chocolate is the fashion

On Sunday I had the opportunity to eat lots of chocolate, browse a quirky and fun Seattle neighborhood market, and meet some awesome area fashion bloggers. FASHION bloggers?! Yes. Insane. I’m not, you know, What Not To Wear material, but I’m not fashion blogger worthy, either. So, HOW did this happen?

I knew one wonderful fashion blogger already – the ultra-cool Clothes Horse. Her sister’s a close friend, and she just happens to live near my new residence. So when she called me up and asked if I’d like to tag along to the meet-up, I said, “Sure!”

Lesson #1: The Clothes Horse is unbearably cute.

We started at Theo Chocolate, the only bean-to-bar, fair trade certified, organic chocolate maker in the United States. We toured the factory (which smelled DIVINE), tried chocolate in different stages of production (the ‘nibs’ are delicious!), and then got to taste test most of their amazing varieties of chocolate bars.

After that we browsed the Freemont Sunday Market just around the block. Lots of used and vintage items for sale, along with a great selection of arts and crafts. The people-watching was superb – I even spied some vendors in steampunk garb! It was an all-around good time. Best part: I met two other lovely bloggers – Eunice of What’s Your Tale Nightingale and Kam of needle + thread. Both ladies are very talented and fun…and you should follow the links and check them out! Also, if you’re a Seattle-area blogger and would be interested in a meet-up sometime soon, let me know.

En fin, bloggers = great, whatever their stripe or fancy. Also, cell phone cameras are not ideal. Many pardons for the photos. If you want to see cooler/better/fantastic photography, go follow those links I told you about.

Lesson #2: hair nets are never sexy.

out of the ordinary

Last week I indulged and spent the day in Pioneer Square, Seattle, with a friend. I’m going to give you a virtual tour of our day, but WITHOUT photos. Well, maybe I’ll steal some from somewhere online…but none of my own.

We parked ($5 for two hours – not bad in that neighborhood!), and went looking for Sweet Petula, an awesome bath & body boutique that I originally found on Etsy, the homemade and vintage online market. I can’t go without their olive oil-based Ginger Blossom soap, so I stocked up with four bars.

Then we stopped by the Klondike Gold Rush museum. It’s run by the National Park Service, and offers free entry for info, stories, and interactive displays pertaining to the late 19th century and the role that Seattle played as a major stopover and supplier for those heading to the goldfields.

Next we headed up to the Elliot Bay Book Company, an awesome, creaky indie storehouse of wonderful books in many fabulous editions. I was almost sucked into the vortex that was their cookbook section, but ended up saving myself in YA and Fantasy/Sci-Fi. The best bits were the little hand-written ‘staff recommends’ cards hanging off of every shelf in all the bookcases…

By that time we were getting a little hungry, and we went over and stood in line at Salumi, a famous sausage deli (and Seattle institution). It’s right down the block from a fire station and police precinct, so we had a good mix of uniforms, bike messengers, tourists (me), and other regulars in the line. Anthony Bourdain featured the little place on his show, so it’s ‘famous,’ but it’s also still so small that you rub elbows with your neighbor regardless. I had the fennel sausage sandwich with fresh mozzarella and onions on Panini bread. Serious YUM.

We walked over to a little courtyard with a fountain next to the King Street Train Station to sit in the sun and eat our fill. Afterward we crossed the street to the Uwajimaya Asian market, where I bought some almond Pocky sticks for dessert and we scoped out the Manga in the bookstore.

Then we ran like the dickens back to my car, because we saw a tow truck on the block and were 5 minutes late! (No worries…no ticket…) And so ended a pretty perfect couple of hours tooling around the Pioneer Square district. If you’ve ever been, do you have a recommendation?

victoria, bc and the bike ride from hell (illustrated)

Elizabeth (of Occidental Idiot fame) requested a blog about an experience with either an umbrella or a bicycle. Alas, I have no stories that incorporate both. But this shall be the bicycle story (you may have gleaned that from the title already, who knows?).

Back when I was a naïve, happy and freshly-minted college graduate (this would be the summer before I started grad school), my college roommate and lovely friend Liz came to visit me in Seattle. Well, she came west for a wedding, and I happened to be on the way, so we made a vacation out of it. I planned for the mini-trip for a month or two in between working 60+ hour weeks as a swim coach, lifeguard and jack-of-all-trades at the local pool, and I decided that we'd see more than just mundane Seattle…we were going to Canada [insert joke about Canada or Canadians here].

What can I say? We were feeling adventurous, and these things are interesting in the Pacific Northwest. Canada is a novelty. They speak differently, they have socialized healthcare and Mounties…and they’re always coming down to Washington State for concerts and Mariners games. It can’t be too bad, right? Heh. I’d been to Victoria, British Columbia as a kid, and I recalled that it was a pretty sweet place. Plus, it’s on an island. In the Pacific Ocean. And it’s got a very British vibe. Whether that’s an act put on for the silly American and Japanese tourists or genuinely how things are, we will never know. But what’s not to love about a place known for its tearooms, bookstores and massive gardens?

Anyway, we decided to go to there, and I had planned it out down to the places we’d stop for lunch and dinner…we were not going to ‘wander’ aimlessly on this vacation!

We also decided not to take the car to the island. To accomplish that, you have to pay a ridiculous fee for the ferry and drive a lot farther to get to a different port. So we decided to park the car and walk onto the ferry. Just ourselves and our backpacks on our way to Canada. The trip was fun (lovely weather for the crossing, which took about 2 hours), and before we knew it we were scoping out Victoria’s harbor, the regional seat of government, and making our way to the hostel. Hostel was hilarious, as many of them are: brightly painted, minimal services, loud, and a closet-sized room for all your needs. The mattress was encased in vinyl. YESSSSSSSSS. We had an itinerary, though, and no time to waste!

Did I mention the biggest attraction in Victoria? Aside from high tea at the Empress Hotel? It’s the Butchart Gardens. National Historic Site for Canada, and 55 acres of natural blooming beauty. Victoria’s got a very mild climate, so things will grow year-round (I know, sweet, huh?). They do multiple re-plantings every season and it’s an absolute smorgasbord for the flower-lover. Thing is, it’s located 17 miles from Victoria proper, on an old family estate. And how were we to get there, you ask? That’s right…bicycle. I’d originally thought to catch a bus, but my mom, who used to be an avid cyclist, convinced me (and by association Liz) that it would be much more fun and scenic to rent bikes for the day and ride there.

I think you can see where this is going. We neither of us are/were avid cyclists. The way to the gardens is uphill. We hadn’t planned a definite route, and were directed to ride along the side of an 8-lane highway (with barriers in the middle). We were wearing our touristing clothes and sandals, and had been up since 6am. Cue that melancholy music they always play in sappy movies when nothing is going the hero/heroine’s way. Pardon me, but seventeen miles is a FREAKING long trek! I don’t think I can properly describe the agony that was that ride. I mean, up hills, cars whizzing past at dangerous speeds, rented mountain bikes which may or may not have had broken shifting mechanisms, Liz's asthma…the sheer torture of it all! I’m not exaggerating, folks. We were drenched in sweat, legs burning, Liz I’m sure was inwardly cursing the fact that we (okay, I) listened to my mother, and we didn’t know how much farther it was or if the hills would ever for the love of God and all that is holy STOP!!

In the end it took us over two hours to arrive. We sat comatose, chugging water for a half hour just trying to get our wits back. And then we saw the lovely garden (more photos found here)…

Check out that hedge, why don't you? Me in the arch.

Liz and bike #1. ARGHHH!!!

Me. Disgusted with bike #2 while waiting for the bus.

The only thing was, we still had to RIDE the bicycles from hell back to Victoria.

Or something. Something turned out to be that the local bus cost $2 (or the Canadian equivalent), and they had (glory of all glories!) bike racks on the front of them. We were saved! But we had to catch a very specific bus to be back in Victoria in time to go to our hostel and change and make our dinner reservation. So of course that exact bus shows up with a bike already in the bike rack! The nerve! We begged and pleaded and wheedled the bus driver until he took pity on us poor, silly American girls, and we stowed one bike in the handicapped section inside. With stern instructions that should someone need that seating, we were on our own! We got back to Victoria safely, however, locked rented bicycles in the hostel basement (sketchy!), and made our way to a lovely, lovely dinner. Where we consumed a bottle of wine between us before weaving our way back to the hostel and much needed sleep. I don’t think it would have been possible to sleep otherwise (it was so loud), except there was no way we weren’t going to crash after that ordeal.

Liz and I returned to US soil the next day, and still reminisce about our biking ordeal whenever we see each other. We also vow never to take my mother’s transportation advice again (because you never know, next time she could have us riding ostriches. Or alpacas!).

pike place market

I’ve never seen a Seattle tourist guidebook, so I can’t accurately claim to know the most popular destinations.  But as a former denizen of the area, I can tell you which places I’ve always taken out-of-town friends when they visit: the Pike Place Market and the Space Needle.  The Space Needle is an obvious choice: an emblem of the city as well as a pretty sweet watchtower.  There’s a rotating restaurant at the top and a huge science center at the base.  They shoot fireworks off the top of it on the 4^th of July and at the New Year.  How much cooler can you get?  It adds a lot of character to the city skyline, too.  The next best place, though (and the feature of today’s blog), is the Pike Place Market.

A little Seattle city history will set up the context.  You see, back in the olden days (alright, not THAT long ago, but early in the history of the American Pacific Northwest), Seattle was a lumber town.  Wood made its way from all over Western Washington State to the port of Seattle.  And Seattle was a city built on a couple of hills and a landfill.  You read that right.  Basically, it was super hilly, and to get some flat land to make the harbor accessible, they filled in the bay with the leftovers.  Of things.  I can’t give you particulars, but I like to think that it was mostly woodchips.  Anyway, at the bottom of the hill below downtown Seattle, right in front of the wharfs on Elliot Bay, someone put up a warehouse.  From the bayside, it has 4 stories.  From the street side (Pike Street, in case you were wondering) it looks like it’s only one story tall.  That will give you an idea of the grade that the city is on.  Like, if you made me drive a manual car up those hills, I would die of fright.  No, seriously.  The hills are suicidal.  I mean it. 

The Pike Place Market opened in said building in 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operating farmer’s markets in the US.  The top floor, the one on Pike, is full of stalls which sell fresh fish, fruit, veggies, meat, flowers and other Farmer’s Market type things.  The floors below house eclectic shops selling things like marijuana paraphernalia, comics, used books, crystals, and of course the necessary Seattle tourist merchandise.  Across the street there are tiny restaurants, the original Starbucks store, and other curiosities.  The whole area is very eclectic, and you will find street buskers and entertainers on every corner.  So the atmosphere is often celebratory and the market full of tourists, city residents, music, clowns, street statues, homeless, and flying fish.  Yes, you heard that last part right.  There’s a fresh fish vendor smack in the center of the market that is famous for tossing the merchandise from person to person before they wrap it in newspaper and ice.  A crowd always gathers, and when a purchase is made, the vendors yell to each other, a huge whole fish (or lobster) go flying over the heads of marketers, and the tourists get their photos.  Here’s a typical tourists’ video.

There are a couple of things about the market that I really love: Left Bank Books, an employee-owned and not-for-profit used bookstore, the fresh fruit stands (in season white peaches = so amazing it’s ridiculous), the huge bronze piggy bank (named Rachel, after a prize-winning, real live pig), and the original Starbucks store.  Pike Place Market is noisy, colorful, a little chaotic, and a great taste of how the Seattle spirit works: mostly in the rain, and always with enthusiasm.