Kevin woke us up next morning offering
a trip to get some bagels and coffee, which Geries declined to get
some more sleep, but I accepted since I was getting hungry. Johnny,
Kevin, Braxton (Kevin's son) and I piled into the car to head out for
some breakfast. We picked up some bagels at a local supermarket and
then arrived at one of the strangest coffee shops I've seen. A
woman's silhouette graced the sign for Espresso Gone Crazy, which was
basically a small shack with a drive-through window. It ended up
being like a Hooters for coffee, although I had hot chocolate
instead. All in all not a bad way to start the day.
When we got back Sara was up, so the
group of us sat around eating our breakfast and watching Netflix
until Geries woke up. After he had been fed and gotten ready to go we
hopped in the car and made our way back into town to meet up with
Dexter, a hallmate from our freshman year at Tech, and his friend
Julia. We picked them up and drove downtown to park before going to
check out Pike Place Market, which is somewhat similar to Fisherman's
Wharf in San Francisco. The market lies inside buildings near the
waterfront and inside noisy vendors peddle everything from massive
Copper River salmon and local kitsch to spicy chili pepper jelly.
Everywhere we turned was a bustle of activity with a slowly moving
crowd creeping along from stall to stall to inspect the endless
assortment of items for sale. As we arrived under the famous market
sign we came upon one of the many fresh fish dealers where we caught
a little show as the workers tossed thirty pound fish to each other
to be packaged for customers.
Once we had enough of the crowd we
stopped over briefly at the first Starbucks to snap some pictures and
say that we had been there. Next we visited an infamous installation
at the market: The Gum Wall. Down an alleyway I would have avoided at
night there stands a wall that houses dried gum from literally
thousands of mouths. The multicolored wall runs twenty or thirty feet
long and gum surprisingly reaches about ten feet high, complete with
little gumsicles hanging from the windowsills.
After we were done at Pike Place and
its monument to saliva we somehow still had an appetite, so at the
suggestion of Julia we made our way to Japonessa to get some sushi.
Geries and I tried the Super Bad Boy Roll for obvious reasons, and
spent lunch catching up with Dexter, who we haven't seen for a couple
years, and getting to know Julia. It was really nice to get a chance
to hang out with a friend we haven't seen in a while and make a new
friend at the same time.
Our next stop was the Seattle Public
Library which more than anything was quite a cool building. It is
covered in glass and diagonally criss-crossing supports that match
the strange angles of its outline. The building starts with a sloping
base that goes up like a pyramid until it darts outward again and
finally ends some eleven stories up. We had some fun exploring the
multicolored rooms and checking out the view from the top before
heading out for Fremont.
Fremont, the self-proclaimed center of
the universe, reminded me of Little Five Points from Atlanta with its
quirky shops, people, and street art. It's hard to consider a place
normal when it is most well known for the giant troll that lies under
the Fremont Bridge and a massive bronze statue of Lenin. After
visiting the famous troll we walked around for a bit and saw some
interesting things, including a sign that pointed the way to the
Fremont Troll, Rapunzel, and a noogie (on top of your head) as well
as a homeless man that seemed to be jumping an invisible jump rope.
Eventually we wandered our way over to a gelato shop that stands in
the shadow of the massive statue of Lenin. Inside (the gelato shop,
not the statue) I got some mint chocolate gelato and even sampled the
spicy Aztec chocolate flavor, which was surprisingly good.
By this time it was time for our
friends to head out, so we dropped them off and headed back to Sara
and Kevn's house. No one was home when we got there, so we just
relaxed for a while and had some dinner until Sara, Kevin, Johnny,
and Braxton returned with even more couchsurfers. We spent the rest
of the night hanging out with our hosts and the newcomers before
heading to bed to get some sleep for the long drive to Yellowstone
that was ahead of us the following day.
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