Soaked and Shivering in Seattle

SHE BLOGGED: It rained and sometime snowed while we were in Seattle, Washington this past weekend. Moments of sunshine were brief, and yet, not warm at all. We were battered down by bone-chilling winds that would find its way through the smallest opening in the sleeve of our coat and scream, “Welcome to Seattle!” And we would reply through chapped lips, “Happy to be here!” because despite the typical Seattle weather, we had a great time! Brrrr.

Being budget conscious, we took the metro transit bus from SEA/TAC airport to our hotel. A taxi from the airport - $50. The bus from the airport - $1.75. The adventure – priceless. Our flight didn’t get in until after 10 p.m. so needless to say that when you’re taking the bus at that late hour, you get some interesting characters. Great for people watching if you can do it without making direct eye contact.

The bus dropped us off a half a block from our hotel, and what a hotel! Hands down, the Arctic Club Hotel in Seattle is the best hotel we’ve ever stayed in (http://www.arcticclubhotel.com/) and we chose that hotel because it offered one of the best-priced packages online! What a find. Our room looked just like the ones on the web site. The place is so classy, and the attention to detail is phenomenal. The hotel used to be a gentlemen’s club for the wealthy back in the Gold Rush days. You can easily envision these dapper men lounging around, smoking cigars and trading stories in front of the original fireplace and bar.

We chose to go to Seattle because we knew it was a seafood town. We went with the mentality that we were going to eat at every moment we could. My husband and I had every intention of dumping our bags off in the room and heading straight back out to get some great food no matter what time it was, but by the time we checked in, who were we kidding? We were tired, it was freezing cold and the restaurants that served late night food were blocks and blocks away. Instead, we each took a stool at the hotel bar and practically stayed until closing.

We got to know the hotel’s bartender, Viktor. He came to the United States from Russia six years ago with his family when his wife won the American Green Card Lotto (Every year the U.S. government makes 50,000 green cards available to anyone who would like to apply). He has a 22-year-old son and a daughter that is in high school. Much to Viktor’s distaste, his son plays video games all day because he says he wants to do something with video game design. His daughter is truly daddy’s little girl. The warm smile on Viktor’s face when he talks about his daughter is one of pride and joy. His wife is a pastry chef at a different hotel. Viktor and his wife have been in the hotel business practically all their lives. He loves America, he loves Seattle. Before we all knew this about Viktor, we watched him easily chat with other bar patrons, pour drinks with ease, and we saw him treat a chapped and bleeding lip with vodka. Huh. An ancient family secret, perhaps? He got the lip from his daily morning run. As he dabbed vodka on his lip, he reminded us to make sure we wear lip balm as much as possible while we were here.

One of the first things I noticed when I crawled into bed was the smell of the sheets. It was fantastic. It was the smell of fresh laundry like you would get at home. Not that steamed, pressed dry cleaning smell you get from typical hotel bed sheets. It was such a subtle thing, yet so unique from any other hotel that I noticed it immediately and mentally checked of a dozen more star ratings for this hotel before I dozed off into a fitful sleep.

SATURDAY:
We took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. Bainbridge Island has a cute little town that reminded me of Catalina Island, but not as touristy. It didn’t quite have the foot traffic or the stores that you would have from a sightseeing attraction. It’s still very much a sleepy town, but my goodness it was beautiful. I’ve never been to Cape Cod, but Bainbridge is what I would picture it to be like. Lush and green with beautiful houses that dot the shoreline.


We had brunch at Café Nola (http://www.cafenola.com/). Was it worth the ferry ride, sure! Would we do it again? Probably not. My husband had the Dungness Crab Melt on focaccia bread and I had the Carmel Pecan French Toast, made on challah bread with orange bourbon butter and maple syrup.

From Bainbridge we headed to Pioneer Square and signed up for the Underground Tours (http://www.undergroundtour.com/). Our tour guide mentioned in passing that the Underground was voted one of the most haunted places in the United States and that the show, Ghost Hunters visited in 2007 and experienced quite a bit of paranormal activity. My husband loves that stuff. It was the one thing he needed to hear to immediately have a different appreciation for the tour. He started taking random photos in hopes that he’ll catch a glimmer of something. We have yet to review all his film, we’ll keep you posted if we see anything!

What I learned on the tour: There are over 20,000 coffee shops in Seattle. I believe it. In 4 blocks, we counted at least 6 Starbucks. We weren’t even counting the other types of coffee shops, like Tully’s.

The phrase “skid row” refers to a particular hilly street in Seattle where loggers would chuck trees down the street down to the lumber company. The logs would skid down the steep street right down to the lumberyard. The area later attracted riff raff and prostitution so the name stuck in reference and is now used in lower income areas as well. Kind of like…where I work! Isn’t that nice?

From Pioneer Square we walked to Pike Place Public Market (http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/frameset.asp?flash=true), one of Seattle’s famous landmarks. You’ve seen it on TV, where they throw fish? Except we didn’t see much fish throwing and it wasn’t what I expected it to be. It was intensely crowded and felt like Fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco -- a big tourist trap. The Market is made up of several different floors of shops that sell everything from jade to used clothing.

We hadn’t eaten since brunch, so it was time to taste some of Seattle’s highly touted seafood. We stopped at the first place we came across because it was convenient because it was so crowded! At this open food stand called the Market Grill, we shared a grilled Cajun salmon sandwich. Delicious! It was just enough to tie us over, but not too filling where we wouldn’t have enough room for more food.


Outside of the main arcade, we stumbled across a little hole in the wall called, Emmet Watson’s Oyster Bar (http://www.yelp.com/biz/emmett-watsons-oyster-bar-seattle). Our menus were printed on greasy paper brown bags and the waiter barely acknowledged us let alone crack a smile. And is facial hair allowed in the restaurant business because I think he was sporting a beard. He was that unmemorable I can’t remember. We had the oyster special, which consisted of two raw oysters, two shrimp and a cup of chowder. We also had the steamed clams in garlic broth. Honestly? Neither was anything to write home about. What a huge disappointment. The chowder was lumpy, the clams were intensely fishy smelling and the broth was watered down and not very flavorful. * sigh *

A few doors down, a line was forming outside this small little shop selling piroshkis. Newspaper articles and a photo of the shop owner with Anthony Bourdain (one of my husband's idols) was the clincher for us to stand in line as well. We got an apple cinnamon piroshki and loved it. I only wish I had room to try their other flavors, like potato and mushroom, or the cheese piroshki. Yum!

A few doors down from that was another line that was forming outside a shop. It turned out to be the very first Starbucks. I’m not sure what they were selling differently at this Starbucks that warranted a line, but we didn’t stick around to find out. Instead we headed to Beecher’s Handmade Cheese Company (http://www.beechershandmadecheese.com/). What a cool place! They make cheese on site, serve up grilled cheese sandwiches and the “world’s best” mac and cheese. I didn’t say that – someone classified it as such, in fact, their mac and cheese is constantly winning awards. I had to have some. I could not pass up one of my favorite comfort foods! I had an 8 oz. cup of mac and cheese and couldn’t finish it. It’s was so rich and cheesy I felt sick. Would I eat it again? Absolutely. In fact, I wish I had room to have eaten one of their grilled cheese sandwiches!

We did some window shopping and decided that while on the way home we’d pick up a bottle of local wine and call it a night. After walking through more rain and cold wind, opening up a bottle of wine and sitting in our cozy hotel room in bathrobes was the perfect ending to a busy day. That’s probably the most time we’ve ever spent just sitting in a hotel room. After we polished off the bottle of wine and regained warmth in our toes, ears and nose, we decided to head down to the hotel bar. We told Viktor we’d try the once illegal drink of absinthe, which they serve down at the Polar bar. And we’d give his cucumber gin and tonic a try, too.

Absinthe is historically described as a highly alcoholic (45%-74%) beverage that has an anise (licorice) flavor. It is commonly referred to as the Green Fairy. Absinthe was considered a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and was banned in 1915. Ernest Hemingway drank his with champagne and called it “Death in the Afternoon.” It was brought back in the 1990s because no evidence has shown it to be any more dangerous than ordinary liquor. If you’ve watched your share of movies about demon chasers (Johnny Depp), and vampires, absinthe drinks are prominent. Look for the sugar cube, flame and green liquid.

So did Absinthe have my husband and I seeing hallucinations? No. Did we like it? Not really. Watching Viktor make the drink it and seeing its presentation made it worth it just to give it a try. Viktor’s cucumber gin and tonic was much more simple. In fact, it was your classic gin and tonic with cucumber slices thrown in.

Sitting at the bar with us was a gentlemen by the name of Plato. Plato is originally from Florida. He was in Seattle to give a lecture about library data documentation. Snore. But he himself was an interesting and delightful man. I honestly can’t even remember what we talked about because we covered so many different topics, but there was a moment in our conversation that I realized that our love for traveling was also about meeting people. We may never see these people again, but the time spent with them is wonderful.

SUNDAY: We hopped on the monorail to the Space Needle, but didn’t actually go into the Space Needle. Instead we walked the very long distance from there to the REI flagship store. It was far, it was cold, it was raining, but when we got there, it was worth it. This store was HUGE! It is so big that it actually has an outdoor bike trail so you can test the bikes before you buy one. I think we spent two hours there and probably could have spent more if we had more time. When we finally left, the sky was pouring down buckets of rain. There was no way we were going to walk back to the monorail (even though we paid for a round trip ticket, argh!) So we hopped on a public bus back to downtown. We encountered more interesting bus characters, in fact, the bus driver stopped to kick a drunk guy off. The guy teetered down the bus aisle with a vodka bottle in hand, my husband later told me he fully expected the guy to either fall, or throw up on him as he passed. Fortunately he did neither.


We hadn’t had lunch so we got off at the Public Market. We were determined to eat more seafood. That was the whole point of our trip and we barely felt we had any! So we stopped at Pike Place Chowder (http://www.pikeplacechowder.com/). Why hadn’t we gone there first? We shared a crab roll. A sandwich packed with fresh dungeness crab meat. We also had their four soup sampler: clam chowder, seafood bisque, seared scallop chowder and smoked salmon chowder. Hands down this was the best chowder I’ve ever had! I honestly couldn’t pick a favorite from the four. And mind you, they had at least four other flavors to try. I expected that the chowders would taste the same, just the ingredients would be different, for example, instead of clams, they throw in scallops. I was so wrong. Happily wrong. Each one had a different flavor and each one was delicious! It’s tough to get good clam chowder at restaurants, if they’re decent, they’re just that – only decent. Otherwise they’re lumpy, grainy or thick and lack seafood. Not with Pike Place Chowder’s award-winning soups. If I felt like I could eat more I would have!

From there we headed back to the hotel, picked up our luggage and hopped onto a public transit bus to the airport, which was a free ride! Nothing beats free! At the airport we had a couple of hours to kill. We had to try to eat at one more Seattle-based establishment! Just one more! We had fish and chips and clam and chips and cup of clam chowder each from Ivar’s (http://www.ivars.net/). Ivar’s won “Best Seafood in Western Washington” in 2008. Yuck, really? Granted we ordered fried food, but even then there’s a level of quality for fish and chips and they didn’t have it. It was just ok. Their clam chowder was a waste of money. I’ll probably be compare all chowders to Pike Place Chowder from here on out.

What we did, but didn’t discuss:
The Elliot Bay Book Company -- http://www.elliottbaybook.com/
The gum wall in Post Alley – so gross it’s mesmerizing http://www.wallstreetfighter.com/2007/03/seattle-wall-of-gum.html
Pike Place Brewing Company -- http://www.pikebrewing.com/: Family Owned, Cute bartender named Scott gave us free beer samples. My husband liked their “Kilt Lifter” and I liked their IPA.