And I'm back! FINALLY!

OK, so that whole "blog through our vacation" thing didn't work out so well this time. Really, it was for a number of reasons:

1) Our internet access was somewhat limited. We had a few connectivity problems in Seattle, and then in San Francisco, the hotel wanted to charge us $12.95/day for internet access. And that sooo wasn't going to happen.

2) We were sooo busy. We really worked ourselves quite hard this vacation. Lots of places to go, things to see, etc. so when we were back at the house or hotel, I spent my time relaxing instead of blogging.

3) We forgot our camera cord, so we weren't even able to transfer photos. Whoops.

4) Quite frankly, I was lazy about it. I guess it was kind of nice to take a break from it in a lot of ways. Now, however, I'm sort of regretting it. SO MUCH TO CATCH UP ON!!

I ask you to bear with me this week, as I'm going to attempt to go back and recap our vacation day by day. You'll (hopefully) see lots of back-dated posts from me over the next few days. So, if you read through a reader of some sort, the posts should pop up for you as normal. But if you read right here on my blog, you'll want to scroll down past this post for the next few days to see my vacation updates. I'm going to do my best to get caught up as soon as possible, but my dad gets into town for a visit tomorrow, so I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have. We'll see how it goes!

To give you a very short overview, we had a wonderful time, but we found that it was more of a "go-go-go" vacation instead of a truly relaxing one. Of course, we enjoyed not having to cook, or clean, or do any of the daily grind things--so in a lot of ways, it WAS relaxing--but I'll admit that the last couple of days in San Francisco? Completely exhausting. We sort of hit a wall.

We took the red-eye home this morning, and needless to say, we didn't get a lot of sleep. Today, we are zombies. We're hoping this helps us avoid any kind of West-to-East-Coast jetlag, because it's back to work tomorrow.

Anyway, did ya miss me?! ;)

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Ride the Ducks

Today, it was back down to the Space Needle. This time, for a Ride the Ducks tour. :)

Sure, it was cheesy. And totally, completely touristy. But you know what? It was also a lot of fun. We probably should have started our trip to Seattle this way, instead of ending it, but I digress.

Here are some of the things we saw along the way...

Pier 70. This is where "The Real World: Seattle" was filmed. The "seven strangers" lived here. This was back in the day when I still watched The Real World, so that was sorta cool.

This is Edgewater Hotel. The Beatles stayed here back in their heyday, and apparently caused a huge ruckus. The hotel had to build a tall fence around the whole property, just to try to keep out the crazy fans. Also, there is a famous photo of them fishing through a hotel window (I can't seem to find the photo, what the hell? Damn you, Google Images!), and that was taken here. Kind of interesting.

We went past Safeco Field (Mariners) and Quest Field (Seahawks). And you just know we loved the football part.

Looks like a silly car wash, right? WRONG. When Elvis was filming "It Happened at the World's Fair" in Seattle in the 1960s, he had his pink cadillac washed here EVERY DAY. Also? This is the only car wash in Seattle that is certified to wash presidential (yes, that's President of the United States!) vehicles. Too funny.

A nice view of Lake Union.

Of course, we had an even better view of Lake Union once the Duck actually took us out ONTO Lake Union. Here is Gasworks Park, viewed from the water.


One (or both?) of these ships is apparently featured on "Deadliest Catch."

Here was the highlight of my Duck Tour! The floating house featured in Sleepless in Seattle! Oh, how I love that movie. Sam and Jonah Baldwin lived here. ;)


A sea plane took off right over us.

Back near the Duck base, this is the building that is apparently used for many of the exterior shots on Grey's Anatomy. I'll have to pay more attention next time I watch.

After it was over, we snapped a few more photos of our truck. Boat. Duck. Whatever.

We then headed back to Christy and Mike's to relax a little bit before dinner. Christy, Mike, and Cameron took us out to a place called Arnie's on the Puget Sound. It was really good, and it was a nice way to spend our last night in Seattle.

A ferry leaving from essentially right next door to the restaurant.

Back at Christy and Mike's, we had to snap a few pictures of Bear, their monster German Shephard. During our time here, he liked to bark at us, which was admittedly a little intimidating at first (he's HUGE!), but he is really a sweet dog. We're sad to leave him, because I think he is just now getting used to us! :)

Our flight to San Francisco is at noon tomorrow, which is nice since we don't have to get up too early. Seattle has been good to us, but we're off on our next adventure!

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Space Needle & EMP

After the exhausting day we had yesterday, we took our time getting out of the house this morning. Another overcast day. What a shocker.

On our agenda? The Space Needle.

Self-portrait with the Needle. To get this, it took about 5 tries. :)

Despite the less-than-ideal weather, we decided to fork over the dough to go to the observation deck.

The view was still pretty cool, but it could have been better. We couldn't even see the mountains!

The sun did peek out a few times.

We spent a good portion of time up there, just enjoying the view. I also read up on the history and construction of the Needle, which I had forgotten since my last visit. It really is quite fascinating!

When we put our feet back on solid ground, we decided to grab Subway for lunch and take it up Queen Anne's Hill to eat overlooking the city in Kerry Park.

Pretty cool view of the skyline, huh?

After that, we decided to head back down into the city and check out the Science Fiction Museum (SFM) and the Experience Music Project (EMP). You pay one fee to get into both places, so we took advantage and checked them both out.

The SFM had some pretty cool sci-fi paraphernalia. We're not really that into sci-fi, but it was fun to see some of the more mainstream things, like say... the Ninja Turtles! They also have a special Jim Henson exhibit going on right now, so there were lots of Sesame Street characters, Muppets, and FRAGGLE ROCK (my favorite!).

We made our way over to the EMP, and ran into this really cool guitar sculpture-thingy:

They have a lot of space dedicated to Seattlite Jimi Hendrix, so that was interesting. Lots and lots and lots of guitars in there, too. The exhibit displaying the history/evolution of the electric guitar was cool.

Our favorite part, though? The playground!

OK, so it's not really a playground. But it felt like one.

They have all of these sound-proof booths set up that you can go into and play around with instruments. Drums, keyboards, guitars, even just microphones for singing. In the microphone/singing booth, they have a system set up where you can play around with different effects on your voice. There was one that made me sound like I was possessed by a demon, especially when I laughed. It was awesome.

We could have stayed here and played for HOURS, but we were running out of time on our parking, so we decided to call it a day.

So that we weren't trying to drive home in rush hour traffic, we had asked Christy for restaurant recommendations downtown. She also polled some people at work, and everyone came back and told us to go to Benihana. Sounded fun, so we decided to give it a go.

We loved it! I had actually never been to a Japanese restaurant at all, let alone one where they cook all the food in front of you at your table. I had obviously heard about it, just had never been. Anyway, our chef was entertaining, and the food was delicious. Mine was HOT (spicy, not temperature), though. Holy hell. The chef asked me, on a scale of 1 to 5, how hot I wanted my dish. I generally like spicy food, so I figured it'd be safe to go with a 3. It was SO GOOD, but it was right at the threshold of what I can handle in terms of heat. Dear lord. So, word to the wise: GO WITH A LEVEL 2. :) It took a few hours for my mouth to regain all of its feeling.

Afterward, someone told us that Benihana is actually a chain restaurant. Who knew?! We didn't; we don't have them at home. But hey, we really liked it, and it was new to us, so who cares, right? HA!

Once back home, we relaxed with Christy and Mike with a few drinks out on their patio.

And so ends another day in Seattle...

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Victoria

We were up bright and early this morning to get downtown to the Port of Seattle. We took the Victoria Clipper (a high-speed ferry) up to Victoria, British Columbia for a day trip. The ferry departed at 7:30 a.m.! Ooof!

The ride was about 3 hours each way, so it was a lot of time on the boat. The nice thing was that since it's not an airplane, we were able to use our "electronic devices" the entire way. Lots of texting, twittering, etc. Nice!

Here I am, showing off my Sea Bands. I'm not especially prone to motion sickness, but I have experienced a bit of it (mainly headaches) on boats before, so I wore them as a precaution. I was fine, except for when the boat was bobbing up and down while we were waiting for everyone to board and depart. Ick. Once the motor was running and we were moving, I was fine.

We arrived in Victoria around 10:30 a.m., and stepped out into the glorious sunshiny day. Here's a photo of the Clipper and all of the passengers waiting in line to get through customs. But we were outside, so who cares?

As I said: Glorious.

We made it through customs really quickly, actually. We did have a casualty, though. The customs officer confiscated our two wonderfully tasty, sweet Fuji apples we had picked up from Safeway the day before. :( Bastards. Those guys probably ate them for lunch!

Once through customs, we set off on foot to go find the scooter rental place. We figured it would be a fantastic way to learn our way around Victoria, so riding the scooters was first up on our agenda. We found it quickly, and within 20 minutes, we were off!

Neither of us had ever driven scooters before, so it was interesting at first. Due to my questionable turning capabilities (at first), I almost ran into a car during my "practice run" around the parking lot. Thankfully, the learning curve was short and I figured it out quickly.

Since we really had no idea where we were going, we just started driving aimlessly. Then, we decided we wanted to drive to the outer coast (not far, but definitely not within walking distance). Before we knew it, we found an area on the coast that had a fantastically long pier to walk down. We parked the scooters and took a stroll.

View from the pier, looking inland. There was a cruise ship docked there.

Once we were done there, we got back on the scooters and headed back to downtown Victoria.

We stopped in Chinatown for a bit...

And even stopped for a quick jaunt (mostly just to take pictures) down the world's most narrow street (Fan Tan Alley).

It really is a "street." There are shops and restaurants back there!

Then we just drove... and drove... and drove. We ended up in some suburbs, and got a little lost finding our way back. It was fun, though. We eventually tired of riding on the scooters (we had them for 3 hours!), and decided to return them.

By this time, we were starving, so we walked up to a pub (Darcy's Pub, to be specific) we had seen during our travels. The food was delicious, the beer hit the spot, and the view was fabulous.

While eating, we were sitting down in that little table area on the left. We got to watch sea planes take off and land throughout our meal.

After lunch/dinner, we decided to just walk around, explore, and take photos.

We eventually ended up at "The Original Christmas Shop," which was literally chock-full of Christmas stuff. Heaven on Earth, if it wasn't JUNE. But hey, it was still kind of cool to see.

I managed to snap a couple of photos before we were informed there are "no photos allowed" in there.

We spent the last hour or so sitting on a park bench overlooking the water. We were exhausted. We had to head back to the Clipper at around 6:00 p.m. to check in, and the boat left at 7:00. We didn't get back to Seattle and through customs until after 10:00! Needless to say, we need sleep. We're totally sleeping in tomorrow!

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Pike Place & Seattle Underground

This morning, we woke up to overcast weather. Welcome to Seattle!

It was supposed to burn off in the afternoon, but we saw very little sun today. Bummer. But you know... it wasn't raining. For that, we are grateful.

After a little breakfast and showers, we headed right on down to Pike Place Market to wander around.
I've been before, but Pike Place is a must, no matter how many times you've been to Seattle!

Everything is just so amazing. Especially the flower and produce displays.

Check out all of those colorful fruit and vegetables!

Of course, we spent a good chunk of time standing at the fish market, watching dudes throw fish. If you've never been, you'd be surprised at what a crowd smelly fish guys attract. It's quite entertaining. I got a couple of good "catch" photos, but didn't get any decent ones of the actual throwing. With so many people, it was difficult to get good angles. Up above, see that blurry fish flying through the air?

And here's a good one of a catch.

The fish guys hard at work. They were go-go-go the whole time.

After Pike Place, we drove down the street a little ways and decided to check out the Seattle Underground Tour.

But first, we took pics of this cool-looking building. So... green!

We arrived at the Underground Tour headquarters just as a tour was about to start. Perfect timing on our part. If you're unfamiliar with the "Seattle Underground"... basically, Seattle used to be about 20 ft. lower than it currently is. Back in the 1800s, because of its elevation, the city apparently dealt with a number of problems, including sewage issues (ewwwww). When the city burnt to the ground due to a large fire in the late 1800s, the decision was made to "raise" the city before it was rebuilt.

All of the buildings in this historic area of Seattle have these really old basements that used to be the first floors of all the buildings. Some of the underground areas beneath the streets and buildings have essentially been kept "as is" and are open for tours. The tour was pretty cool, but I was sort of disappointed in what there is to actually see. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting; I just know I was expecting a lot more. Most of the stuff under there was lacking in authenticity, I thought. There are several signs, rooms, etc. set up and I just didn't quite believe that all of it was real. The tour guides are really knowledgeable, though, and the story-telling part of it was pretty fascinating.

Here's Michael at an old bar area that is set up underground.

One of the original sewer pipes. Yes, they used wood. You can imagine how effective that was. Sure, elevation played a role, but the wood pipes were certainly a factor in their sewage issues as well.

After the Underground Tour, we decided to drive to my house. Well, it's not mine anymore.

I was born in Seattle and lived here until I was 6 years old. And this was my house. My mom and dad bought it without the top floor on it. My dad (I believe he had some help) built the addition (the entire top floor) on it after they moved in, among other work he did to it. The house looks a lot different now. The deck used to be enclosed with lattice, and the siding used to be a different color. And the current landscaping is pretty amazing (no offense to my parents!).

But you know what? My dad's name is still carved into the cement slab outside of the garage. It was filled with dirt and is faded (I'm sure the cement has eroded a bit), but I found it.

The house is now owned by a retired couple, and they were both out working in the yard (hence the amazing landscaping). We talked to them for a while about the house and the area. It was pretty cool. They even let us walk through the bottom level real quick, and it was weird! I was young, but I have plenty of memories of that house. It's strange to see the inside as someone else's home.

This is technically the front of the house. This is one part of the house that looks wayyyy different from when my family lived there. That small deck/porch wasn't there. And um, again... the landscaping. Not there. In fact, there was a pretty big incline right around this area that my brothers and I used to ride our bikes down. We'd fly down it on our Big Wheels. It doesn't look like that would be NEARLY as much fun now. :)

Anyway, this wasn't my first time back at the house (I visited once before, about 10 years ago), but it's always interesting to visit the past. We haven't lived in that house since 1988!

The only level of elementary school that I attended in Seattle was kindergarten. And I used to walk (yes, as a kindergartner. this was the 80s, people!) to school with a bunch of neighborhood kids. I was pretty sure I remembered how to get there. So after we left the house, we drove in the direction I believed the school was in. Turns out I was right, and we found it.

Sadly, it's now closed. I guess they do hold some sort of preschool/special ed classes there, but it's no longer an elementary school. It looked rundown. But I was able, again, to do a bit of reminiscing. My dad took my training wheels off my bike and taught me how to ride a 2-wheeler on the paved part of that playground.

After the blast from the past, it was about dinner time, so we headed back to the house to have dinner with Mike, Christy, and Cameron. We spent the evening relaxing with a few beers and watching a movie (Gran Torino, which was good, but I did fall asleep for a while in the middle of it. I was still adjusting to the new timezone!).

Tomorrow, we're getting up really early to get down to the Port of Seattle. We're off to British Columbia for the day! We're taking the Victoria Clipper up there. It should be another day full of activity...

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