Seattle Day 1

Seattle21 can best be summed up in three words, TomDouglas, bookshops and research.

Bagel Sandwiches

Friday morning was dark and early, but any time before 830 is dark around these parts.  We hulled our suitcase, accompanying bag, two additional pairs of shoes (each) and winter jackets (yes, we are so those people who take an entire wardrobe for three nights away.  I'm also the person who think she didn't have enough options and wished to pack more) into the car.  The car puttered around the corner of our street and we waved goodbye to our little house.  Seattle21 had now commenced.  Our brief road trip started at Tim Horton's with bagels and coffee and continued on as we drove for two hours until we reached Frost Doughnuts in Mill Creek, near Seattle.

Left to right: Top: Bourbon Pecan, Gingerbread, Sour Cream Glazed
Bottom: Andes Mint, White Chocolate Raspberry, Orange Cranberry

Having done my research, the theme of the trip was food, I came across Frost as top rated in Washington state.  It quickly became our first stop.  And thank goodness! The doughnuts were fantastic.  We ordered four (I know! what! were! we! thinking?!) and for only a dollar more got an additional two!  So when we sat down at our table we were two people eating six doughnuts.  We put a serious dent into that box.  Before we knew it we were both sick to our stomachs.

The place we stayed was a rented apartment.  I used the site Airbnb to find something close enough to everything and cheap enough to be worth our while.  Raf had his apartment listed on the site, I emailed him and as it happened he was heading away for the holidays at the same time.  We found the location of the apartment without any trouble, shook hands with the owner, gathered keys and he left, we were alone.  The apartment was gorgeous, decorated with an artist's touch, Raf is a photographer after all.  Minutes after he had left we had left, headed to downtown Seattle and the Pike Place Market.

Favourite!

We spent the better part of the afternoon eating ourselves silly.  I had found numerous food places that required our attention, and we were all to happy to attend.  We had the chowder sampler at Pike Place Chowder (the classic was our favourite), the world's best mac and cheese (self-proclaimed) at Beecher's Cheese which was fantastic as well.  We ate a beef and cheese piroshky at Piroshky Piroshky, which wasn't our favourite.  We wandered the market, had chocolate gelato from Bottega Italiana and folded ourselves into whatever tiny pockets of space we could find at Sur la Table.  With no stomach left to fill we drove back to the apartment.

Very delicious Beecher's mac and cheese

We walked over to Elliot Bay Book Company and cruised the isles for deals, took a nap and got dressed up for a night out.  Our event of the evening was Handel's Messiah preformed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.  It was a fine night for listening and people watching.  The music was splendid and the patrons animated.  When things at the music hall were over around 11pm we nabbed a table for dinner at Lola.

Benaroya Hall

Lola was our first experience with a Tom Douglas restaurant.  Though there are no pictures I'll not soon forget the gyros and kebabs we ate alongside glasses of frothy beer or the delicious smooth ice creams which capped off our night.  Too soon after dinner we found ourselves in bed, zonked out from the day's wonderful activities.