Day 13 - Seattle

Dan and Katie (with whom we were staying) had the day off work so the four of us went into downtown Seattle for a spot of sightseeing. First stop, was the famous Space Needle. The tickets were a bit on the pricey side but it's not like you have much choice if you want to see Seattle from above. The 360 panorama was impressive, with a good view of the downtown skyscrapers and Mount Rainer in the distance. Despite being 85 miles or so away the mountain still looms over the rest of the skyline.

We had lunch at a sandwich bar called The Three Sisters, founded in 1912 it is the oldest business in the Pike Place Market and as you'd expect from a 95 year old business the sandwiches and chowder were pretty damn good. Just around the corner was the first ever Starbucks, where Amy obviously had to get a coffee. It tasted just like every other Starbucks.

The main part of the afternoon was taken up with a tour of the Seattle Underground. An explanation of which requires some back story... Back in 19th century Seattle had been built on a tide plain - this caused obvious problems when the tide came in, namely water sloshing through the streets and sewage pipes backing up, as well as some less obvious ones such as sinking horses. Knocking down all the buildings wasn't an option so instead the solution was to raise the street level in between. For several years the authorities proceeded to raise the streets by as much as 32 feet, but left all the 'sidewalks' at the same level. The result of this being that to cross the road involved climbing up and descending ladders - hardly convenient. Once the streets had been completed, struts were placed between the street and buildings and the sidewalks were covered over, with various stairways down into the now covered lower level - or as it's commonly known, the Seattle underground.

Nowadays the underground is only open for sightseeing (although for a long time it became home to opium dens, brothels and all manner of dubious activities - not to mention all the homeless folk looking for shelter), making for an interesting 90 minute tour. As ever the tour guides appeared to have consumed a large amount of sugar immediately beforehand, surely nobody can be that enthusiastic on a daily basis?

We spent the evening back in Kirkland, the suburb where Dan and Katie live, ending up quite by chance in a slightly snobby looking Peruvian restaurant. Amy, Katie and I went for a variety of tapas dishes while Dan, who seemed slightly dubious of the whole situation, played safe and went for a stew-like dish. This turned out to be a mistake - a couple of minutes after the food arrived Dan's face fell, I think his exact words were "There's a bird in here.... it's got a beak". The 'safe' option wasn't so safe after all.

Aside from that the food was excellent, I think Dan still enjoyed his stew once he'd got over the shock and every bit of tapas was enormously tasty. We even ended up ordering seconds of several dishes.

From the restaurant we wandered down to the marina, flukily arriving just in time to see the beautiful sunset. That's definitely one advantage of being on the west coast.