Heading to Seattle – The Emerald City

Christening the holiday at the Airport hotel

We’re finally on our way back to the USA again! 

We treated ourselves to a night at the Rydges Sydney Airport hotel the evening before the trip so that we wouldn’t have to wrestle with early peak-hour traffic on the M5 and it was a great way to start. We enjoyed a couple of glasses of bubbly in their Sports Bar to christen the journey and slept very well in a comfy bed. The view from the room was a little ordinary though…. the ultimate in “carpark” views!

View from the room!

We enjoyed breakfast in the recently opened American Express lounge. It’s only small but had comfortable seating, a range of hot and cold breakfast items, good cappucinos and free bubbly… to christen the journey again… I could see a theme developing here…

24 hours before our flights left Sydney I had logged in to the Qantas website to check in online. Our seats for the Sydney-LAX leg were excellent, the best economy class seats we’ve ever had. 32J & K are a pair of seats on the window at the bulkhead in the tiny Economy cabin of the A380 top deck .

Not only are they a much-coveted pair of seats on their own ( yay, no fighting with random strangers for an armrest1) but they also have a very handy and capacious storage bin under the window which easily catered for my large handbag and Neil’s small backpack. The cabin was quiet, for the first time in several trips we didn’t have a crying baby anywhere within earshot and never had to queue for the toilet in the tiny cabin.

Neil looking pretty happy about our seats!

However the glitch arose when I checked in and saw that we had been allocated widely separated seats on the flight from Los Angeles to Seattle. In it’s wisdom the system had placed Neil in the “premium” section in 8A… and me wayyyyyy down the back in 30F!  I still wonder who he bribed to get that arrangement?!?   However, it was all sorted out at the airport by the nice check in clerk and she re-seated us in a compromise row roughly midway between.

Our flight arrived early in Los Angeles which was a blessing as we were towards the front of the massive immigration queue that always daunts us on arrival at LAX. Unfortunately we hadn’t realised that they’ve implemented a new system since our last trip and learnd to late that we could have used the automated checkin kisosks. The requirement for this was that you had a pre-aproved ESTA, and had also previously visited the USA since 2008. Ah well, we’ll know for next time….

We had  a good 10 minute walk from Tom Bradley InternationaTerminal down to Terminal 6 where

Pike Place Market

we needed to connect to our Alaska airlines flight. Another trip through security where Neil ( as usual!) was pulled aside for a drug/explosives swab. We joke about the fact that they always seem to pick on Neil, I guess it’s something about that bald head!

We hadn’t slept much on the long flight across the Pacific so we were both feeling pretty dozy on the 2 1/2 jaunt up the coast to Seattle. It’s nickname is “the Emerald City” and as you fly in it’s not hard to see why. The city is perched on the shore of Puget Sound, a huge meandering waterway that reminded me a little of Sydney Harbour. However instead of gum trees there are miles and miles of fir and pine forests that run down to the waters edge which at this time of year are a lovely emerald green.

The cab ride to the city took only 20 minutes and we both picked up our weary heads when we crested a rise and had our first view of the city skyline with its spectacular Space Needle.  Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived so we dropped our bags and hoofed it down the road to the Pike Place Markets. The markets meander through a collection of buildings dating back to the later 1800’s and are chock full of lovely fresh food stalls, flower stands, souvenir shops, trinket stores and restaurants. However its real claim to fame are the array of amazing seafood vendors.

We saw huge lobsters, Dungeness Crabs, enormous trout and massive piles of clams being boxed up to ship across the country to the homes of drooling tourists. The workers on the stands are famous for throwing colossal fish across from the ice displays to the boys in the back for packaging, while singing an ancient sailing shanty!

After a tasty lunch in one of the many cafes we wandered back to the hotel to finally check in and get a little rest.  On the way we passed the place where the huge Starbucks coffee chain first started in 1971. It’s a popular tourist spot and people were queued down the street for a taste of the original brew. There was a quirky little band playing out the front to entertain the crowd. I captured a quick video which you can watch below ( or here if you’re reading this on email).

We were very pooped by this stage so have had a lazy afternoon in catching up with things and getting organised for our day tour tomorrow. We napped and ordered room service for dinner and re-acquainted ourselves with American TV.  Donald Trump’s campaign to get the Republican nomination for next years Presidential election looms very large on all the news channels, but I preferred the golden glow of the sunset view from our hotel window to the brassy colour of Trumps hair!