Seattle

23 September 2010
Greetings Blogger Followers:
Well we have spent a week in Seattle and truly enjoyed ourselves. I believe this is the first time Brian or I have spent any time in this city. Exploring the downtown is a lot like walking around San Francisco – hilly, interesting architecture, and even more interesting people. Pike’s Place Market has a somewhat foreign flavor to it as folks of all nationalities mingle together enjoying the sites and sounds. We watched the famous, flying fish – where the fish mongers tossed fish back to be filleted and packaged for purchase; listened to a variety of bands/singers as there was a buskers festival; watched a magician and a silver mannequin/statue perform; and ate a great breakfast, drank a coffee and enjoyed clam chowder. Seattle is a fun city with but a few drawbacks – the weather for one, as it was rainy 60% of the time; parking is outrageous costing UPWARDS from $8; and although the food/lodging is good it is not cheap either. A coffee & a donut cost at least $5 and that’s not even Starbuck’s…lol!
We had a marvelous time with our Canadian friends, Ginny & Chris. Our first meal together was a Brazilian chorizo, where they bring all kinds of meat to your table and cut it right off the skewer. I enjoyed the buffalo and the pineapple the best-they also had wild boar, but we did not try it. B filled up on tri-tip, pork and sirloin. All of it was tasty, but it was the company that was the best.
Others days, Brian did some georging: entering bills and spending bills in new Washington zip codes. We went to a mini-gathering where we met up with some fellow georgers-we will also have breakfast with Tim tomorrow morning…
I met up with Bonnie and Kim at the Tulalip Casino where we enjoyed playing poker together. This casino is beautiful, well laid out & has a great poker room with a high hand jackpot every hour. I would highly recommend it to anyone traveling to WA… It was fun to take a break and walk over to the Outlet Mall, get a little exercise and go back to the casino. We had a good meal and I even got a free dessert, as I was wearing a necklace that the casino had given me indicating it was recently my birthday…
Today we sorted & packed – Brian likes to gift the casino staff on the ship with treats, so he purchased 3 shipping boxes worth of candy, nuts & snacks – it’s a good thing there is no limit to what the porters will take to your stateroom! HA!
We went to see The American, George Clooney’s new movie, but I would not recommend it – was kind of strange…
We embark tomorrow, Friday 24 September, and will depart around 5pm.
I will blog again if a few days… Bon Voyage my friends… GB