Seattle and Portland

---

Seattle and Portland



We took the BoltBus from Vancouver to Seattle at 11:30. At the US border we all had to get off the bus and take all our belongings including our luggage and go through airport style security. We arrived at half 3. I booked us on for a Duck Tour at 17:30. Our tour guide was very funny and animated and played lots of songs loudly. We went on Lake Union for part of the tour, there are lots of houses that float on the water and he pointed out one that is owned by Jason Mesnick, who was the bachelor on The Bachelor. I got very excited about this which surprised him somewhat as I don’t think he gets many British people who watch The Bachelor. We ate dinner outside at Rock Bottom, we ate here when we were in Boston 3 years ago and loved it, it was still good this time, we had steak with shrimp and chicken enchiladas. Then we walked through a very dodgy part of the neighbourhood to a comedy club called Comedy Underground where we watched 15 comedians audition for Seattle’s annual comedy show.



Breakfast the next day was a few handfuls of Cheerios. The sun was out again and we headed along the waterfront and went to Pike’s Market, a huge market in the centre of Seattle with all kinds of fruits, vegetables, fish, flowers etc. Oli got clam chowder and we got a seafood selection of prawns and calamari. Then I got a crepe from Just Crepes (that also served Teriyaki). The crepe was huge, cheap and very tasty. We walked up to the Space Needle. Oli has found a feature on our new camera which allows you to remote it from a phone, we took a few using this feature then walked to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. It had free admission and was a cool interactive museum about all the work they do to fight poverty. Then we walked for miles to Fremont and went to the Gas Works park. We had a lie on the grass then caught a bus back to downtown Seattle. We found a Thai restaurant close to the bus stop, we had a red Thai chicken pumpkin curry and a whole roasted duck. Then we went home to pack as we had an early bus to catch the next day.



We caught the BoltBus at 8am arriving in Portland at 11:30. We went out for a wander, we went to a famous bookstore called Powell’s, I got a couple of Jeffery Deaver books. Oli fancied a curry and he found a good one on TripAdvisor so we walked 4k to find it, only to discover it was closed! We were pretty hungry by this point so we walked around and stumbled across a place called Dick Kitchen. It was really hot so we sat outside. I had a cheese burger with chips and Oli had a venison burger with Swiss cheese and yam fries. I also had a dairy free chocolate milkshake, it was the best meal I had had so far, the burgers were amazing! We walked home and I’m ashamed to admit fell asleep at 6:30! Maybe I haven’t gotten over the jetlag yet.



The next day we went for lunch on the waterfront at McCormick and Schmick. We originally sat outside as it was sunny but it was so windy we had to go indoors. Oli had an oyster and clam chowder and I had swordfish, mash and green beans. This meal was a strong contender for best meal of the holiday. We borrowed bikes from our AirBnB chap, mine was the right size for a 15 year old and Oli’s was the right size for an 8 year old. We biked to Washington Park up some pretty steep hills. We ate at Baan Thai for dinner, we shared a starter and main as we weren’t very hungry and then we shared a few cocktails, I had a chocolate Martini and a White Russian and Oli had a Margarita. Next we are flying to the city we have been looking forward to the most, San Francisco!

---