Seattle, with pride

Christina and I ended up in Seattle.

We were staying at Gig Harbor, about a 45 minute drive away from Seattle and got directions from her aunt, with whom we were staying. It was seemingly simple, straightforward. So we drove, and drove, screaming our favorite country music songs in the car as we went along. As we approach our exit, we notice that traffic is really backed up. We were marveling at the Space Needle when Christina noticed a flag on top. It is World Cup time, and I thought it looked like a German flag. Had the German community of Seattle gotten ahold of Space Needle and put their flag on top? We got a closer...and saw that the flag was striped, like the German flag, but not 3 stripes, and not the right colors, it was...rainbow striped.

We had just stumbled upon Seattle's Gay Pride Weekend. So parking was difficult to find, of course we got lost, and any normal priced parking was jacked up to at least $10 for the day. Oh well!

We found parking and went to walk around. In my typical fashion, I had the names and addresses of chocolate shops of the city that we had to find. Among other various landmarks that were must sees. We parked by the Space Needle, the big plaza and fountain were filled with happy people, singing and dancing, running through the fountain, and just being merry. The atmosphere was great, everybody was so friendly.

We then went in search of Theo, a well known chocolate factory that supposedly gave great tours. We walked and walked and walked. We were on a mission, we had walked at least a mile when, we stumbled across a bakery. We smelled it before we saw it. From the smell, our eyes searched until we found Macrina's Bakery on First street between Battery and Wall Sts. We detoured from our search of Theo to going to this bakery. We were first impressed by the size of the kitchen. It was about half the size of the city block and a little below ground level, so we had a perfect view of the kitchen. There were huge racks for cookie sheets and a petite woman working away in the bakery. We watched in awe. Finally we shuffled on into the bakery. Everything looked delicious. The red velvet cupcakes were plump and inviting. The prepared sandwiches looked fresh and crisp. We found the day old basket which consisted of all of the day old cookies for half off. Being recently graduated travelers, we thought this would be the best bet for us. We asked if they would bring the basket closer so we could get a better look. The

basket was placed on the counter in front of us and we oohed and aahed. We ended up choosing 4 cookies, a peanut butter cookie, a molasses/ginger cookie, a chocolate chip/espresso cookie with dried apricot, and an oatmeal cookie. After sitting down outside and beginning to nibble at each one, Christina decided we needed a glass of milk. We assured each other that we would collectively eat half of each of the cookies, adding up to a total of one cookie each, and pack the other four half eaten cookies away in our bags to take home for the following day.

That didn't happen.

We ate all four cookies, which means we ate two cookies each. These were not your "fun-sized" cookies either. That's something I never understood, what is so fun about a cookie or a candy bar being an inch big? If you ask me that's no fun. Anyways.

This is the ginger/molasses cookie. (Above) It was chewy and wonderful. I highly recommend this bakery if you are ever in Seattle. And to the right is the oatmeal cookie which had all sorts of nuts and dried fruit in it. A beautiful woman also told us that brunch there was amazing and I always take the advice of beautiful women.

We figured since we had already walked over a mile in search of a chocolate shop, that we should continue the search. So along we walked, extremely full and content with our recent cookie gluttony. We walked some more stopping in little boutiques along the way. Seattle is full of quirky boutiques. We saw several shops that advertised and sold products made of recycled goods. I was confused by the extremely expensive price tags on purses made of recycled skirts and yoga-mat bags made of old pillow cases, I will assume that the money goes to support the local artist, in which case, it's a good cause!

Finally when we saw Pike's Place Market, one of the main attractions we'd been told we could not miss in Seattle, we decided to give up our search for chocolate and settle for the fish and produce market. This would probably be better for our health anyways.

Pike's Place was awesome!!! We walked through vibrantly colored alleys of vegetable and fruit and sampled

pickled asparagus, spiced honey and thai peanut dipping oils. I felt as if I were at the covered market in Morocco, although with a much more Western feel. I tried shea butter lotions and creams guaranteed to cure my eczema. I bought a little bushel of champagne grapes and walked through the market eating the smaller-than-pea-sized morsels. I even fed the guy cleaning the ice they keep the fish on. He gave me great advice. He told me if I had a few days (which I didn't) to drive north, I should drive up on some back road, called Chuckanut for the best oysters I'll ever have in my life. If you get the chance to do so, do it! And tell me about it! Otherwise it's on my lifelong to-do list. Here to the right we have a picture of Pike's Place Market.

Next we stumbled across a cheese shop. Beecher's Cheese Shop. We bought two cheeses. A goat cheese with orange zest and pecans and Flagship, a Beecher's classic. It's "a semi-hard cow's milk cheese with a uniquely robust, nutty flavor. It is carefully aged for one year under the watchful eye of the cheesemaker to fully develop its complex flavor and ever-so-slight crumble. See http://www.beechershandmadecheese.com/index.html for more info.