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Published: July 22nd 2008
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The trip into the city took about 40 minutes. It was very weird driving on the right hand side of the road with the steering wheel in the car on the left side. Every time the driver made a turn I flinched thinking we were about to go into incoming traffic. I arrived at the Green Tortoise Hostel about 8:30pm, it was right in the centre of the city and just across the street from the Pike Place Markets. It was the perfect location.
For $33 a night I got a very comfy bed in a six bed dorm which had curtains around it for privacy and to keep light in or out. A lamp and a fan on each bed and the bathrooms all had a shower, toilet and sink, all very new and clean. There was about 15 of these all up. Breakfast was also included, they had cook your own eggs, heaps of fruit and a waffle maker! Dinner three nights a week was also in that price and they were decent dinners. Free internet throughout the hostel with a few computers available was also there. This place is fantastic, if ever you are in Seattle, I
would highly recommend it.
The sun stayed up til about 10 pm, so that didn’t help my long day of travel, but strangely I wasn’t affected by it too much. I stayed up talking to a couple of guys in the room, Oliver from Germany and Simon from England and then had a shower and hit the sack.
Today I spent walking around the city with Oliver. First we went down to the Pike Street Markets. These are held every single day with fresh fish and meat, fruit and vegetables, flowers and touristy sort of items. This place was massive. After the markets we walked to the Seattle Space Needle, about a mile away and saw the city streets. The space needle appeared over the buildings as we walked. It’s actually a fair distance from the city centre where all the buildings are, which is quite deceptive from the pictures you see of Seattle.
$16 later we were at the top and enjoying the views of the city, bay and mountains. It wasn’t really that special, just a tall tower built for a world fair which was held in Seattle in the 1960s. We walked around the
area surrounding the needle and found a fountain called the international fountain, I have no idea why it was international. Next stop was the monorail which took us back down to the downtown area where we shopped for phones and other things we needed.
Back to the hostel for dinner, we had pasta with sauce and meatballs plus heaps of salad. Hung out with a few other people, mainly from across America who were staying there and we had a game of hearts later on, that took a really long time!
I slept in on Wednesday, woke up just in time for breakfast and had a lazy morning at the hostel as Wednesday was my day to go to the Boeing Factory, the main reason that I was in Seattle.
It was about 25 miles south of Seattle to the Boeing Factory, the largest building in the world by volume, a mere 13 million cubic metres. The doors on the front are as big as a football field and it could fit Disneyland inside with space for a 12 acre car park. It looks huge, and that’s just from the outside!
We went and had a
look at the things they had in a big hanger like vertical stabilisers, engines, wings, cockpits and fuselages. The tour then picked us up and we had to take a bus over to the factory as it was so huge. You go in underground in a tunnel that goes all under the factory and take the lift up to the viewing platform. The sight that unfolded was amazing, it’s unfortunate that you couldn’t take cameras in there. We saw the process of making all the parts for a 747 and then the production line of it, it takes around 11 days to assemble. It has 6 million parts, 3 million of those being just bolts and rivets holding it all together. 171 million miles of wiring goes into this thing, it’s insane!
Then we went and looked at the assembly lines of the 777 and 787, the new Dreamliner. These planes can be assembled in 3 days, a massive feat of engineering. No words can describe how awesome it was to see and experience this place. I had an early night as I had a few things I wanted to do the next day.
Woke up and spent
the day with Mike and Ron, another two guys from the hostel, they are from California. We did an underground walking tour of the city blocks down near Pioneer Square and then caught a Washington State Ferry over to Bainbridge Island. There wasn’t anything there but we just went over to get out on the water and see the city from a different perspective.
All the days I spent in Seattle were glorious, no rain or bad weather at all, something fairly unheard of in Seattle. I really enjoyed my time there and would love to go back to visit.
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Dad
non-member comment
NZ-USA
Hi Andy, you sound like you have settled into the travelling side of your trip extremely well. The timeframe to assemble one of those Dreamliners is truely incredible - Looking forward to the next installment. Enjoy yourself!