Seattle, Washington

We finally reached Seattle, and after we checked into our hotel (which we found on the first try!), we walked over to the Space Needle and took the quick tour up there. It’s an amazing view, and the travel to the top is much quicker and cooler and less claustrophobic than the one to the top of the Arch in St. Louis. We posed for our picture with a huge Starbucks cup, but we covered the logo up with our hands and made “meh” faces. Not the cutest, but still hilarious. We did a little shopping in the gift shop downstairs (I now have all of the postcards ever) and headed back to the hotel, where we ordered delivery and watched Sleepless in Seattle… until we could no longer remain sleepless and passed out. We got up in the morning and visited with Wendell quickly to give him all our stuff (aka the valet got the car so we could put our bags away). At Nick Vargas’ recommendation, we walked over to Top Pot Doughnuts for the first of many coffees (we decided to take ourselves on a self-guided coffee tour of Seattle… the original goal was seven coffees, then nine… you’ll see though) and doughnuts literally the size of my face (and DELICIOUS). We each had an iced coffee, and they were so delicious that I didn’t even put sugar in mine (right?!). The girl there told us their iced coffee is cold-brewed overnight, and whatever that entails, I like it. Then we walked over to the Public Market at Pike Place and checked out the artsy craftsy tables, ultimately looking for a Seattle coffee cup magnet for Laura, and the Pike Place Fish Company where they throw fish around and yell and all that fun stuff. We also stopped into Le Panier, a bakery/café across the street, where I literally want to live. Right in there. As soon as we walked in, all we could smell was heaven smothered in butter. We split a croissant, still pretty full from the donuts, and I had an iced latte (again, no sugar WHAT?!) and Laura had a hot one that was pretty and foamy and delicious. Best espresso ever. Strong but not so strong that it tasted burnt nom nom nom. We got coffee #3 at Seattle Coffee Works, where I got an iced coffee, Laura got a hot coffee (black, LIKE HER SOUL. Just kidding.. Kinda…?), and the Seattle Coffee Guy started following us both on Twitter. He gave us some suggestions in Seattle and Portland for coffee, so, thanks Coffee Guy! Now that we were completely buzzed on caffeine (“I can hear my heart screaming.” –Laura, and “Is this what people on cocaine feel like?” –me. Really.) we walked over to Safeco Field, where the Seattle Mariners play (cool, baseball stuff!) and took a hundred pictures of the outside (we couldn’t reasonably make the tour, so we just toured outside ourselves. It wasn’t that thrilling, but their team store is pretty awesome). Then we walked back over to Pike Place, and on the way Laura got coffee #4 at Cherry Street Coffee (a double shot of espresso. How she survived, I have no idea. I gave up after the third, which I couldn’t even finish half of) and also freaked out about the big cranes over the water that they apparently show on Grey’s Anatomy all the time (“OMGZ THE GREY’S ANATOMY CRANES!!” –Laura). We met up with Gina (you may know her from Myers+Chang fame, or from a billion musical shows around Boston. Like she sang with a band, not like she sang in Jersey Boys. MYSPACE.COM/GINAALIBRIO GO THERE SHE’S GOOD) for lunch, but we stopped at the Gum Wall first. Like it’s a wall in an alley totally covered in chewed gum. Totally gross but it looks pretty cool. Laura became a part of history when she bought a gumball from the provided machine and put a purple wad of gum up there with Seattle’s finest. We ended up at a bakery/café called Specialty for lunch, where Laura had another coffee (her last, coffee #5, which made her want to throw up literally) and we got sandwiches on the best bread ever. After catching up and laughing a LOT, we said our goodbyes to Gina, hit up a store for some Gatorade (gotta stay hydrated!), picked up Wendell and hit the road to Portland. We saw the World’s Largest Egg in Winlock, WA on the way there (it’s about as exciting as it sounds. Unless it sounds exciting to you, in which case I will tell you, it wasn’t).

<3 @kasey_lately