wa: day 5

today was seattle day.

my aunt and i left the house at 9:30am and headed out to catch the 10:30 ferry to seattle. derek's right.. ferries are awesome. it's a half hour trip on a boat with a full cafeteria, bathrooms, tables.. best way to commute. i just stood on the front like the awe-struck tourist that i am snapping away for the majority. mt rainier and mt baker on either side of the puget sound, with all of the seattle skyline straight ahead. gorgeous.

in the city, if it was a tourist attraction, i was there. we stopped in a few gift shops on the road right off the ferry and i picked up a few little things. we headed to the pike place market which i found easiest to describe as a craft show that.. never closes. it was amazing. full market with fresh fish, fresh produce, the most amazing colors i've ever seen. SO much fish. the whole market in general: a vegan's worst nightmare.

we walked around for a bit to get the full effect before heading to a bakery across the street for lunch. it happened to be next to the very [second] starbucks. (as it turns out, the very first burned down a long time ago.) needless to say, this bakery had one of the best cups of coffee i've ever had. no, i didn't have starbucks in seattle, though there was one on nearly every block.

next, we headed up to the monorail to shoot down to the space needle. monorail = cooler than the t; sorry, boston. the space needle is pretty self-explanatory. observation deck, entire city, all sports fields, puget sound, everything in between. obviously, an amazing view. oh, and i accidentally found "seattle grace." that was kind of exciting. the outside of the hospital is actually their nbc news studio building (k5). surprise.

after that, a few more touristy places - it was gorgeous and an amazing day to spend walking around the city - and then spent some time in the emp. without the pictures, it's harder to go into. it was a cool music museum, though. if you click the link, you'll see it's also a sci-fi museum; we didn't go into that part.

for dinner, we went to cheesecake factory. my aunt had never been before.

we were back on the ferry by 8:20 and headed back. as you may or may not be able to tell from my broken-up, somewhat monotone entry, i'm way beyond wiped. the pictures will say more than i can, but unfortunately, i don't believe my mac will be usable for the rest of the trip. i'm gonna go read and pass the f--- out.