2012-10-19

Surviving Seattle - Day Five

     Welcome to the fifth installment of our Seattle Honeymoon Journal. We would like to congratulate you, because if you've made it this far, you have survived four ENTIRE days of the wilds of Seattle at the mercy of two of the strangest people we know...wait a minute...that's us! Oh well...congrats, anyway! :)
     This blog entry will be written entirely by Matthew, because he is a sissy and fell asleep early last night, leaving the last blog entry up to Valeri. (Bad, Matty!) That being said, we would like to remind you to fasten your lap restraints; and keep hands, feet and all other objects inside the vehicle at all times. All seats must be locked in the upright position, and all electronic devices (excluding the device that you are using to view this blog) must be powered off, and properly stowed. If, at any time, you feel feint just press the red button to your left. (It doesn't really work...we just like to give you that false sense of security, and of course, the face you make when you realize the Panic Button is broken.) Right...well...Enjoy the ride!

     Our morning trip to Pike Place Market started with a quick breakfast at Local Color, a tiny coffee and wine bar. The meal consisted of a Cinnamon Roll, a Spinach/Feta Croissant, a Caramel Latte and a Breve. (Can you guess who had what?) All items received a golden star from our taste buds and were quickly consumed. Our food is pictured below.

Valeri had the Cinnamon Roll with a Caramel Latte and Matthew had the
Spinach/Feta Croissant with a Breve.

     After a yummy breakfast, we did a little shopping for knick-knacs. We found a few goodies for family members and one for our new apartment (which we are starting to get excited about getting back to). We dropped off the bags at the hotel and headed uptown to the Pacific Science Center, which was pretty much amazing. National Geographic was hosting King Tutankhamen and the Pharaohs exhibit. Evidently, this will be the last tour in North America before the exhibit will be retired. Photography wasn't allowed in the exhibit, so we don't have anything to show you...but just know that it was pretty cool. The amount of pure gold that was used in making the jewelry and adornments was astounding! The ancient Egyptians spared absolutely no expense decorating the royalty. Here are some photos from the other exhibits in the Science Center...


     After all of the scientific-fun-time, we headed back to the hotel to get all spruced up for the big finale: Dinner at Sky City in the Space Needle! :) We hopped on the monorail once again and zipped our way through the city to our destination. See this photos from earlier in the day...


     As we rode to the top, the view just kept getting more and more amazing...and at night, it was breath-taking. The photos will stand behind my statement...
 

     So, we've done all we have time for (and can afford) in the great City of Seattle. This is our last night in the Emerald City and the last blog we will be writing from this amazing city. It's a bittersweet experience, really. It has been a truly amazing time, but we're starting to miss home. I have absolutely no doubt that our new life together will bring many more cities, many more blog entries and many more memories. We are thankful for all of the people that took part in our wedding and all of the well wishes! (And thankful for the blessing of all of the unusually wonderful weather here in Seattle!) So...after five amazing days of this exciting new adventure, I say - for the last time...

Goodnight, Seattle...








2012-10-18

Surviving Seattle - Day Four


Day Four of our Emerald City honeymoon has come to an end.
It was a long, but fun day. We began our day by riding the monorail to the Seattle Center, then we made a mile trek to Kerry Park. The mile trek may seem like a lot, but I (Val) thought it would be easy since we've walked that much throughout downtown. I was wrong. The walk ended up being mainly uphill...and when I say uphill, I mean UPHILL. Matthew thought I was trying to kill him and now it is a little bit of a sore subject.:) Oh and a little sidenote...about halfway up the gigantic hill, I asked for a piggy back ride - He refused and gave me the death stare. Not very nice...
After surviving the crazy climb to the top, it was a rewarding view of Seattle. No words or pictures can really describe it, but I'll post a few below.

Our panoramic view from Kerry Park.


To the left is the hill that almost killed Matty.














Here is the the two of us with Seattle in the background.
















After spending some time overlooking the city, we made the long journey back to downtown to spend some time at the Seattle Aquarium. There are WAY too many things to say about the aquarium and instead of boring you with them, I will let pictures speak for themselves on this one.




Those were some of our favorites. As you can see, we found Nemo and I got to ride an Orca...etc.
We also have videos, but YouTube is giving us a hard time right now, so we will try to include those in tomorrow's post.
The videos we have include more than just aquarium stuff...it seemed like every time we turned a corner, there was something to video because a picture just simply wouldn't do it.:)

Our phones were about dead from all the picture taking, so we had to charge them for a bit. While they were charging, we got a beautiful sunset that we took a picture of...


Moving along...


The Seattle Public Library has been calling our name all week, but we just hadn't found the time to go look at it. We decided that tonight was the night, so we walked a few blocks to the library. This building was absolutely gorgeous. I mean, even if you are not a fan of reading or studying, this building would interest anyone just by all it's bright colors and different textures. Not one room was the same. The elevators were lime green (along with the escalators) and there was an entire floor that was bright red. The floors were all different in color and texture (some carpets, some woods, some metal).



Our next stop was dinner at P.F. Chang's.
I will tell you right now that I am NOT a fan of Asian food...the smell is always too strong and I'm always afraid that I am really not sure of what I'm eating. The only Asian food I enjoy is Dragon Kitchen in Jeff City (actually mainly their mozzarella sticks and green beans) and Wok 'n' Roll on the Bagnell Dam Strip in Osage Beach.
However, this food was spectacular! We enjoyed every bit of it. So, if you are ever around a P.F. Chang's, you HAVE to eat there.

To the left is our appetizer: Fried Green Beans and a few sauces to go with it.










And to the right are our dinner choices: Chicken Fried Rice (My choice), Chicken Lo Mein (Matthew's choice) and some asparagus (also Matthew's choice).













There were so many little things that also happened throughout the day, but writing about those would take too much time and might also bore you. However, I did post those to my Facebook such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Matthew not sharing his malt with me and a few other things.:)
Thank you for reading the blogs we've been posting. We enjoy sharing our daily adventures with you all.

Goodnight, Seattle...


2012-10-17

Surviving Seattle - Day Three

     We are now on honeymoon day three of five...just over halfway over. It's been a very exciting trip so far and these are the adventures of today day. We will each be writing one half of the blog tonight, so pay attention!

     We, once again, started off at Pike Place Market this morning and returned to a little cafe we had noticed yesterday called Soundview Cafe. The food was amazing, but the coffee...well...not so much. It was amazing to me to find a restaurant in the Coffee Mecca of the U.S. that had bad coffee! We are going to try out some of the local brew (coffee, not beer) tomorrow morning. :) Our food selections are pictured below. Val had the Triple Double, which was French Toast, Scrambled Eggs and Sausage Links. I had Salmon Eggs Benedict. The breakfasts were both delectable!
 


     After breakfast, Val and I headed down to the waterfront to try out the Ferris Wheel. It was absolutely massive...it had to be in excess of 100 feet tall! The individual carriages were fully enclosed and air conditioned, and the seats were padded, so it was a pretty comfortable ride.The view from the top was AMAZING!














I'm relinquishing the controls to Valeri, so stand by...

The Museum of Flight was something we were both really looking forward to and it most definitely didn't let us down. It took us quite a while just to get through the space section and onto the planes. There was so much to look at that we didn't really know where to start. One thing that Matthew really wanted to try was the flight simulator. We took some time to "train" and then got into the simulator. Matthew did the flying while I did the gunning. I didn't shoot down one plane. :(  (But I blame it on the pilot...)

After walking underneath a few planes, we got to sit in a couple of the cockpits.









Crazy that the plane is so huge, but you have very little room to sit once you're in there.
After seeing all the planes inside, we went to the Airpark across the street to see the Concorde and Air Force One. This was one of my favorite parts to the Museum of Flight. Air Force One was pretty awesome and it gave little insights to Kennedy and a few other presidents. For instance, Lyndon B. John always complained about the temperature in the plane, so they put a Fake Temperature Adjustment switch just to fool him into thinking he could adjust the temperature. Cool little interesting tid bits all over the place made for an interesting 15 minutes inside both these planes. :)

 Matthew and I inside the Supersonic Airliner, the Concorde. This plane seemed so small when walking up to it...I didn't think I was going to be able to stand when inside. But I was wrong and it was really neat getting to see it all.
This is the Air Force One cockpit. We were so enamored while looking at the rest of the plane that we forgot to take pictures while walking through it. :(
This plane was more than just "neat"...it was a fantastic look inside a historic plane.
Once we were finished with the museum, we decided to head back into the city. I forgot to tell you that we took a taxi out to the museum, which was something we had not experienced yet. The stereotypes of taxi drivers are true by the way...
After waving down a taxi, we made the drive back into the city. This taxi driver didn't seem as cautious as the other one, so we were a little nervous at times...but we made it back safely.

For dinner we decided to eat at The Cheesecake Factory just a block from our hotel. The food was delicious, of course, and the atmosphere was lively. Matthew ordered the Chicken Bellagio and I had the Old Fashioned Factory Burger...yes, I know a lot of you are surprised with my choice. However, this was my first cheeseburger order in 3 days of eating out...so I give myself a good pat on the back.:)

I'm sure, of these two photos, you can tell which meal belongs to whom...



That concludes our third day here in the wonderful city of Seattle. We're glad you are all enjoying the photos...we'll keep them coming!

Goodnight, Seattle...

2012-10-16

Surviving Seattle - Day Two

Okay...we survived day two! No one ended up in the hospital, behind bars or otherwise disabled. :) We'll give you a quick run-through of our activities! :)


We started the morning with a visit to the Public Market on Pike Street. Of course, there was a coffee shop visit in the process. :) We had to get our morning fuel-up!



While at Pike Place Market we found a nice little park that overlooked The Puget Sound and included birds, with which Matthew was a huge fan.




We also were able to get a few pictures of us enjoying the nontraditional weather of Seattle - sunny and no rain.








The place behind Valeri is where we ate breakfast this morning.
Behind Matthew is the Puget Sound.



After breakfast, we decided to explore the city a little. We ended up finding a few cool locations with boats and great views of the city.

































 After the exploration, we headed deeper into the city to find the Seattle Underground Tour..

This is while we were in the Underground,
which is 10 -15 feet below Seattle's sidewalks.
The entrance to the Underground Tour.























The very humorous tour guide enlightened us to the founding of the City of Seattle and the background of all  its quirks. The tour was loosely based on a book titled The Sons of Profits, written by the founder of the tour, Bill Speidel. If you'll notice the play on words in the title, you'll better understand why Seattle was originally formed. Very much worth a little research.








After the Underground Tour, we returned to the Roosevelt Hotel to prepare ourselves for one of the two "fancy nights" we have planned for the trip: The Seattle Symphony. Tonight's show featured Andras Schiff playing Bach. A very talented musician, but not quite Matthew's cup of tea*.
(* - interchangeable with coffee) Valeri enjoyed it, though! :)

In the upper right (3,1) of the photo, you can see Andras' piano.
The show was hosted at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle.
In the suite, after we got "all dolled up".


































After the Symphony, we visited GameWorks, a sports bar on Union Street. Val had Nachos and Matthew had a Game Stopper Burger.




Fried Egg, Colby Jack Cheese, Onions, Tomatoes, and Lettuce made Matthew drool over this delectable 
menu item! :)








Val ordered Nachos with Beans, Beef and lots of extra Sour Cream! Yummy!





Now that we've eaten, been entertained and eaten again, we'll get rested up for tomorrow's adventures!

Goodnight, Seattle...