Sleepless in Seattle

And so to our 4th country of the trip, The United States of America. 

Too be honest I thought getting in would be much more difficult...We just drove right up to the border, flashed passports at the border guy who asked "do you have any food onboard?", to which I replied "only this 1lb chocolate bunny we got from Walmart for $2"(forgetting the advice in the guidebook to NOT MAKE ANY JOKES TO BORDER CONTROL OFFICERS).

After that completed a few forms and boom - welcome to America. We could have had a whole soccer team of mexicans in the back and no one would have ever known...

As soon as we were over we had a 110 mile drive down to Seattle, and what was very obvious from the outset was that there was one thing here you can never escape - Fast Food.

Fortunately we don't live here so could allow ourselves a few days to explore without worrying about our BMI's soaring through the stratosphere. And explore we did - starting at somewhere I've always wanted to visit - TACO BELL

After a face full of tacos we eventually reached Seattle and found a park where we could stash the van for the night. Despite the chilly temperatures we've actually been really warm in the van thanks to our super awesome heavy duty sleeping bags courtesy of mum and dad's garage...

With only one day to spare in the schedule we headed straight into Seattle's CBD the next day and immediately got a flavour of what to expect from America. After hopping off the bus we'd walked about 20 meters down the street and already:

- passed a reggae man playing the steel drums
- saw a crazy guy stumbling about in his sheep print pyjamas
- a homeless pick up a cigarette off the floor and start smoking it
- overheard a neo nazi talking to himself about gun law
- a gothic band playing maracas
- and a bunch of girl scouts flogging cookies

This is America, and anything seems possible.

Seattle is home to the world famous pike market which is a colourful maze of cool market traders prancing about their stalls under the glow of neon fluorescent lights. In the centre street of the market we stumbled upon one of Naomi's meccas - the first ever Starbucks - founded in 1971 as an expresso bar and coffee bean trading house. Obviously we bought a coffee, and by the end of the day we'd seen so many other Starbucks in the city centre that I swear I saw one of them offering intravenous mochas for Seattle's caffine junkies.

 

Also found out that Frasier (and I had kept a look out for Dr. Craine all day) was never filmed here. It was filmed in LA and once in a blue moon the production crew occasionally travelled up to Seattle to shoot a rare city shot.

We also had to take a look at the impressive Space Needle, but after seeing many of these tall tourist traps in every single city we've been too their magic has worn off by now, just like every city seems to be jumping on the money-grabbing band wagon to get their very own London-Eye style big wheel.

Around the corner of the market is Post Ally where the street explodes with colour. Much like the beautifully graffiti covered streets of Melbourne...however I must remind you that this is America, and here its important to be different. So instead of graffiti we were intrigued, and equally grossed out, to find the alleyway littered with millions of brightly coloured chewed up bubblegum remains, with some girls getting just a little too close for a picture as their hair began to get stuck to the wall.....nice....

And so that was Seattle - very interesting and wets the appetite for what lay yet to be discovered across the rest of this fascinating country. We're now back in Vancouver, catching an early morning flight to Calgary tomorrow to meet up with David and Jayne to hit the slopes of Banff in search of more amazing powder and hopefully some grizzleys!!