Sightseeing in Seattle

First, a view from the airplane as I was flying in. I think that’s Mount St. Helens, but the pilot was describing a bunch of mountains and I couldn’t tell which was which:

On Friday, I got into Seattle and had dinner with a friend of a friend. I knew Kevin before I went to Seattle, but not well. However, I had so much fun! We went to Pike Place Market, and not only did I get to watch them throw the famed fish around, but we also bought some delicious oysters, mussels, and peaches (not to eat together). After Kevin’s girlfriend got out of work, we headed to their apartment (with a gorgeous view of the Space Needle from the balcony) and had the raw oysters as an appetizer while Kevin steamed the mussels with fresh tomatoes and garlic – mmm. For my carb loading, I ate half a French baguette dipped in the broth from the mussels 🙂 And finally, for dessert, we grilled the peaches with cloves, cinnamon, and brown sugar. What a delicious dessert (and fairly healthy too)! Try it if you can.

I already gave a brief synopsis of my Saturday, but want to now include some pictures.

Here’s me at the waterfront park with Mount Rainier in the background.

The Space Needle as seen from just under it.

While waiting in line to go up The Space Needle, I looked across the way, and saw the helipad that they show on Grey’s Anatomy and pretend is part of Seattle Grace! (Okay, so someone had to tell me it was the one where they film, but I was still excited).

Speaking of Grey’s, when I went down to the waterfront later, I saw a dock on fire just like the ferry boat episode! Here’s a picture of the smoke and the firefighters running around.

Anyway, back to the Space Needle. I had to wait on line for a while, but they had a lot of exhibits about the history of the structure. I found it really interesting that an earthquake registering 6.5 on the Richter scale struck and the Space Needle was undamaged!

When I got to the top and saw the views, they were beautiful. The observation deck went all the way around, so I took views of all different sides of Seattle, from the mountains, to Lake Union (I never did get to take the SLUT or buy the shirt… may have to go back for that)



Just before I left, I got someone to take a picture of me up there. I was wearing my Starbucks shirt, though you can’t really see it too clearly.

From there, I headed down to the Olympic Sculpture Park. Again, I bribed someone into taking my picture! However, this time it worked out really well: I had a prime parking space, but I was ready to go as soon as I got the picture. When a family pulled up looking for a spot, I told them I’d give mine to them… IF one of them took my picture first 🙂 So here’s me with the running sculpture. I only regret that I didn’t strike a pose like I was running with them.

My pictures at the aquarium didn’t come out that great, but I’ll share a few anyway. I was really jealous of the diver who got to swim with the fish – what a cool job! I know there’s more to it than that, but one thing on my (unofficial) bucket list is that I want to swim with dolphins someday.

They had this clear tube that you could step into that was filled with jellyfish – I felt like I was in Finding Nemo!

There were these really cool birds that dove into the water to try to catch fish. When I read the description, it didn’t sound that exciting… but then I saw them diving six or seven feet underwater and swimming down there for 10 seconds or more to chase the fish! With their feathers all matted down, they honestly looked like fish instead of birds. What a transformation! Unfortunately, they moved so quickly that even though I tried hard, I couldn’t get a good pic. I settled for a bunch of shots in a dome where the fish were in a 360 all around me (even overhead!)

I then wandered over to the sea otter exhibit, which was really incredible. I stayed there for about 15 minutes… the sea otters were so awesome! They had these balls that they kept playing with, and I thought it was really cute… until I discovered that their interest wasn’t in playing, but in getting to eat the fish that were inside the balls and eventually came out when they prodded them with their noses enough!

The pasta dinner I’ve already mentioned, so I’ll leave off for now and continue the Seattle report tomorrow with the actual race report. Goodnight everyone!