vacation: Seattle, Washington
We grabbed some crepes to go from Cafe Crepe, before making the “two hour” trip to Seattle. I put two hours in quotes, because the wait at the border crossing added over an hour to the length of the journey, putting us into Seattle at around 1pm and very very hungry for lunch. Luckily, our hotel was only a block away from Pike’s Market, where we were sure to get something interesting and tasty.
Pike’s Place Market can only be described as overwhelming. On a blue sky, dry weather, hot Saturday afternoon, it was crawling with locals and tourists. There were flower sellers and local artisans, none of which we were interested in. We wanted the food, and we wanted it now. Still, it was hard to pass up the local shops offering free samples. We ended up buying chocolate covered cherries and fresh pasta, before making it to lunch.
Lunch was some fresh and peppery clam chowder and a searing hot lamb sausage on a bun covered in wine Dijon mustard. Sounds gourmet, and it was, but it was cheap, a combination we always appreciate. I was reminded of our adventures in the Nouveau Beaujolais fair out in France, where you could get a fresh sausage skewered in a baguette or a platter of fresh goat cheese for only a few Euro. It was fair food the way fair food should be.
The market was getting too crowded and too overwhelming. I wanted to make my way down to Spanish Table, but we kept getting lost, having to fight our way through people taking pictures of guys throwing fish.
We love feeling part of something amazing, like the sunset over Vancouver bay, but there is definitely a point when you feel the ratio of tourists to locals have tipped the scales and that is when we just want to get as far away as possible. This was a feeling that had actually brought me to tears in Rome, something that pushed us into the back alleys, skipping from wine bar to wine bar until we felt back immersed in a world we could love.
Our moment of love for Seattle came again in the back alleys. We happened accidentally upon the best spice shop in the city, one that offered anything you could imagine whole and fresh, one that supplied every restaurant in the city. I skipped around ordering the weirdest stuff that smelled awesome and I had never seen before, and best of all I was ordering it whole, because Tom had bought me a spice grinder for my birthday.
The guy behind the counter looked at our list, pondered my question about the location of the Spanish Table, and assumed we were from Seattle. When we informed him we were from “out of town”, it was hard for him to accept. He just kept repeating, but the way you ordered the spices, and you asked about the Spanish Table, how do you know about the good places? The way the guy was inquiring, Tom admitted, well, we do some normal stuff too. “Have you seen them throwing fish?” the guy asks. Tom and I look at each other and laugh, yeah, we got away from there as quickly as possible.
Tom and I like to go off the beaten path more often than not. And we did go up in the Space Needle in Seattle, but only after the Sci-Fi museum closed early for winter hours (perhaps the saddest miscalculation on my point). Some famous things cannot and should not be avoided, like a boat ride in Venice or the view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower, but some of the most moments of all of our vacations come off the beaten path.
Things may change, someday, when we have children. But I still like to think that I will find those strange things, those unique experiences only now for my kids to enjoy.
We snacked before dinner at a pintxo bar called Txori. The offer mini tapas from Basque country, sardines in goat cheese cones and stuffed squid in its own ink. The stop was motivated slightly by a growing desire to visit Spain and Portugal. I figure if I get him excited enough, it might be our next trip 
For dinner we taxied out to Lark, sharing plates of various foods, but most memorable was our first taste of Sweetbreads, which when fried up and covered in sauce tasted like super fatty and chewy sweet and sour pork.
We ended our journey there in Seattle, having drinks at the bar in Pike’s Market, talking about our experiences with the bartender. We had come from the highest mountains and desolate forests to packed cities brimming with nightlife and community. It was an amazing adventure.
The End… tomorrow we return home.
RECENT WINES