On the way to Seattle, we stopped at Moses Lake for some grub. We weren't in the mood for fried, greasy food so we grabbed the next best thing, Subway. Like most Subways that we have been to on our road trip, it was located inside of a gas station. And like all the other Subways in gas stations, the service was terrible. But, we finally got our food and ate in the gas station while we people watched. On the way to Seattle, we stopped for the view at the Columbia Basin!
We arrived at Amos' friend's house around 9:30pm. His apartment is located right in the heart of Seattle. Not gonna lie, this place is the shit. The entire place was super nice and tall. Kind of too nice, but still pretty awesome. We played pool for a little while and chatted, mostly about Microsoft since they all work at Microsoft. After just about falling asleep on the pool table, we were ready to go back to Amos' apartment for some much needed sleep.
We woke up Sunday and had lunch at Pomegranate Bistro in Redmond (the city where Amos lives). While waiting for our table, we were eyeing these cupcakes. They looked freaking amazing! A huge red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing, we were definitely getting one after we ate. For brunch, Margaret got yogurt, granola and fresh fruit and these amazing and delicious things called Savannah hot puffs. Holy crap were they good! I chose to get the spicy sausage firebread (basically a breakfast flatbread).
Full and satisfied, we headed back to Amos' apartment. I had saved room from brunch for my tasty cupcake, while Margaret chose to save hers for later. This cupcake looked amazing! The bright red, moist cake was topped with a heap of swirled icing, flakes of coconut and then wrapped in elaborate red and gold paper. How could you resist? Well, you could. This cupcake was by far the WORST cupcake that I have ever eaten. Even worse than the ones from my Easy Bake Oven when I was seven years old. There was no flavor to anything. I could have been eating the paper for all I knew. It was such a disappointment. I ended up throwing away all of the icing and tried to eat the rest of the cake, but it was too saddening. I threw away about half of this amazing-looking, but shitty tasting cupcake. (Sad face).
Disappointed, we headed out into Seattle traffic to catch a ferry. On the way, we caught a glimpse of the Seattle Space Needle!
....and of the city :)
It didn't matter where we went, we just wanted to ride on the ferry. Luckily, we got to the ferry just in time to catch the 2:00 ferry to Bainbridge! We felt really cool swiping our card to get onto the ferry, sort of like McDreamy and Addison! (We love Grey's Anatomy too much!).
Margaret looking out at the view from the ferry!
The wind was so intense, it blew my hood up! Thanks dad for the jacket!! :)
The ride was awesome. It was so relaxing to just sit and watch the water and scenery. The ride to Bainbridge was about 35 minutes. Upon arriving, we were told that we had to get off, not sure why, since we were getting right back onto the ferry. So we stood in line for 20 minutes, then went back onto the ferry boat! Gotta love ferry boats! (We have a thing for ferry boats :) ).
If you look all the way to the right, you can see the Space Needle! We tried this like five times before we got it right!
After our round trip from Seattle to Bainbridge, we raced back to Amos' apartment to get all pretty and head out for a night on the town. We showered, painted our faces, curled our hair AND put on heels! We were ready for dinner at the Sky City Restaurant in the Space Needle and lots and lots of drinking.
Our reservation at the Space Needle was for 7:00pm. The perfect time to get some daylight pictures, the sunset and a gorgeous nighttime view of Seattle. Even though Margaret and I have enjoyed our romantic dates together, we felt that for this one night we could add a third member to our romantic dinner, Amos. And since we were staying with him, we felt obligated. (But we actually really wanted him to come anyways :)).
Me and Amos! I've missed him!
The revolving restaurant was awesome! A complete 260-view of the city of Seattle in 47 minutes. How awesome is that?! While eating dinner, you can leave notes for others dining at the restaurant. We found a lot of ripped up menus (which was weird that you would rip up a menu from a restaurant with average meal costs of $50). I found a blank part of someone else's note and wrote a note for others. It said, "We're from FLORIDA! 4/9/11 M&L".
Later, the note returned with a question about the weather. Not exactly sure what it said, since the wine was flowing, but we replied that it was hot and rained sometimes.
Amos and I in the Space Needle!
Cheers!
The three of us on our date :)
SEXY!
My dinner consisted of Alaskan Halibut, apparently the first of the season, and duck con fit. Holy cow duck is good! Margaret had King Salmon with some duck con fit as well. The butter was even fancy at this place! It had lavender in it. Interesting, but definitely wouldn't want to eat an entire stick of it.
Full and giddy from eating in a revolving restaurant, we stepped out onto the observation deck and captured the city lights!
It was very difficult for us to get a picture out there. The wind kept whipping at our faces and blew my hair all over the place, mostly in everyone's faces. This is the best we could get:
Margaret, Amos, Lauren
A view from under the Space Needle.
We knew that we would be walking/drinking and tried to decide whether or not to change out shoes from heels to flip flops. The bar wasn't too far from the restaurant, but in the opposite direction of the car. So we had a decision to make. We were told that we could go back to the car if needed after the first bar, so we chose option #1, to the beer! We headed on over to Five Point Cafe and met up with Amos' friends.
This place was...interesting. Mostly older people in their 40's. There was good music, but we had to cram into one of the corner booths. Being semi-claustrophobia, I chose to move onto the next bar.
Because we didn't know where to go in Seattle, we had Amos and his friends direct us in the direction for more beer! But first, we were once again asked if we wanted to go back to the car to change our shoes in order to save our feet. Unfortunately, we declined, especially since we were told it was just a few blocks away. The walk to the second bar, Tini Bigs Lounge, wasn't all that bad. Too bad everything else about this place kind of sucked. The martinis were about $12 with a splash of liquor and there was only ONE beer available in the entire place. Since I've given up liquor, it was a pretty hard decision to pick which beer I would get :). A few more of Amos' friends met up with us at Tini Bigs. Shortly after our drinks, we ditched the place.
This time, we weren't given the option to go back to the car. It was too far of a walk and apparently the bar we were going to next, Shorty's, was just as far as the car, but in opposite directions. Walking in heels was our only option. We didn't think it would be too bad since they told us that Shorty's was about five blocks away. Whatever you do, don't trust Microsoft employees to judge distances. They are WRONG! We must have walked about 25 blocks to Shorty's. It wouldn't have been bad, but we were both wearing skimpy dresses and heels with the promise of a five block walk. So we were forced to endure the blisters and frostbite. (it wasn't that bad, we were just angry that we were lied to :) ).
We made it to Shorty's! Lauren, Amos, Jateen and Matt.
Shorty's was really cool. There were tons of arcade games in that place. They had an entire back room full of them! The best one of all, Big Buck Hunter! Definitely made my night! I think we played at least three games, that I could remember. I was on a high from all the Big Buck Hunting. I didn't think things could get any better, but they did! My friend Ross showed up!!!!! I haven't seen this kid in two years and the last time I saw him, he was living on my couch! It was definitely a fantastic night!
Unfortunately, it had to come to an end. The walk back was really cold, so Amos became my windbreaker until he went to go fetch the car. Meanwhile me, Margaret and Matt stopped for a slice of pizza. Being slightly inebriated, I ate whatever was put in front of me. Later, I found out that they only had one type of pizza, Hawaiian, and that it sucked. Drunk and happy, we arrived back at Amos' place. Luckily I had on my glow-in-the-dark bracelets, so I was sure I didn't get lost. Amos said that the glow was brighter than his LED screen on his alarm clock. Thank goodness for those bracelets or I might still be lost :).
Waking up with definitely tough the next morning, but we were troopers and set out for the Pike Place Market.
Margaret's friend lives on the outskirts of Seattle and was meeting us at the Market. While waiting, we got to see some fish fly! It was mostly already packaged up, but I guess watching food being thrown is still delightful. We also took this opportunity to take a picture with the Golden Pig at the Market.
Margaret's friend, Chris, finally made it! We were off to get some cheese at Beecher's! We were told that this place has the best mac-n-cheese, so we just had to see for ourselves! Holy crap! This mac-n-cheese is awesome. I'm spoiled. No more Kraft for me! The cool thing about this place is that they make their own cheese, Flagship, in the store. It was pretty neat being able to watch them make the cheese. At one point, it got a little gross with all the curds, but the cheese was still really yummy. I actually ended up getting a tub of spreadable Honey Flagship!
We kept walked through the food side of the market and got some huge, tasty Rose Apples and Pike Place Market's famous donuts.
Chris and Margaret
After shopping the market, we walked over to the Underground Tour. Luckily, we were the last group to be able to make the 1:00pm tour!
Did you know that Seattle was originally built at sea level? What idiots. The streets would flood twice a day and the sewage went out into the ocean, but when it would flood, it would end up back onto the streets. Pretty nasty shit. There was also some stuff about a guy named Crapper that invented/brought flushable toilets into Seattle. The entire thing was built with gravity and very narrow shoots for the poop to go. At one point, the pressure built up so much that when someone went to pull the chain to flush, they were blown into the air and off their crapper. (This is all that I could remember from what the guy said).
Eventually, the town had to rebuild, but above sea level. They built the street first. So there were these tall streets with ladders on each side of the street so you could get from one sidewalk to the other (they hadn't build the sidewalks yet, so they were still at sea level). Buildings that rebuilt would make two entrances, one on the ground floor (sea level) and one on the second floor. This way, when the sidewalks were on the same level as the road, then people could get into the shops.
Anyways, we were walking under side walks and doors that we underground were now the basement of buildings. I probably didn't explain it the best I could, because I'm not a story-teller, but if you're curious, look it up.
Underground
We also learned that on the sidewalks there are these purple glass tiles. But, when underground, it served as a skylight!
Once getting back onto the real streets of Seattle, we hit up Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. We just had to flash our bracelets from the tour to get a discount! woot woot! I met some interesting friends...
Unfortunately, our time in Seattle came to an end and we drove the four hours back to Spokane to prepare for our next adventure, Vancouver B.C!
