Pop quiz: If someone mentions Seattle, what do you think of?
Rainy days? Natural beauty? Coffee? Fish tossing? Grunge music?
It’s all true.
I can vouch, as I just returned from a business trip to The
Emerald City (the city’s nickname, as voted on by the residents in 2007).
Except something odd happened – it was sunny all three days I was there. The
locals assured me that was an anomaly. A quick check of Wikipedia seemed to
confirm, as Seattle is said to average only 79 sunny days a year.
Weather aside, it was a fantastic trip. Just to get the
business out of the way, I was there to meet with their public transit
executives on a technological project they implemented a few years back.
However, that’s a great segue into one of the great positives of the city:
Awesome mass transit. Unlike its west coast brethren Los Angeles and San
Francisco, a car is not a necessity in Seattle. 1,500 local buses, 225 routes,
express routes, a light rail line, streetcars, ferries…even a monorail that runs
from the Space Needle to the light rail station in the heart of downtown. That
was a remnant from the 1962 World’s Fair, but it is far from a tourist thing to
do – it is a vital link from the north end of downtown. This network sets the
framework for an urban/urbane environment the locals love.
Seattle sits between two large bodies of water – Lake
Washington to the east and Puget Sound to the west. Beyond the water are
snow-capped mountain ranges. The city itself is rather hilly as the shin splits
I am nursing can attest. The downtown area is quite compact, which makes
getting around convenient. Getting in and out of downtown? Different story. You
got I-5 and I-90, and they’re packed.
So…ride the bus. Everyone else does.
Pike’s Market is the focal point of downtown. Down by the
water (meaning downhill from the city – wear good walking shoes), Pike’s seems
to be the social gathering spot, a great place to pick up some fresh flowers,
crabs or fish. And yes. They do toss the fish there. Gladly. The locals revel
in the attention they get and like to put on a show. In fact, I asked Brandon, one of the tossers, if he
would throw one for me while I filmed it. He asked, ‘Are you ready for it?’
Now, I’ve been in a lot of cities. When I hear a phrase like that, I reach for
my wallet, as being ‘ready for it’ is code for, ‘Slip me a twenty and I’ll toss
fish all day, Tourist.’
But that’s not what Brandon meant. He meant ‘Is your camera
ready?’ It was, and he was. There went the fish. And back at him. Fun stuff.
We took the ferry ride from downtown to Bremerton, a bucolic
hamlet on the other side of the Sound. And again, this isn’t a tourist thing –
the ferry is a mode of transportation, as many downtown workers live on the
other side of the Sound. Eight bucks round trip. Twenty minute ride. And
awesome views the whole way.
Most everyone knows Starbucks started in Seattle. It also
seems to end there as well, as there is a coffee shop on damn near every
corner- - many of them Starbucks, but also upstarts like Seattle’s Best, have
infiltrated the market. Without a doubt, the drink of choice in Seattle is a
double latte.
I mentioned the Space Needle earlier. If you go, you must do
the Space Needle. The only thing better than seeing the city from the water or
Pike’s Market is from 520 feet in the air. On a clear day you can see Mount St.
Helens over 200 miles away…so said Jay, the bartender at the restaurant at the
top. But as it is you cannot beat the view. I planned to hang up there for a
half hour. I stayed four hours.
Seattle is a heavily taxed city. Gas was $4.39 a gallon when
I was there, in comparison to the $3.59 back here in Orlando. Sales taxes are
high as well. Funny…I didn’t hear a lot of grumbling about that while I was
there. Maybe it is because the locals know what they’re getting for their
money.
Or maybe it’s because they know they are living in a
beautiful city with wonderful urban amenities. This is reflected in their
attitude, as they, or at least the ones I came in contact with, are a happy,
contented, caffeinated bunch.
I could so live there.
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