Seattle
I've almost forgotten about LJ ever since finally joining Facebook.
Tam and I started our long-awaited honeymoon vacation. We flew into Seattle yesterday and today we'll be boarding the Norwegian Pearl for a 7-day cruise of Alaska.
While taking our bus to the hotel, we noticed what most Floridians notice when they visit anywhere else in the world... elevation. There are hills everywhere and downtown Seattle is built on a pretty steep hill. Driving in, we had Puget Sound on the left, while on the right were skyscrapers arranged like stadium seating at a movie. Every single street seems to be lined with trees and many of them are marked with posters declaring them protected. Seattle takes its nature preservation pretty seriously.
We're staying at the Hotel Max, which is even more interesting than I'd hoped.
It is decorated with hundreds of works from local artists and each room has unique pieces displayed.
The front door of each room features a different local performance artist. We're right next door to the Darth Fiddler room, which is right next to the Spoonman room.
Even the key cards are decorated.
When dinner time came, our concierge recommended we try the Palace Kitchen for dinner ("It's a Tom Douglas restaurant, the guy who won on Iron Chef"). While we were eating (delicious!), a pig roast was being set up on the corner across the street for a wedding party. It was a bit surreal.
Afterward, we made the requisite stop at the Space Needle and took tons of pictures. You can see the trees lining the blocks (and a random park taking up an entire block). Very cool and very worth the cost of admission, but it's one of those things you'll see once and then never need to revisit.
I need to learn Photoshop to fix my closed eyes in this pic...
We stayed up late to adjust to Seattle time, but I ended up rising at 4am anyhow. Today we get checked in on the ship and depart for Alaska.
Tam and I started our long-awaited honeymoon vacation. We flew into Seattle yesterday and today we'll be boarding the Norwegian Pearl for a 7-day cruise of Alaska.
While taking our bus to the hotel, we noticed what most Floridians notice when they visit anywhere else in the world... elevation. There are hills everywhere and downtown Seattle is built on a pretty steep hill. Driving in, we had Puget Sound on the left, while on the right were skyscrapers arranged like stadium seating at a movie. Every single street seems to be lined with trees and many of them are marked with posters declaring them protected. Seattle takes its nature preservation pretty seriously.
We're staying at the Hotel Max, which is even more interesting than I'd hoped.
It is decorated with hundreds of works from local artists and each room has unique pieces displayed.
The front door of each room features a different local performance artist. We're right next door to the Darth Fiddler room, which is right next to the Spoonman room.
Even the key cards are decorated.
When dinner time came, our concierge recommended we try the Palace Kitchen for dinner ("It's a Tom Douglas restaurant, the guy who won on Iron Chef"). While we were eating (delicious!), a pig roast was being set up on the corner across the street for a wedding party. It was a bit surreal.
Afterward, we made the requisite stop at the Space Needle and took tons of pictures. You can see the trees lining the blocks (and a random park taking up an entire block). Very cool and very worth the cost of admission, but it's one of those things you'll see once and then never need to revisit.
I need to learn Photoshop to fix my closed eyes in this pic...
We stayed up late to adjust to Seattle time, but I ended up rising at 4am anyhow. Today we get checked in on the ship and depart for Alaska.