seattle v2.0

we went to seattle over the weekend, mainly to see the cd release/tour kick off show of paco's band, and since we were already there, might as well spend the weekend there....seattle is not that far really, just 3 hours away, but without car...things are a bit difficult...there is a train, but it's outrageously expensive...there is a bus, but the hours it goes are highly inpractical.....so we rented a car

friday: after spending ridiculous time in traffic, got there in time to the show, sophie could only hack 2.5 songs and then we just hanged out in the car while chuy took pictures and watched his brother rock out :P after that, we went to paco's house and were suppose to sleep early to wake up early on sat....we went to sleep at 5 haha

sat: ate some cereal and took off....major traffic, if you don't like traffic, don't move to seattle if you wanna drive, unless you like traffic, then by all means.....finally arrived to mighty o's, which is a vegan donut shop...they make cakey donuts, which are denser than the fried ones...honestly, i was a bit underwhelmed....i can get the soft, puffy, vegan donuts here in pdx at voodoo or sweetpea...and they are so good...having said that, they were good, especially the apple fritter, even though i was the only one that liked it....after some donuts & coffee...we took off to see the fremont troll...quite nice...better than i expected it, and i expected it to be cool....then, since it was getting late, we decided that instead of going downtown, we would go hang out around the university neighborhood...it is quite lively and they have a ton of different little shops of various interests.....we found a soy frozen yogurt...and who amongst us having watched seinfeld have not craved one....it was pretty bomb...nothing like i expected, way more twang... or something.... and we found a large map poster for a project chuy and i will do later.... after that we went to a vegan pizzeria called pizza pi (this is for mari only cause she always asks: they use teese and it's bomb).... and suffered, because we were waiting for paco to catch up with us to eat, and i was starving.... luckily, while we waited, i spotted an indian grocery store across the street and bought some much needed indian supplies haha like black salt! and garbanzo flour! and well some homemade samosas to hold us over, they were amazingly delicious.....and we got an appetizer at the pizzeria, some cheezesticks with marinera and white garlic dipping sauce...that white sauce was an explosion of flavor in a good way and so rich! it was vegan pizza day that saturday, so it was pretty packed and a nonstop stream of people picking up orders, so we decided to order before paco & crew (sarah and their bandmates, steven & evan) arrived...now let me preface this by saying that if there is a philly cheezesteak sub (basically, grilled seitan, bell peppers and onions on a soft sandwich bred, like a ciabatta or soft roll) or a buffalo ranch sandwich (seitan with spicy, tangy, buffalo sauce, with freshness of lettuce/celery/carrot and tangy ranch sauce), i am very, very hard press not to get that....and they had those two sandwiches but they also had a philly cheezesteak pizza and a buffalo ranch pizza....chuy let me pick for both of us, maybe cause he knows i am a bit testy when hungry...so naturally, i ordered those pizzas (small ones, we eat a lot but not that much!)...oh wait, did i mentioned that you could get them with the crust stuffed with some more cheeze? yup, we went with that option....we ordered a pink pizza for sophie (red & white sauce blend, with green olives, potatoes, mushrooms and sundried tomatoes) and a field roast for paco & sarah (seitan and veggies)....let me just say that i was utterly blown away by the deliciousness of the seitan philly and buffalo ranch pizza WOW, yeah, it merits the capital letters...it was a hard fought first place, but the buffalo ranch won....ok, ok, i'll stop talking about food....so after getting our minds blown and our bellys full...we went to gasworks park, which is a park that overlooks the downtown area from across the water, it was a pretty nice view and a very peculiar park...it used to be a coal/oil plant, so there's still some machinery from that era surrounded by grass and beautiful views....quite nice...but you cant go in the water because it's still toxic from the years of the coal/oil plant use :(....after sunset (like 10 here) we headed to paco's for some sleep...yeah, it was early for the weekend but we were dead from not sleeping the night before

sunday: woke up and ate some leftover pizza, still damn good, and took off to the city center....yup, there was traffic, a lot of it, like even more than normal...and finding parking was a feat only the most patient people survive....but we prevailed and we found ourselves surprisingly watching a gay pride parade...surprisingly cause we didnt know it was gonna happen, not because i wouldnt want to watch one....it was cool and sophie got lots of freebies, and well, some social lessons to take home, it was all good...we watched it right in front of the central library which is a very impressive building, it was pretty awesome, inside and out....after the parade we walked around downtown towards a waterfall garden, it was cute and tiny, sophie being quite fond of water was very pleased....but then she had to the bathroom....so we headed out to seek a coffee shop...you know how it is, when you dont need them, they are all over, when you do, they hide, it seems...so while seeking the coffeehouse, we went through chinatown, a bit small for the size of seattle, but still a nice gate..the best chinatown, i've seen so far is london's followed by dc's....and since we didnt find a coffeehouse that was open, we went back to the library and thats when we went inside and found out it was pretty awesome inside, it had a cafe, a shop and like ten floors...and it was all super modern/industrial, so it looked awesome...since we were already there, we went to the children's section to let sophie play a bit and sit down a bit....after that, we went to find the car to go eat some chinese food (we had heard that chinese in seattle was awesome, unfortunatly, pdx lacks in that department a bit, it's still decent though)...well let's just say the restaurant we had planned to go was nowhere to be seen, and after much research with our high tech smartphones (normal phones calling smart people with internet, mari & baudy :P), we found another place to go, bamboo garden and it was damn good! we were all very pleased! sophie got a udon noodles & veggies stirfry, chuy and i shared a general tso's chickn (of course it was vegan, people) and a bean curd szechuan plate...yum, and then i was craving dessert so we got a peanut pudding (which tasted like mazapan pudding) and a raspberry sorbet..both were delicious...but man, we shouldnt have ordered them cause it was expensive hahah...also i keep forgetting that there is such thing as sales tax (cause theres none in oregon) and i miscalculate the actual price of things :/ after all that delicious overeating, we went to a beach park, there's millions of them in seattle, but we went to seaward park, it has hiking trails and everything, it was super nice....but again, a nightmare to find parking...once we did, sophie played in the water with chuy...the water was cold as expected, but surprisingly not that cold...i mainly took photos and enjoyed the views, we didnt have time to do any trails :( it was getting late and both chuy and i had to work early on monday, so after that we took off to pdx, home sweet home

conclusions:
-when we were in ep, we were considering seattle to move to, amongst pdx (ok, i dont know if you guys know this, but pdx is portland, thats the airport code and it's just easier to write, the same reason, i call, milwaukee, mke) and san francisco...we are super happy with our choice of portland...one of the reasons being seattle is super hilly, and i dont mean like oh, it's a tough hill on the bike..i mean like, oh it's an impossible hill for the bike and a car can barely go up, and walking up burns your muscles...yeah, it's full of those hills....i honestly dont know why those streets have bike lanes, it must be a cruel joke...being a bike fan, i would be crushed by seattle's hills and leave my bike to rust and have to rely on walking/public transport....
-i need to remember that seattle has sales tax!
-seattle with car = a lot of time wasted on traffic and finding parking, next time, i would rather take the bus to seattle and go around using my leg power and public transport, it would be much more enjoyable
-we need still need to see much of seattle
-i love seeing new (or newish), to me, cities :)
-i love pdx

yeah, we took pictures...but it's gonna take a while to get to them, expect them on fb some day hahha