normally care about football at all but for familial reasons, if I were to pick a team to root for it, it would be the 49ers. This was not possible at this particular playoffs brunch, and I have to say that after seeing how much everyone seemed to have riding on this one, I'm glad the Hawks won.

A fitting final shot, this one taken by me and also from an airplane. 

All and all in was a lovely weekend! It was fun to see old friends and to maintain such a constant level of caffeination.