When we woke up, we realized we had a notification from Alaskan Airlines that our flight was delayed 3 hours, luckily, we were still at home and were able to switch flights to the next one, which was supposed to depart around 20 minutes earlier than our delayed flight. This ended up being a great idea as the original flight kept being delayed more and more.

Ariela was super excited for the airplane, which is usually her favorite part of the vacation. She got the tablet loaded with games and movies to enjoy during the flight. We also had been counting down the nights until we go to Seattle for about a month so Ariela was quite amped up to go to Seattle, even though she didn’t quite comprehend what that all entailed.

The flight was great and after arriving and taking a train and a shuttle, we got to rent our car that would be taking us around for the next 9 days. We drove straight to the hotel for check-in.

It was already dark, and we were exhausted, we walked to an authentic Lebanese restaurant called Tanoor. The food was AMAZING! Literally one of the best dishes I’ve had. We also got Batata Harra, which are French fries with garlic sauce and a delicious chili sauce for dipping. Yum!

Arielita was super happy to get her own bed in the hotel and even went to pee all by herself in the night, she always seems to hit exciting milestones when we travel!

The next day, we drove to the downtown area and parked in one of the Amazon building underground garages, which are free during the weekends. The downtown area is very pretty with modern and “sparkly” buildings as Ariela called them.

We walked past the Amazon Biosphere, but unfortunately was closed on the weekends.

We walked a few blocks to the Pike’s Market area, which is the most touristy place in all of Seattle. Luckily, we got there very early, so the crowds and lines were manageable.

Our first stop was the Anchorhead coffee shop, which is known as one of the best coffee shops in Seattle. For some reason, I opted to get a Pistachio milk matcha drink instead of coffee. It was good, but maybe coffee would have been a better choice.

Eitan is attracted to lines forming around touristy spots, in his mind “it must be great if so many people are lining up”. So, we lined up in a few places except the first Starbucks, if we wanted Starbucks there are several in the city without a long line. This location opened on March 30, 1971, and was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl.

The original Starbucks was a modest 1,000-square-foot space with a single employee, hand-built fixtures, and a long wall of whole-bean coffee. The store’s logo was a Siren in the window, and if you look closely, the siren has nipples! All other stores have a more modest Siren as the logo.

They do serve the exact same coffee as the other locations, and we were not going to buy any souvenirs specially made for this location, so we skipped the line. Also, Eitan hates Starbucks as the coffee tastes like burned poo poo to him (and he is a coffee snob).

The next stop was a very famous Russian pastry shop Piroshky Piroshky. In 1992, the Kotelnikov family opened Piroshky Piroshky hoping to bring a taste of Russia to the Pacific Northwest.

A piroshky is hand pie, and the fillings are as diverse and differing as the cultures and people who make and serve them. We got the Marzipan one and it was incredible!

Ariela was interested in watching how they make these!

We walked around the Pikes Place Market for the next couple hours. They had a really nice view of Elliot Bay from the back side of the market.

The Pike Place Market has been a defining Seattle icon for more than a century. Considered by many “the soul of Seattle,” the Market spans nine historic acres in the center of downtown where everyday locals and tourists alike shop, visit, eat and discover.

Founded in 1907, the Market is one of the oldest and largest continuously operating public markets in the United States and is brought to life by the hundreds of farmers, crafters, small businesses, and residents that call it “home”.

Of course, we had to stop by the famous flying fish stand, where workers throw at each other the purchased fish across the stand. Super fun to watch and they do invite the buyer to participate in this tradition, which inevitably ends with the fish on the ground.

The market has several floors with all kinds of stores. From a magic store, an ancient map store and other rarities, including the World’s Oldest Comic Shop (unverified claim).

After a quick stop for more photos, Ariela was really into helping me perfectly frame the photo.

We continued walking toward the famous gum wall. After it became the host of Unexpected Productions’ Theatresports in 1991, the theater’s walls were covered by patrons’ pieces of used gum that had pennies pushed into them.

The coins were later removed, but the gum remained amid several cleanings of the walls under orders from the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority. The market’s officials reversed course and allowed the gum wall to stay, deeming it to be a tourist attraction around 1999.

By the late 2000s, the gum wall had grown to 50 feet (15 m) long and included pieces as high as 20 feet (6.1 m). Some contributors to the gum wall arranged their pieces to create small works of art.
It was named one of the top 5 “germiest” tourist attractions in 2009, second to the Blarney Stone in Ireland.

Our next stop was the famous Beechers Cheesery, where we ordered a melted cheese, delicious creamy tomato soup, and some mac and cheese. I realized that this is the same Mac and Cheese I always buy at Costco, and it is delicious.

We continued our walk down towards the marina.

Each pier offers a different attraction, from Arcade, shops and a gigantic Ferris Wheel, which cost a pretty penny, so we decided to skip it this time.

We then boarded the famous (only if you are a local) Argosy cruise for a 2-hour tour of the marina and the Ballard locks. We chose the front of the boat on the recommendation of one of the employees.

The tour takes you from Pier 55 in Elliot Lake through Salmon Bay and into Union Lake.

The views were incredible, and the weather was amazing. We got a beer and enjoyed the commentary from the guide. Ariela could not sit still for more than 10 seconds here, so we took out her drawing tablet.

The commentary was excellent with a lot of interesting facts along the way. One funny story is this Hotel that was designed to allow guests to fish from their rooms. Unfortunately, the execution was not great, and the fishing lines were banging on the windows from the rooms below, so they banned the activity.

I took about 40 minutes of a beautiful ride with excellent views.

We also learned about the restaurant Ray’s Boathouse, which happens to own the domain Rays.com, which is the only MLB team that does not own their team’s domain. One the Rays team reached out to buy the domain, the owner of the restaurant responded with “Go Mariners!!”. The rest is history

Then we reached Ballard Locks. The Ballard Locks carry more boat traffic than any other lock in the U.S., and the locks, along with the fish ladder and the surrounding Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Gardens, attract more than one million visitors annually, making it one of Seattle’s top tourist attractions.

The locks and associated facilities serve three purposes:
-To maintain the water level of the freshwater Lake Washington and Lake Union at 20–22 feet (6.1–6.7 m) above sea level.
-To prevent the mixing of sea water from Puget Sound with the fresh water of the lakes (saltwater intrusion).
-To move boats from the water level of the lakes to the water level of Puget Sound, and vice versa.

The small lock was closed for repairs, so we were very lucky to be able to be “lifted” on the big lock. This meant that other boats had to wait for us to fill the lock before the doors closed.

After a few minutes of watching the locks and boat employees working hard to attach the boats to the walls of the lock, the doors close and the water level starts to rise slowly. This takes around 15 minutes, and the boat barely rocks during the process.

The front gate now opens fully and now we are at the same level of the lake. This is basically a smaller version of the Panama Canal with the same type of engineering. Surprisingly, there is no cost to use the locks, and it is all paid for by your taxes!

We navigated along the river houses, which can be very expensive like the one below that goes for $1.5 million!

Seattle has a total of 500 floating homes and 250 residential houseboats. These numbers are the result of a 2014 law that was passed to ensure responsible development and use of Seattle’s freshwater shoreline. The law also prohibits the addition of new floating homes to Lake Union.
To build a new floating home or houseboat in Seattle, one must be destroyed or moved outside of the city. However, existing floating homes can be replaced in some areas depending on the rules of the community where the lot is located.

We arrived at Lake Union for the last part of the trip.

We finished the ride passing through the Gas Works Park (we will be visiting it in a few days) and other nice landmarks.

We finally arrived at the dock, which happened to be right across our hotel. After a quick rest at the hotel, we walked back to the car that was parked in Downtown. During the walk, we noticed that the Amazon buildings have some nice audio tours. We followed a couple and learned interesting things about the design and history of the offices, all related to the development of Amazon products.

We drove a few miles east to the neighborhood of Capitol Hill, which is packed with hip bars, eateries and gay clubs, plus laid-back coffee shops and indie stores. Ariela could not be more excited for the rainbow sidewalk.

Our first stop was the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. There are only 6 of these around the world, and it offers a bar with coffee-related alcoholic drinks, food and the view of how they roast special coffees.

It was neat to see as we shared a nice drink from their specialty bar.

We walked to the famous Elliot Bay book company store. The bookstore is housed in a 20,000-square-foot building. Exposed timber trusses, industrial sash windows, and 19-foot-tall ceilings contribute to Elliott Bay’s distinctive environment. The store regularly carries around 150,000 titles.

Ariela chose (of course) a Frozen book from the amazing children’s section.

We ended up eating in a decent Mexican restaurant for dinner. This was after 3 attempts at eating Thai Food. They have a food rating system here “Needs Improvement, “Okay”, “Good”, and “Excellent” and all the Thai food places we found were an Okay and Sarah wasn’t in the mood for diarrhea at the start of our trip so we opted for a “Good” Mexican.

Went back to the hotel to rest!

Bonus pic of the day: Seattle is a cruise ship destination, and when they are loading fuel on it, they set up a barrier around the fuel barge that would contain any fuel if there was an accidental spill.