Wonderful Washington Day 8, 9 and 10

One of these days I will get to the end of my 2 week vacation. So where was I? Day 8, 9 and 10 of Alice's visit.

Day 8, Sunday, July 26: This was Alice and Carol's last day on Whidbey Island. To my surprise (OK, I do have to admit that its beautiful out here), they were a little upset about leaving because they loved the area, and the easy access to places like the Olympic National Park. Not to worry though. They still had a week left of a Washington vacation. Alice's friend Elizabeth recently moved to Seattle. So after visiting me for a week, she had made plans to go visit Elizabeth. Another friend (of both Alice and Elizabeth), Jan, flew in from Kentucky for the week. Since I've lived in Washington for a year and still had never really seen Seattle, I invited myself along for the Seattle portion of the vacation (OK...I didn't technically invite myself. I was told I was welcome to join them, but I did feel a little bad crashing Elizabeth's apartment when I lived just 2 hours north.)

We left Whidbey on Sunday, and headed down to Seattle. Upon arriving in Seattle, I decided that I will never live in Seattle. Elizabeth lives in a cute neighborhood, but the streets go in 2 directions, yet they are large enough for only one car, AND people park their cars all along the sides of them. I was convinced I was going to hit another car head on, or hit one of the parked cars in my attempt to not have a head on collision. Not to mention the fact that I can't parallel park. So after finding Elizabeth's place, I had to switch seats with Carol, while Carol parallel parked my car. If she hadn't been there, we would have had a problem.

Carol and I were introduced to Jan and Elizabeth, and the 5 of us set off to find a place to eat dinner. We ended up at a small bar and grill called the Pig and Whistle. The food was great and so was the service. Elizabeth used to be a waitress, so she clued us into the "tricks" of being a good server. Basically if we call our waiter by name, and act friendly and flirty towards him (and this can work on both male and females, regardless of what sex you are), then he will treat us well. She was right. Our server was Michael, who sat and talked with us, professed his love to Elizabeth, and gave us a list of other restaurants to check out around the city. Elizabeth swears this is because of how we interacted with him. So I highly recommend the Pig and Whistle and if you go there, ask for Michael ;-).

We stayed at the Pig and Whistle for a few hours, just talking, eating and having a few drinks. Afterwards we walked back to Elizabeth's house and crashed for the night.

Day 9, Monday, July 27: Elizabeth had to work, so that left me, Carol, Alice and Jan alone to explore Seattle, a city that none of us had ever visited before. The most I had ever seen was Pike Place Market. We decided to make it an easy, yet fun day. We didn't know it yet, but this week was about to be the hottest week EVER in Seattle's recorded history, and we were already starting to feel that heat. We decided to go to Pioneer Square, which is the oldest neighborhood in Seattle, and go on an Underground tour. The tour was a lot of fun, but if you aren't a history buff then you'd probably be bored, although the tour guides are entertaining with their endless bad jokes and inappropriate sense of humor (the brochure advertises this fact). Apparently, the people who originally built Seattle weren't that bright for various reasons. But lucky for them, the original city burned down, and the current city was built on top of the old city (kind of like Underground Atlanta, although lacking the Civil War aspect). The old city still exists underground and that's where the tour took us. We got to see the old doorways of businesses long gone, the old sidewalks, a piece of the original water system (a hollowed out log), and other stuff like that, along with learning the history of the city. Some businesses that sit on top of the old city, use the underground for storage and garbage, so there were a few random things down there, like rusty old bedframes and a claw foot bathtub, but that made the whole thing even more interesting to me. I've been a bit grumpy about the history of the west since moving out here because its not my specialty. I majored in history and concentrated in southern American history. The Civil War is my specialty and my favorite historic time period. Since I was already in a crappy mood regarding our move out here in the first place, I was also a little bitter that it was taking me COMPLETELY away from what I earned my college degree in. As much as I'd like it to, Civil War history simply does not extend this far west. Thats ok though, because after this tour, I learned that Seattle does actually have a pretty interesting history. Not quite as interesting as the Civil War in my opinion, but interesting enough that it kept my attention enough for me to buy a book about it (the book was written by the guy who started the Underground tour).

After the tour we stopped at a candy store in the area, and we were quite pleased to see that they sold these incredible gourmet candy apples, and we were given a discount for wearing wristbands from the tour. Good candy and discounts make me happy :-).

Then we met Elizabeth, who had just gotten off work and set off to visit the Ballard Locks, which I had never heard of, but its apparently an interesting tourist attraction. However, we were taking public transportation and the bus we were on got stuck in some crazy, abnormal traffic so by the time we got out of it the locks were about to close. Thankfully we realized this before we got anywhere near them, so we just went home with plans to visit them the next day.

However, I had already scheduled a babysitting job for the next day, so after getting back to Elizabeth's, I got in my car and drove home, in order to make some money, and left the 4 others to have fun without me for a day :-(.

Day 10, Tuesday, July 28: This was the day I babysat all day, so I don't really have much to write about. Alice, Carol, Jan and Elizabeth went to see the Ballard Locks, and I babysat. I would have prefered to be in Seattle, but I'll just have to put that on my list of things to do another time. I did head back down there late that night though, and settled into Elizabeth's basement apartment for the duration of the trip.

More interesting vacation news to follow....I still have 5 days left to talk about!