Seattle

I was originally going to a concert in Seattle, the Billy Joel & Elton John concert - but a week before it was announced that it would be postponed as Elton was sick. We headed down to Seattle anyway, as we hadn't been there before. We drove down Saturday morning, and back Sunday late afternoon. Including time at the border, it's about 4 hours. The border crossing is pretty tedious - there was a lot of waiting around.

A lot of people go down to the US to shop for the weekend - things are quite a bit cheaper there and there is more selection. There is an outlet mall halfway between the border and Seattle, which we stopped at for a spot of shopping, and noticed that half the license plates were from BC, and half were from Washington! The funny thing is that there are dollar limits on what you can buy if you're only away for a short time - essentially if you're only away for 24 hours, you can legally only buy $40 worth of stuff. Which is of course, ridiculous. So most people wear their new stuff, and take off all the tags, so as not to be charged any duty.

Truth be told most of our time was spent shopping, but we did also go to the Pike Place Market - I couldn't wait to see the Pike Place Fish Market, which I'd learnt about at Flight Centre in NZ. The guys that work there are amazing - it's all about choosing your attitude, and they all love working there. The fun thing is that they put on this show, where they throw the fish around - if you look closely in the photo, at the top in the middle you can see the flying fish! It was fantastic to go here after learning about them a couple of years ago.

We also made our pilgrimage to the first ever Starbucks - it started in Seattle back in the 70's. They've kept the original logo at this branch, and the original signage, which has morphed a bit over time. We also discovered that NZ has more Starbucks than Australia.

Coffee culture is limited over here to Starbucks, and the Canadian equivalent, Blenz. It's not like at home, where you can get decent coffee most places. Even at places that do a decent brunch will come and pour your coffee out of a pot. There is another chain in Canada, called Tim Horton's, but they don't serve soy milk. They have a long way to go in the coffee area. Blenz is nice, but even they have big vats of coffee sitting there, which are very popular, and are just a "coffee". God knows how long it sits there for......

I also don't think they get the whole soy thing. Many's the time when I've ordered soy and ended up with a big dollop of whipped cream on top of my coffee. When I say something, they just scoop it out and you're left with the remnants........ good!