Tourist Stuff

I awoke early in the morning from the other 5 people I shared the room with scrambling around and zipping up their bags. I was still dead tired, but couldn’t help but get up. I packed my stuff and made my way to the head common area for some coffee. As I sat there I began to think about all that I wanted to do with my last day in Seattle. I pulled out my map and began to plot a course. As I poured over my map I realized that if I did everything I wanted to do, and feeling very unrested from the day before, I should just stay an extra day.

The first place I headed was to Pikes Place Public Market. When I arrived there around 8AM, the market was still in the midst of setting up. All the trucks were arriving with there assorted produce, fish, and other items, and All the venders were anxiously awaiting to be assigned there stalls to set up their cheap souvenirs to sell to the wanting tourist. I strolled about looking at what goods were already lain out and found myself at the very end of the market staring at a very inconspicuous Starbucks. I then remembered that Starbucks indeed started in Seattle and I had found myself at their very first store. As I walked in it was a full of people in the midst of their morning routines, ordering mocha this and half cap that. I stood back for a second and just like a good tourist began snapping photos of the inside. I then walked up to the counter and ordered myself a small coffee, of the Pikes Place special blend. The reason I only got a small, is there are plenty of, in my opinion, better coffee places to enjoy in Seattle, and I wanted for the sole reason of being able to say to people “Yeah, I’ve gotten coffee from the very first Starbucks!”

I continued about the market dodging in and out of stores, looking at all they had to offer. Now the fish market part of Pikes Place is something to see! They have all sorts of fresh seafood that’s unbelievably cheap. Then they got these guys that stand around and toss fish back and forth over the counter!  Its funny when they do it, because the only reason they toss a fish is when someone buys one, but until then you got all these dumb tourist (myself included) standing around waiting for it to happen, all the wile clogging up the way for real customers. Its funny because you got all these people standing around waiting for it to happen and then one of the fish handlers comes out and yells “Ok WHO WANTS TO BUY A FISH?” and everyone watching for a fish to be tossed scatters.

After Pikes, I went on a bit of a hike south, down to Pioneer Square to take the underground tour. Yep, who knew there was an underground to Seattle?  It was a very enlightening experience. It turns out that Seattle is built on a mad flat, which with the tide made for a very messy and wet city. After the City burned down, the shop keeps in their haste to rebuild, rebuilt before the city could essentially raise its streets. They built giant sidewalks that rose 30 feet in the air and then used a sleuthing method to blast away at the cliffs of upper Seattle to fill the streets. Anyways look it up, but that’s how you get an underground, it’s actually the first floors of the old buildings, the shop keeps hastily built before the process was completed, you’re walking through.

I then set back for my car for a little jaunt over to Redmond Washington. Whats in Redmond that would warrant me spending an extra day in Seattle? As it would turn out a two very famous companies