For those of you who have not been to Seattle, the city is built on some very large hills, actually cliffs. To get to the Pike Place Market from the water you have to go up about a million steps. I might be exaggerating a bit, but while you are in the process of climbing it feels like a million. Once we arrived I showed Shannon where the first Starbucks was located and then we made our way over the main part of the market. The market was much busier then the previous time I was here, I have to imagine it was due to the fact it was a Saturday and many of the locals come here to get fresh produce, fish, flowers, etc. Here we each are with the “infamous” sign.
Then we were successful in taking a picture of the two of us by holding the camera out in front.
And an up-close one of the sign.
We went over to the fish stand and watched them sell and throw some fish.
Then they handed this big fish to a boy in the crowd. Yuck, I hope he washed his hands after holding this.
We then went over the pepper stand. For some reason I just love how they put these displays together.
This wreath was something new, I had not seen it in June. Very cool!
Then there are all the flowers. I absolutely love fresh flowers and they are all so amazing at the market. Here is some pretty statice
Here is a nice fall bouquet
And these pretty pink stargazer lilies – I took these in honor of our cruise critic group – we were named the Stargazers.
Here are a row of flowers for $5 each! The flowers are so cheap here it is unbelievable. You would pay so much more for these anywhere else.
We then moved onto the fresh fruit
- quick update on the this fruit picture, Shannon and I have both gone through these pictures several times, and it was only today, 10/14 that we noticed the huge lizard eating a peach. Hmm... not sure if it was take your pet to the market day or not....
And vegetables
Pasta anyone?
As we were leaving we saw this cute parking sign.
We then walked behind the market to the fun little park I had found in June to get some great sky line pictures.
Here is Shan with the city behind her.
After we left the market we headed back to our hotel. Here is our room for the night - much bigger then our cabin for the week.
We then headed up towards Kirkland to have dinner with my cousin, Betsy and Rob for dinner. I wanted to take Shannon across the floating bridges, which is one part of Seattle that I absolutely love and I am fascinated by.
Evidently Tampa has floating bridges, so Shan was not as impressed. We also took the tunnel under Mercer Island – Shannon was glad she was not driving. We had dinner in Kirkland, which has a fun downtown area. We went to an Irish Pub and had a great dinner! When we got back to my cousins house we saw the nursery which is awaiting the arrival of twin boys (they are scheduled to be born this Thursday, October 16th) It was great to be able to spend time with Betsy and Rob again, we had a great time both in July and September. I hope to be able to visit them again soon – I am sure they will welcome any help with the boys.
We found this nice spot to take some pictures with the space needle.
We then left the Seattle Center and headed back down to Alaska Way, which is where the Real World House was. Here is a picture of the space needle as we drove away. 
As we were walking down the street we saw the Golden Princess leaving. The Golden is a sister ship to the one we were on. Here are some pictures as it sails away. 
I admittedly did not watch the Real World Seattle season (I have only watch one season in my life.), but Shannon was a big fan. Finding the house was high on her list of things to do in Seattle. The funny thing about it, is that when I was Seattle in June she was telling me she wanted to go while I was stopped at a railroad crossing directly in front of it, but had no idea that was it. The house was located at Pier 70 
Evidently this is where some fight took place and somebody threw something into the ocean – guess you had to watch the show. 
The things about this location, is that after the show was over a new owner bought the place and had totally redone the whole thing. So it does not look anything like it did during the Real World and the house is gone. But the door was here.
Here is Shannon by the door.
Now there is a nice restaurant where you can go eat (or in our case walk around and take pictures of.) 
This is one of my favorite pictures. Over the course of the cruise Shannon and I took many pictures of the two of us by holding her camera out and taking the picture. This was our first attempt. As you can see we failed. I was standing to the right of Shannon. Many times during the cruise we would find this picture for a good laugh.
The first “landmark” we saw was Safeco Field.
We then traveled down Alaska way and Shan saw Puget Sound for the first time. We decided to start our sightseeing at the Space Needle. Parking around that area was quite expensive and hard to find. A few blocks away we found some on street parking, but you had to back in on an angle. Normally I would not think too much of this, but being in a rental car, that I had only driven for a few hours, I was a little nervous. But I did really well. We are the little black car in the middle
We walked a few blocks to the space needle, which is surrounded by the Seattle Center which has sculptures, gardens, museums, and kid’s area. Here is the space needle as we approached it.
This is one of the sculptures – it is not a Calder – but it looks like one.
Shan and I both had our pictures taken by it. 
While we were there a little girl was using one of the tubes as a slide, I tried to take a picture, but she was bored at the point and went to play with something else. 
Evidently grass is not very nice in Florida, so Shannon as excited to walk on some real grass.
These are some of the pretty flowers
I found this mural and I liked it.
Shannon wanted to go play in the kid’s area, but she was too tall.
This is a lightning bolt sculpture – I liked this too. 
Shannon received this news on Wednesday and so her flights were moved to Friday. She was able to get into the hotel a night early and everything was set. So we thought. Thursday night Shannon received another phone call from the airline telling her that the Friday flights were now cancelled and she had two choices, take a flight that lands her in Seattle an hour after the ship left on Sunday or pay an additional $1000 for the final first class seat on Friday. Neither one was a valid option. So Thursday night, just hours before she was scheduled to leave Shannon was ticket less. Thankfully she found a flight on Air-Tran that got her into Seattle on Friday, but didn’t get here home until Monday. This worked out due to the fact that Shan’s roommate works for the Marriott chain and was able to get us rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott for $50 a night.
We spent Saturday afternoon, evening and Sunday morning touring around Seattle. My favorite thing was the underground tour. A must see if you are in Seattle
Then we boarded the Star Princess – our home for the week. 
We bought some flowers from the Pike Place Market to bring on board; they brightened up our room for the week.
Our days at sea were filled with activities too. We got lots of pictures taken – here is us one of the not formal nights. 
Our cruise director was JJ Ullrich. Every morning he would host Good Morning Alaska which went over all the activities of the day and give any pertinent information. Every morning we watched to see what was going on. I am going to miss having someone lay out my plans for each day for me. Here is a picture of him on TV.
JJ was a great cruise director and I enjoyed chatting with him a bit.
