Day 4 Gallery

This day had a lovely start. I could sense our shuttle driver this fine morning was a bit of a hippy, which definitely played to our favor. I asked her if she could take us by the Hendrix statue to snap some photos on our way to our actual destination, Pike Market. Her exact words, “anything for Jimi.” Score. So we got to talking about music, and she was telling us about all the people that were from Seattle. Then she was struck by a major brain fart, as she tried to think of Ray Charles’ producer’s name. She phoned her father out of pure frustration:

Lady: Good morning, Dad. Did I wake you up?

Dad: Nah…I was just on the toilet

*laughter erupts throughout the minivan*

Dad: umm who’s all there???

Lady: oooh Dad, i should have prefaced this conversation with “I have you on speakerphone so don’t talk about going to the toilet.” Luckily, these ladies all have a good sense of humor, and I’m sure they’ve all been to the toilet before too.

Dad: Oh my

Lady: Dad, I’m red as I’m sure you are too but I have a question I need you to answer. Who produced Ray Charles?

Dad: Quincy Jones *resounding “ohhh” from the minivan*

It took her about 5 minutes before she could continue the conversation…we were all laughing so terribly hard. Once she regained her composure, I swear it was like a moment from who wants to be a millionaire…phone a friend. So she drops us at the market, and no more than 15 seconds later, mom says, “oh shit!” and starts running after the minivan. The woman was responsible for TWO things and left one in the van. *sigh* Jenna & I decided it was useless for all of us to get worn out running after the van, so we stood and watched and laughed. We saw someone stop mom as she was walking back for us. Yes, our hippy driver had seen her and stopped. Apparently, someone asked mom for directions, which Jenna & I found hilarious. “Yes, oh yes,” we said, “ask the touristy looking lady that’s chasing that minivan where we should go. She must know her way around.” hahaha oh the sis and I had some great sarcasm this trip. I wish I’d had a tape recorder and the camera out to capture mom’s ” *sigh* girls…” expression each time.

So yes, we experienced the market, which was neat but nothing too spectacular since I really didn’t need to buy anything. The bakeries nearby were quite enticing, however. We stopped at one later in the afternoon, and I had some croissant-type thing with walnuts. It was scrumptious! Nothing really beats some quality carbs. We hiked over to Pioneer Square to experience the Underground Tour. Now students, listen up, it’s time for your history lesson:

Back in the day, this dude & his family survived the trip to the west coast. The saw this lovely muddy area where not even any Indians had set up camp and thought, “oh, let’s build a town.” They did all the measuring and such, built the town during low tide…high tide came and oopsy, 2 foot of water everywhere in the town. Our bad, but hey let’s live like this for another 8 years. The day of the toilet aka crapper (named for the inventor) came along, so they built a lovely (wooden) sewage system that consisted of a single pipe running down the hill (most residents were up there…out of the water) that everyone tapped in to. It was balanced up above the streets, so that it wouldn’t flood. However, when high tide came in, it went in the end, so there was pressure from both ends. Basically, if you picked the wrong time of day to do your business, the toilet returned your present when you flushed. Thus, they printed the tide schedule in the paper. Well, finally, some man with half a brain decided the city would never prosper in its soggy state, so they raised the road up 30 feet. Yes, only the street. It brought a whole new meaning to where the sidewalk ends. There was a lovely ladder system to cross the street, and many lost their lives getting to the sidewalk. Why was this? The businessmen didn’t want to lose their storefronts and sidewalks. Eventually they built archways over the sidewalk, creating an underground sidewalk & store front of sorts, and thus, the underground was born.

We took a tour through 3 of the underground stores. It was fairly interesting, but it wasn’t as preserved as I’d hoped. Before taking that tour, however, the sis & i wondered around downtown a bit and checked out Elliott Bay Bookstore, which was lovely. While we were gone, it seems mom made a trucker friend. Apparently, him yelling at a homeless man to stop bathing in a drinking fountain spurred some conversation. We got to hear some interesting trucker stories. Not quite interesting enough to re-tell though. He was a good storyteller though.

We took a harbor cruise after that, during which my camera battery died and I cried. It’s my first negative about the camera. Once 1 bar is gone, it may as well show 3 bars gone and not fool me in to thinking it has lots of life left. It took well over 500 pics before dying though, so I was still proud of it. More of the stories from this part are in the photo captions. I’m tired and feeling lazy.

After the cruise, we stopped in some random store…it had an odd collection of freak animals in the back which were…umm freaky…some mermaid type creature, 2-headed calf, and some other creepy things that luckily didn’t give me nightmares.

We also stopped back my the market. A man was giving free samples of a pear, which my mom claimed to be the best tasting pear in the world, so she bought some fruit from them. While they were packing it up, some red-headed chap that works there starts talking to me:

Him: So do you know how to do the tootsie roll [I was wearing my tootsie roll shirt]?

Me: no, I’m not that cool

Him: oh, you look that cool

Me: heh thanks *hands me the bag of fruit*

Him: So are you paying?

Me: Nope, not my fruit *i pass on a free sample of a nectarine*

Him: You don’t eat fruit?

Me: Nope, I’m not that healthy either *he rambles about how fruit is good for you, etc…while i continue not caring*

so yeah, that was weird. as soon as we walk away, jenna starts teasing me…“ooh you look that cool” *sigh* i think he was like 17. it was amusing at least.

We walked by The Harbor Steps, which had this lovely Pi In The Sky sculpture. It was a gorgeous part of downtown. Lovely place to have your lunch for a break from the office I imagine.

We stopped at a bakery and barkery on our way to Pacific Place mall, where our pick-up was scheduled. We had to kill a lot of time there and it was completely unaffordable. We did work up the courage to go in to Tiffany’s though. I tried convincing Jenna we were under-dressed. The man with the wire thanked us for coming, while the snooty sales lady gave us judging glance up & down. Maybe she didn’t notice she was wearing gaudy red lipstick and an 80s hairdo before she left for work.

We finally made it back to our hotel, and we went to eat at a little Italian place called Bela Rosa.