People Watching in Pike Market Place

***Miles travelled today: 131

***Total Miles: 8429 in the 4x4

***States travelled through: Washington

Having logged onto the soulful sounds of 'Cesaria Evora' on Youtube, I'm now 'smiling' as the melancholy of her voice parallels the feelings of today....a 'loss of ending and yet a lift for what is yet to come' (Mrs D - write this down and look for her on Spotify, think you might like her, a bit reminiscent of Buena Vista Social Club).

As you've gathered, we've arrived in Seattle - the destination on the West Coast that would denote the glorious ending of a wonderful adventure. So, I guess it isn't surprising that today is filled with mixed emotion. Linz felt this when we arrived on the west coast a week ago and clearly my reaction has been 'slightly delayed', as the impact for me, is today.I think Linz has been grateful for the introspective quietness from me over these last few days and hopes it lasts for a while :)

....Dropping off the car at Sea-tac Airport wasn't without incident. Having arrived at the car rental returns, we got out the car and a little lady with what looked like a 'wand'; waved it over the bar-code on the windscreen and gave us a receipt that said we owed them nearly $800! All from a wand....Linz asked the woman to clarify and was promptly told in broken English, "It's OK - it's from the credit card" to which Linz immediately replied, "No,it's Not" and asked to see the manager". So to cut a very long story short, as you may recall from 10wks ago when we collected the car in Boston, the car rental voucher on their system didn't match the one in our hands however we were assured this wasn't a problem and it would be sorted out....mmm clearly not. After various telephone calls to/from Boston; we were presented with a bill that said $0.00 but on closer inspection, Linz isn't convinced and we'll check our statements later on in the week. It's a good thing that we're back in Boston next week to sort it out if it hasn't already been resolved. Thinking about it, it's quite scary how easily payments are taken from credit cards as they neither use 'chip n pin' nor check your signature, simply relying on an authorisation process.

Leaving the airport, we made our way to our hotel in Downtown Seattle where we were hoping to meet a vibrant colour of diverse people, smells, sights and interests. Advice given by 'western folk' was that Downtown was the 'alternative trendy' to the 'gauche Uptown where designer labels resided' as it was theatre-land and filled with market places. I figured either way we had the best of both worlds as they'd be moments from each, each offering pleasure of a different sort. Downtown is a salad of cosmopolitan difference and what a pleasure this was....

We navigated our way to the Pike Market Place with Linz having some difficulty reading the map. When I pointed this out to her, she simply responded with, " I don't have a problem with map reading. The problem is how they label their roads!" I guess there's not much more you can say to this except smile! . Well, her map reading got us to this small park where we grabbed a coffee from Starbucks flagship store and listened to the various musicians sitting around, each competing for a break in someone's song so they could start up their own. Walking off in no particular direction, we came upon the Pike Market and realised that whatever direction we'd come from, you really couldn't miss it! The Market is the oldest farmer's market in America, running for more than 100yrs. It is alive with the dramatics of fishermen 'tossing' fish about from one to the other (sometimes to customers) and singing whatever songs they think are 'sea-like'. Having seen so may fish markets (Madeira used to rate as tops for me), I was astounded at the variety and 'size' of things. As for the fresh fruit/vege produce; not only were the colours vibrant but the freebies meant that you bought plump fruit just because the sweetness/pleasure was immediate - who said we had a problem with immediate gratification;)

As for the sunflowers, these are both for you Stingha and Ronel.....hope you like them (Ronel, you'd 'go spare' at the flowers in this market - your camera would be clicking faster than our's).

We finally had a late lunch at a Japanese restaurant and wished Cec, that you were with us as the patrons were mostly Japanese and all sounded excited (but maybe that's bit like the Portuguese, we sound excited even when talking about petrol). Linz says, the Portuguese make everything sound up tempo to the boring English! (haha). Strolling back to the hotel, we found a place where we stopped for coffee (again) and more quirky photos ensued. Mrs D - hope you like this one of Linz too.

First impressions of Seattle? Alternative and quirky - a good base to start from.

OK Sus, we've now moved - 'find Seattle and put a sticker on it' x