While my dad was in Seattle, after our massive roadtrip, we had a week to experience the best Seattle has to offer. The weather was excellent, it was terrific! I wanted to make sure that Bruce had seen the most awesome parts of the city, so we took a few excursions out. I took Bruce to a few different suburbs and to my favourite places downtown, and then also to my favourite eateries around Seattle (because one just cannot have the whole experience without trying all the food!!).
Edmonds Village:
Edmonds village is a quaint little village, full of small boutique shops and restaurants, cafes and bakeries. It bears similarity to the Auckland area of Mt Eden Village, or Parnell. On Bruce's first night in the States I brought him here. We ate a delicious chicken quesadilla at a cosy rustic cafe/restaurant, then wandered up the road to a frozen yoghurt shop - we filled up on all sorts of yummy types of yoghurt and all sorts of toppings. We then walked back down the road and went to a small local bar where a live band were performing. It was a fantastic night, and the live music was just the icing on the cake.
Dinner and live music in Edmonds village
Ballard:
After we returned from our roadtrip I was back to work, so I did not have much time, but in my time off I organised little outings for us. One of them was to Ballard. Ballard is the suburb where my church is so by default I spend a LOT of time there!, but Ballard is an amazing suburb, so lively and upbeat, it has a great vibe to it and a lot going on. In Ballard there is a super duper awesome cupcake shop called Cupcake Royale, so one morning Bruce and I popped in there and enjoyed an incredible cupcake and a hot drink. Tu meke!
Downtown Seattle:
I just had to take Bruce downtown. The most important thing to see was Pike Place Market, one of my favourite places in Seattle. The market closed at 6pm, and I finished work at 5, so we took off and raced into town to get there on time. We parked in a hurry and ran down to the market. We got there just in time! We bought cheesecake from my favourite cheesecake shop The Confectional, then we walked around the market, saw the famous gum wall, listened to the buskers and saw the fish mongers packing up for the day. It was great that we were able to see everything! The evening was so lovely that we took a walk down from the market to the waterfront and walked along the piers. On one of the piers we saw the newly erected Seattle Great Wheel and, on the spur of the moment, we decided to go on it!
We had to wait in line for a long time, so we bought ice creams to make the time go faster. When we got inside our little pod, two couples joined us, one couple was from Seattle and the other was from Texas. They were all such great people and the 20 minute ride was fantastic because of them. We chatted about travel, swapped ideas for places to visit within the city, and gazed out of the windows at the beautiful view. The couple from Seattle suggested some things for Bruce and I to visit, and even helped find the places on a map so it would be easy for us to get to. We left the wheel feeling excited!
One place I had always wanted to go to but never had was the Olympic Sculpture park. The Seattleite couple in our wheel pod had showed me on the map where it was so Bruce and I decided to walk down there. It was fantastic! Such interesting pieces, and on such a large scale.
Olympic Sculpture park
After walking through the park we headed back to the car, popping in at the Vine Street community garden just for a look on the way. We then drove to the Space needle area, and found a park right across the road (whoohoo!). We did not go up the space needle, instead we went next door to the recently opened Glass Garden - a showcase gallery/experience of glassworks by renowned Seattle artist Dale Chihuly. I knew nothing about the place, it was the Seattle couple on the wheel who recommended this to us! Boy, am I glad they mentioned it! It was a delight to the senses. My eyes were popping out of my head with the colours and the beauty of all this glass! It was like nothing I had ever seen before. You walked from one area to another and the glass pieces were all so different and so unique and amazing. It was really something special.
Wow, this was a glass ceiling. Can you believe it? It is just so beautiful.
Unique works in the glass garden
the planets
WOW!
A glass vine of flowers with the space needle in the back
A glass plant (at least 2 metres high) with the space needle behind
After the glass garden we stumbled across a free outdoor screening of Harry Potter. We sat on the grass and watched it until we got too cold and we went back to the car and drove home. What a night! Seattle really showed its best face.
Bruce's Projects:
While Bruce was staying with us, he ended up doing all these projects. One was to build a guinea pig house for the 2 guinea pigs so that they could be put outside and have a warm house to live in. And the other was that Bruce decided he wanted to paint all the ceilings downstairs to lighten the place up a bit. What can I say? It hardly came as a shock to me, and I was happy that Bruce had something he enjoyed doing to work on while I was with the kids. My host family were thrilled that he was doing the ceilings!
Painting the ceilings: such a typical Bruce thing to end up doing :)
On his last night in Seattle, I managed to drag him away from his projects and we had a lovely meal at a local Mexican restaurant.
Soon enough, it was the final day of his stay and time to drop him to the airport. I had to literally pull him off his projects to even get him to leave the house to be in time for the plane! (haha why is that so familiar?). There was one last thing I wanted him to try: Seattle is not Seattle without Paseo Caribbean food stall, so I stopped in there on the way to the airport for his last meal. Paseo make the most amazing sandwiches ever, they are huge, messy and delicious.
Bruce was overwhelmed with how big it was!
We ate our wonderful sandwiches then tore off to the airport. I dropped him off, we said a brief goodbye and he was away!
Farewell!
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