Snapshots of Seattle // Day 3 - Part II // October 2014

Well it has almost been a month since we were in Seattle & British Columbia... and I still have a few days worth of posting to do. - nothing new here.

Day 3 - our first full day in Seattle was filled with so many places and pictures that I decided to make it two posts. Here begins the second part of Day 3. You can see the first part here.

After we left the sculpture park we proceeded to walk around downtown. Enjoying the cool weather and drinking in the city. We had been walking all morning and thought taking a break sounded pretty good... so we stopped at Moore Coffee Shop. - This my friends is the very cutest coffee shop ever. Let's just take a minute to drink it in. (ha drink it in..).

Their menu includes pretty typical coffee shop fare, but it also has an eclectic selection of waffles.

We ordered a plate of strawberry nutella waffles to share, and some coffees of course. When in Seattle right? I tried the 'Cafe Madrid' - a house specialty. It was a spiced mocha, but very sweet and milky. A nice little treat. We enjoyed our meal outside, in the nice cool weather. The view wasn't too bad either!

Then we walked out to Pike Place Market. It was a beautiful day and many people we out and about.

Sadly the amount of coffee in my stomach mixed with all sorts of scents in the market were making me pretty nauseous. It didn't help that there was a woman throwing up into a bag behind me. -I know it wasn't her fault she was sick... but the combo just had me feeling pretty awful.

We headed into the market anyway, it was beautiful! So lively, filled with all sorts of people, and goods to purchase.

We watched the fish guys throw the fish around and sampled some cherries at Chukar's. I loved seeing the selection of gorgeous flowers most!

Close to this entrance to the market is Rachel the Pig. It is a bronze statue of a pig where donations are collected for local charities.

Each year roughly $9,000 is raised in her bank. I really loved this statue, and even ended up buying a cheesy piggy bank version at the airport on the way home... :)

and then this happened...

haha he is so much fun!

After that we headed downstairs to the 'Gum Wall,' which is really more of a 'Gum Alley' when you think about it.

At first it doesn't look like much, but as you continue to walk, you can see how much gum there actually is!

Pretty gross right? But at the same time, it looks kinda cool... so make of it what you will. Warning: if you happen to visit on a warm day... it apparently stinks. Luckily, it was pretty mild while we were there.

Of course we had to add some gum to the wall.... (notice the lack of other people's gum in this area... I wasn't crazy about touching anyone else's gum . . .).

My favorite part of the alley was where the gum became intermixed with street art and advertisement posters etc.

After that we ventured back up into the market to scope out a late lunch spot. - I love this graffiti!

We decided on eating at Piroshky Piroshky, a local Russian restaurant. It worked out well since trying Russian food has been on my goal lists for a while. (here & here)

A piroshky is a stuffed pastry filled with meat and vegetables. For my Midwestern people, it is similar to a beirock or a runza, except it has a flaky pastry crust.

I tried a traditional one filled with hamburger and onions. KC opted to try a salmon variation. which was shaped like a fish. :) It was all tasty, and it was good to eat some real food.

After we ate we checked out the sound from a nearby park before walking across the downtown area to the Space Needle.

We had heard that it wasn't always worth going up to the top of the needle money-wise, so we opted for walking around it instead.

It was really neat to look up at. We also stopped by the EMP Museum, which was getting ready to close. The building is really unique!

Because the museum was about to close we decided to check out just the gift shop and maybe come back the next day for the museum. We found some neat post cards to send, but the museum didn't seem like it was up our alley. It appeared to focus pretty heavily on things related to Seattle-based musicians like Kurt Cobain and Jimmy Hendrix, which is cool, but not quite what we wanted to spend part of our day doing.

We also attempted to take some selfies with the space needle in the background... but most of them are comically bad... this one is ok, but blurry... There was also a neat totem pole near the space needle-so many totem poles this trip!

After that we were extremely spent. That was quite a few miles of walking! So we decided to go back to our hostel and rest for a while before venturing out for dinner. We passed a place near the hostel called Rocco's that looked intriguing, and decided to try it.

I am SO glad that we did!

It ended up being one of my very favorite experiences of the trip, definitely my favorite restaurant experience!

It was a pizza bar with the coolest atmosphere. - Can I just take a second to tell you that I have the biggest crush on my husband... ? -I really do. :)

We ended up spending hours there.

Taking our time to order pizza, drinks, and then later dessert. -This is pretty rare for us!

I got a Pimm's Cup (of course!) and KC ordered something called the 'Bartender's Whimsy'. You choose a spirit, and the bartender makes a up a drink for you. The bartender was a really nice guy (all of the employees were!) he came over several times to ask us about our drinks and make sure KC liked his whimsy. He even wrote us the recipe on a  receipt. Stuff like this makes trips so special, and it is so rare!

Every bit of the pizza was delicious. We definitely were not able to finish it.... but if we had had a fridge we would definitely have saved it for later! - it is also neat because you can do half pizzas there. So you aren't stuck with a whole one for two people. You could also order slices. -definitely give it a try if you are in Seattle!

After lots of talking, laughing, and relaxing. We decided to go all out and get dessert. The tiramisu was the perfect end to our meal and our evening. -and it was gigantic... thank goodness we were there for hours!

Overall the day was successful. We saw many places on our list, had several coffees, and some awesome meals. After all that walking we slept very, very well. :)

If you haven't seen part one of day 3 you can see that here. If you are interested in our two days in British Columbia.... you can see those here (one & two).

Have you ever been to any of these Seattle locations? What did you think?

Thank you for reading!

Alexandra

Stay tuned for days 4 & 5!