America's Biggest Car Wash... Seattle

Like the title of the post suggests, it rains a lot in Seattle. And our visit was no exception, but luckily for us it mostly rained whilst we were inside, so like most Seattleans (if that's what they call themselves?), we spent a lot of time indoors. Unbeknown to us until arriving in Seattle, the first Starbucks actually originated in Seattle. And since then, the multiplication rate has been phenomenal around the city, to the point that you can literally stand on a street corner and see roughly 2 or more Starbucks in one quick glance. And for the most part we couldn't figure out why there were so many, maybe Seattleans just liked their Starbucks, but so does the rest of America, and those other places don't have such an unnecessary saturation of Starbucks on every single street corner?

But as we made the transition indoors, we found ourselves in one of those Starbucks on every corner, then we would venture out into the dark, dreary, cold and rainy outdoors, then migrate to another Starbucks on every other corner, and the funny thing is, an hour could go by and you would look down the street and see the last 2 or 3 Starbucks' you'd just been in. So suddenly the Starbucks on every corner didn't seem so obsessive, they actually served a purpose, they gave refuge to the thousands of people that didn't want to battle through the terrible weather, and as a result many people would spend their days in these establishments, hence the Starbucks (or coffee shop) culture was created. So please read on, I promise we won't cover too much more on Starbucks, instead we will try and focus on Seattle (even though the two are synonymous with each other).

As we were completely over buses and trains we sucked it up and got a flight to Seattle which was just so much easier and less time consuming. As always we get bored on flights, this was Kristian pretending he only had one tooth which was actually an M & M, but not the nice variety, this one had pretzel inside! Honestly, that is just a nasty combination. 

As Seattle was incredibly cold we had to warm up with out daily Starbucks. Well actually, it was more likely twice or three times daily. Don't judge us. 

The major attraction in Seattle is the Pike Place Market. The market has seafood, fresh produce and a lot of hand made arts & crafts. This was probably the second coolest market we'd been to, with the first being St Lawrence market in Toronto. 

Inside some of the market.

The very first Starbucks right across from Pike Place Market.

The art/craft/flower section of the market.

Turns out Seattle has a really gross "tourist attraction", can you guess what it is?

No its not this. This is just an artist installation. 

Yes that is a huge wall covered in peoples chewed gum. It was pretty gross but at least it smelt fruity/minty (with a hint of bad breath).

Look at the drooping from the gum on the window. 

More of the gum covered wall.

I swear I didn't actually lick the wall.

Layers upon layers of gum.

This is the famous fish stall at the market which you may have seen on TV and some point or another, but they basically shout at each other and throw fish around when someone orders something.

Delicious pastries.

A whole lot of cheese.

We decided to have some food just across the street from the market, the fish wasn't too bad but the chips were nasty. We had to keep squeezing oil out of them so they would be slightly edible, needless to say we didn't eat very many.

Pier 69 (or something)

The wildly overpriced ferris wheel ,like most places. 

We were pretty tired on our first night in Seattle and it was awfully cold, but lucky for us there was a super cool pizza place right around the corner from our hotel. The pizza place is called MOD Pizza and every pizza is $7.17. You can add and subtract any ingredient you want at no extra charge so of course Kristian had to add almost every topping, including lettuce (which even the guy behind the counter thought that was strange).

The pizza was that packed with toppings that it had to be folded.

The Seattle Space Needle.
It was such a horribly miserable day in Seattle so we didn't bother to go up the space needle as we wouldn't have been able to see much.

The shop front of the very first Starbucks.

On our last night in America we decided it would only be fitting to find a sports bar, have some good food and watch the Flyers on tele and that's just what we did.

Good old sliders.

See, I told you there wouldn't be much more about Starbucks. However I don't know if I can say the same about Whistler, hot chocolate was pretty much running through our veins (not because we were fat piggies, but because it was just so damn cold and we needed something to warm ourselves up).

So get ready for whistler, which undoubtedly was the prettiest place we had ever visited. I won't say much more than that.

So until then, we will see you all in a couple of days!
Kristian & Lauren.