Weekend in Seattle

I don't think I've ever been on a connecting flight to/from Toronto that has left on time. Our flight from Toronto to Seattle was delayed for what felt like forever, as we waited on the tarmac. "Never start your vacation with Toronto," groaned my husband. I passed the time by reading Guillermo del Toro's The Strain, which, in case you were wondering, is a book that begins with everyone dying on a plane while waiting on the tarmac.

Eventually we arrived in the magical land of Seattle, a city I haven't been to in seven years. I also hadn't been in the United States in a year and a half since my last vacation in Portland - perhaps subconsciously we were trying to avoid the chaos of the American election campaigns (and also the weak Canadian dollar). Maybe it was because we arrived in the middle of the night, but America felt like a foreign country again, with its weird incomprehensible measurements in miles and Fahrenheit, and startlingly simply signs that did not have any French translations.

I wondered if we'd find any good coffee?

We checked into the City Hostel, which oddly enough has the same logo as the fascist villain organization Hydra from Marvel Comics. It also had pretty but unusual mural art on the walls. And seagulls that screeched like monkeys outside our window in an otherwise quiet alley.

Downtown was, as my resident friend E explained, filled with waddling midwesterners waiting for their cruises to Alaska to start. Seattle's waterfront has a decidedly industrial look to it. It's a major shipping spot, shipping not just cruise customers but all sorts of goods. Amazon, after all is based here.

 

Despite its industrial look, Seattle is brimming with amazing restaurants, bars, breweries, and every hip thing that a young person could ask for. Its arts news publication The Stranger advertised artisanal marijuana edibles and a talk by Carrie Brownstein at the Seattle Art Fair. Also a workshop on cannabis and sex, and how to incorporate cannabis lube products, a topic I have never been curious about before, and to be honest, still am not. But Dan Savage lives here. If you don't want to go to a Hemp Fest, you can go to his Hump Fest. If you're not into any of that, there are the punk record stores, or the famous monorail that doesn't seem to go anywhere useful. Pretty impressive for a city of some 650,000 - even smaller than Ottawa!

Oh yeah, and the International DOTA championships were happening here that weekend. What wasn't happening in Seattle?

Chewing gum alley: the most disgusting tourist attraction ever

Outside was refreshing cool, a lovely 20 degrees compared to the 40 humidex Ottawa has been dealing with. It was nice to be able to put on a pair of jeans again with feeling like I was going to melt with sweat Seattle's weather seems to be a running joke with the city - they even have a restaurant called Damn the Weather. But we didn't mind. Even though it would sometimes rain without warning, it was refreshlingly cool, the perfect weather for us.

We explored the Pike Place Market, a tourist staple for Seattle. The fish market was particularly fascinating. So many different kinds of fish I had never seen before, and some of them of unbelievable sizes. We saw the famous singing seafood vendors, singing their orders while they threw their fish across the stands to package for their customers. I stared wide-eyed at the enormous monkfish...and screamed when its jaw suddenly started flapping! The vendor was teasing me by making it move.

And of course, we found some coffee. The first Starbucks coffee location ever opened in fact. There were long lines around the block to get into the shop. We waited, because we're suckers, and ordered the Pike Place reserve blend. We watched in fascination as they individually dripped each order (which may partly explain the long lines). I apologized to the barista for taking a photo, as the whole preparation method seemed like quite the spectacle. "That's okay," she said cheerily. "I'm wearing new lipstick today."

"What the heck is this line for?" I heard a Korean tourist ask her friend in Korean.

We also enjoyed the Starbucks Roastery. It was just nice to sit and relax while watching the hypnotic motions of the roasting machines, stirring the beans, pushing them through the pneumatic tubes across the room. I'm not a coffee connoisseur but I like watching people make things that they are passionate about. It certainly looked like sorcery, the mysterious chemical process that the baristas busily worked on. I don't get it. But it was tasty.

 

Perhaps fuelled by too much coffee, I had strange dreams that night, prompted by the sounds of the street below. Saturday night crowds yelling drunkenly while they spilled out of the bar at closing time; some restaurant employee apparently disposing of an entire China plate set. And the seagulls.

Sunday morning we woke up to the usual screeching of seagulls that serve as Seattle's rooster wake up call and there was a mysterious pile of poo on the sidewalk outside our hostel. It mystified me. Couldn't possibly be human...or at least just one human. How did it get there? Who left it there?

We decided to check out the famous EMP Museum, housed in the impressive architectural complex designed by Frank Gehry. The building was somewhat controversial when it first went up, but I find it fascinating that it seems bigger than the eye can handle. There are so many parts to it, and because of its enormous size, you can't really see all of it at once.

I also really liked the musical playground that was outside the EMP, and spent a lot of time playing on the musical structures, probably a lot longer than a grown woman without children should be on a playground.

The museum itself also had a lot of awesome stuff. Exhibits about Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, as well as a guitar gallery. An interactive poll collected people's votes on the best breakup song (The Pokémon theme song was in the lead for some reason). It also had a jam session exhibit, where you could play around on guitars, keyboards, and drums, which was pretty exciting until I remembered that I have those things at home. There was a cool fashion exhibit called "WEARABLEART" which, I am told, is "wearable art" and not "wear a bleart" like I had read it.

Upon our friends' recommendations, we did the Seattle Underground Tour, where we learned all about Seattle's "underground" history. Did you know, for example, that the original downtown Seattle was burned down in a fire that was started by a mistake by an apprentice who probably felt like a total goof after all that? It was fascinating to wander through the bowels of Seattle.

We finished the evening having drinks with my friend E, who moved back to Seattle after we had both gone to the University of Amsterdam together for a semester.  We met up at Jarrbar, a cute bar in a converted garage in the Pike Place Market strip. It was pretty much my ideal kind of bar, perfect for people watching, offering cheap drinks and snacks, playing Washed Out on the stereo and The Fifth Element on the TV screen. It just felt so very Seattle.

In the end, Rob and I agreed that we had a hard time figuring out whether we liked Portland or Seattle better. Clearly the American Northwest suits us well, and we'll just have to spend more time here.

 

special lady day

I decided that one day of my holiday would be devoted to having the perfect day: doing nothing but things that I enjoy and pampering myself. Ideally this would have happened on my birthday, but since my birthday falls on a holiday and everything is closed, I picked another random day instead.  I was going to have the perfect day. I was not going to change out of my pyjamas.

It started off with...a trip to the dentist. Okay, so maybe that was not quite how I would have planned it, but that was the only time slot that my dentist could fit me in, and, well, oral hygiene is important. Also, at least I could have a chai tea at one of the fanciest hotels in Ottawa, bizarrely located in the middle of an industrial park in the Silicon Valley of the North, Kanata. In my pyjamas.

I then moved on with the rest of my Special Lady day, working out at the gym. This may not sound like a special treat for some people, but it felt great for me to go for a run, seeing how the only treadmill in Cambridge Bay has been broken for a year and it's too cold to run outside.

Afterwards, I enjoyed a breakfast sandwich and a latte at Quitters Coffee in Stittsville, served to me by the owner Kathleen Edwards, a musician I very much admire. Recently she quit music to open up this lovely coffeeshop. It's a lovely venue, with the new Beck album playing on the speakers as she chatted up her clients and talked about her plans for the shop in the future.

And then I was off to the best part of my day: Le Nordik in the quaint village of Chelsea, Quebec. This is one of my favourite places to be. It's a spa that is partially located outdoors, so you can soak in a hot tub while enjoying the beautiful forest scenery of the Quebec countryside.

But first I had to get there. This was a bigger challenge than I expected, as in the years I have moved away from Ottawa, I have apparently forgotten how to drive to Quebec.  This happens, I suppose, after a few years of living in a community that only has a handful of roads. But eventually I found my way to the spa and allowed myself to be lost in the wonderful bliss that is Le Nordik.

Of course, by the time I got to the change room of the spa, I realized I had forgotten my bathing suit.  But dammit, I was going to make this work, and ended up wearing my sports bra instead.

I tried out the saltwater pool, which has enough salt content that people can just float in it, like a sensory deprivation tank. I floated in it, willing my mind to transition into a state of mindful relaxation, where you notice and accept without judgment the sensations that your body feels (like the urge to scratch your butt).   Sometimes, if you want to keep your mind from wandering, it helps to concentrate on a mantra (like My Sharona...M-m-m-m-My My My, Woo!)

After the salt water pool, I moved to the regular water circuits. The general routine is to do hot, cold, rest, hot cold rest.  For me, that was hot (eucalyptus steam room), cold (standing under icicle-lined waterfalls), wine. Hot (sitting in lotus position in the earth sauna), cold (running through the snow), massage.  My Swedish massage in the massage cabin was heavenly. The French woman worked my hips and back which made a bunch of emotions bubble up from deep down inside, causing me to compose a poem in my mind during the masage and then immediately forgetting it as I dozed off.  Basically, Le Nordik is a wonderful place with many places to doze off.

 

a game of Starbucks

It's 30 degrees out, I'm at work feeling sleepy, and I'm craving a Starbucks ice coffee. There's actually free coffee in our office kitchen, which is more generous than my last job when I worked for the Canadian government (we don't want to be wasting your Canadian tax dollars on that), but what I'm craving is a Starbucks ice coffee.

This may surprise you, but there are no Starbucks in Windhoek. Or Namibia. or southern Africa. In fact, they don't really do coffee to go here, which I theoretically applaud (down with disposable fast food culture!) and realistically deplore ("i need coffee NOW! to go!"). I've managed to survive three months without McDonalds, four months without Korean ramen noodles, five months without chajangmyun, but it looks like I'm going to have to go the full seven months stretch without a Frappucino. Unless...

Starbucks' store locator says, "There's probably a Starbucks coffeehouse near you."

I asked, "Where is the closest Starbucks to me?"

Starbucks' store locator didn't know. Wikipedia says there are Starbucks in Morocco, but Starbucks' store locator didn't agree. South Africa only carries some brands in their hotels, and Google Maps does not want to show me how to get from Cairo to Namibia.

So we have Dubai.





1. 21,000 kilometres, 19 countries, 359 Google direction steps

2. Through Italy.

I guess I'll go and put some ice cubes in my office instant coffee now.

i don't know why, but i actually seem to blog about starbucks a lot.

starbucks in amsterdam

amsterdam got its first Starbucks about a month ago. actually, other than the one in Schipol Airport, I'm pretty sure it's one of the first Starbucks to open in Holland. it was pretty great to watch. The Dutch people were really excited about it, with lineup extending out the door and wrapping around the store. the newly-trained barristas were nervous, and you could see them silently begging you not to order a complicated drink ("Americano? i can do Americano!"). it was fun to see all the excitement about it.

still...Douglas Coupland calls McDonald the Taint, but i really think Starbucks is "The Taint" in Europe. Europeans generally make good coffee - they don't need a Starbucks. sure, back at home in suburban Canada, i'll willingly drive to the Starbucks and pay five bucks for a fancy espresso drink just for the hip atmosphere and to have a decent cup of coffee, but that's because regular North American coffee sucks and you have to pay the extra to get the reliably good coffee, at Starbucks. In Europe, you can get a damn good cup of coffee even at a bar. there's no need for the Starbucks here, except maybe to promote the North American idea of "coffee to go" (a concept that Europe is still just learning). But i thoroughly disapprove of the Americanization of Europe, even though it might be inevitable. Fight, europe! Fight! Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Do not go gentle into that good night!

McDonalds, on the other hand, are already a dime a dozen around here. My favourite McDonalds snack in Amsterdam? Bitterballen.