Seattle Weekend
It was a very last minute trip, but I just got back from two days in Seattle. Less than 24 hours after returning from my Christmas trip home to visit my family, I was departing on another mini-adventure with my friend Jordan.
It was a very casual and enjoyable trip. We left Friday night and had no real agenda for the weekend. The main objective was to visit some of Jordan’s friends from Victoria who just happened to have gone down to Seattle for New Year. Jordan and I managed to be staying in separate hotels thanks to the somewhat random nature of Hotwire, the online hotel booking service. Cheap, but you don’t know which hotel until after you pay. That aside, we were close enough that it wasn’t an issue.
Friday night we arrived fairly late, but that didn’t stop us from joining Jordan’s friends for drinks on Capitol Hill. At one point I left Jordan and his male friend’s out drinking to walk the women back to their hotel (which was the same as mine as it turned out). Saturday involved a lot of walking. I started off on my own taking some photos. Then I met up with Jordan and we walked to Pike Place Market where we met everyone else for brunch. Afterwards we made a slow climb through Seattle until we got to the REI flagship store. Massive. After that coffee, then more shopping. More walking, Starbucks, walking, shopping, then back to the hotel. After some relaxing and napping, we met up for dinner at Wild Ginger a location recommended by Jordan’s friends. It was really quite tasty. If you like a variety of Asian cuisine, then this is certainly a restaurant worth trying.
Jordan’s friend were leaving early Sunday, so we were on our own. After brunch in an Irish pub called Fadó, we decided to do Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour. I highly recommend this if you are visiting the city. Not only do they regale you with the history of the city, but they do it in a pleasantly funny manner. Then you are taken to three different parts of the old underground. It is quite fascinating. After the tour we collected our stuff and headed towards the border. We stopped at a Target along the way for a bit of cross-border shopping. Unfortunately the worst part of the trip was the insane snow/sleet/freezing rain storm we hit just after crossing back into Canada. There were cars stuck spinning their tires all over the place. There were definitely a few hairy moments, but we all made it back safely. Despite this city’s lack of preparedness and inability to drive in this weather, we didn’t see any accidents. A few stuck cars yes, but nothing more really. I’m sure that there will be, or has been some issues, but I hope that people have enough sense to stay off the roads if at all possible.
You can see my photos from the weekend on Flickr.