During my little vacay to Seattle, I learned a number of interesting facts:
Only tourists use umbrellas. Apparently Seattlites don’t feel it rains hard enough to warrant it.
The best bookstore in Seattle, Elliott Bay Book Company, has an awesome used book section!
Seattle was basically founded on the money of seamtresses. And when I say seamstresses I mean prostitutes. Since the city didn’t want to tax prostitutes (doing so would have legitimized them), they taxed them as seamstresses since that’s what the women had listed as their occupation for the census anyway.
Speaking of which, the cute “Legalize Frostitution” t-shirt that I bought from café/bakery Cupcake Royale in Ballard is often mistaken as reading something else. BTW, CR’s salted caramel cupcake is divine.
The peak viewing time to watch salmon swim upstream to spawn is from July through mid-August. This can best be viewed at the Ballard Locks.
Google Maps directions and Seattle street signs don’t often match up. Best to actually map out the directions yourself on a map.
I don’t know what this says about coffee in Seattle but the best tasting brew we found was actually the original Starbucks’ Pike Place Roast at Pike Place Market, which seems to be extremely popular with Japanese tourists. Favorite pose: Stand in front of counter holding up your coffee cup (logo facing away from camera) and smile broadly.
Wearing a hat, gloves and a puffy jacket with a faux-fur trim on the hood during 40-degree weather makes locals question why you’re so “bundled up.”
There’s an awesome food tour ($39 +tax) through the Pike Place Market where you can walk and sample all the goodies in the area like hand-made cheese, clam chowder, smoked salmon and regional wine.
The underground city tour guides are actually a lot more interesting than the places they show you. Their stories make you appreciate the condemned underground walkways, bringing to life Old Seattle where it seems people have abandoned old mattresses and doors.
This made me wonder what sorts of lessons tourists have taken away from Los Angeles. What’s neat/weird about us? I know when I first moved here, I thought it was weird that people didn’t let each other in when merging in traffic and no one really opens the door for you here.