When I first landed in Seattle, I went to find my pre-booked shuttle car from the airport to my hotel in downtown Queen Ann, and met this rather gorgeous, and delightfully intelligent blonde lady in her mid-40s, with whom there was an instant spark, and from the moment I helped her retrieve her lost gloves, to the moment we realised we were the only ones in the shuttle car together going to our hotels, we hit it off instantly, and chatted away like we'd been friends for years. Regardless of her being 12-15 years older than me, I found her incredibly beautiful, elegant and several kinds of hot. My gaydar pinged just slightly, which did make me wonder if she was a lovely late bloomer, but I decided to take the budding friendship for what it was, and was very pleasantly surprised when she gave me her card, and even more so since we have now exchanged a few emails. As hot as she is, I'm not setting myself up for one of my famous falls again, but will say that I'm enjoying her friendship, and delighting in her witty, quirky and sometimes refreshingly geeky sense of humour. So lovely to connect again.
On my birthday, while waiting for the Seattle Underground Tour of Pioneer Square to start, I had the pleasure of soaking up the lovely woody atmosphere of the Elliot Bay bookstore, with the comforting sound of old creaking floorboards under my feet, and high bookshelves full of books of every kind, with special hand-written notes by bookstore employees of why they thought certain books were a good read - it was definitely a nice way to while away a few hours in the warmth and presence of so many interesting words and thoughts.
The Underground Tour was wonderful - packed with Seattle's quirky history, a sense of adventure, interesting details on the founders' relationship with Chief Seattle and the Native Americans, and a healthy dose of humorous and sobering tales of the forthright and lively relations between the business men and women and the town planners of the 1800s between then and now. Definitely something I would recommend, and once I have processed the photos, I will definitely share them with you.
I also got to visit Capitol Hill, which was excellent. I dropped into some quirky shops and independent book stores, and also an interesting little Indian jewellery store, where I bought an unusual blue and red Tibetan pendant, from it's very intelligent and worldly owner, with whom I had an interesting conversation about travelling and property developing around the world.
I also got to drop into the wonderful Bailey Coy bookstore, which has a lovely treasure trove of lesbian and gay books, stationary and artwork. I happily browsed around for an hour, and then went up to the sales counter to ask the rather cute woman with dark blonde hair and glasses if she stocked Paige Braddock's "Jane's World". I got a very throaty and darned right sexy "Hello...!" from her, and some very good chemistry going on as we chatted. All the while I was thinking, "Damn, she's cute...a shame I can't take her back home with me...". I even got a wink and some good wishes for the rest of my stay in Seattle.
Sigh.
I don't think I've ever got such a cute and sexy welcome in a long, long time - pity I was only on a flying visit - but remembering her will always give me the warm sexy fuzzies... ;0)
The following day was spent exploring the wonders of Freemont - visiting its quirky and inspiring independent art shops and frame galleries, and also the Freemont Troll, and the sign that declares Freemont 'The Centre of the Universe'. ;0) I was also very fortunate to sample a wonderful Thai restaurant called 'Jai Thai', where I must say I had the most authentic Thai food I've ever tasted since being treated to a 3 course meal at the house of a Thai friend over 12 years ago now. The people at Jai Thai really do prepare their food with the best quality ingredients, and at an amazingly reasonable price too.
That evening, I walked up to Greenwood to spend a few hours with my two favourite authors, Kelley Eskridge (a writer of speculative and sci-fi fiction, who is also a screen writer), and Nicola Griffiths (a crime thriller and and sci-fi writer too). It was really a lovely evening, spent sampling real ale, some excellent white wine and good pub food, as well as sharing stories about growing up in unusual environments, the delights of cooking using fresh organic ingredients, and some quirky stories about dealing matter of factly with illness (Nicola copes quite admirably with MS), as well as joys of travelling too.
I enjoyed the evening so much, that I happily decided to forgo doing the geeky fan thing, and didn't get them to sign books or dissect their books in detail, which I think made for a much more relaxed time all round, where we all felt like we could be ourselves - and I am sure was a nice break from all the interviews and promotional tours they have been doing. At the end of the evening, Nicola was lovely and paid for my meal (as their birthday treat to me), and Kelley drove me back to my hotel (as by this time, it was raining quite heavily, and I had a particularly sore knee from all the walking I had been doing). They also offered to show me around the islands of Puget Sound whenever I next visit, which was really lovely of them. All-in-all it was a really nice experience.
The rest of the trip was spent doing the wonderful Savor Seattle food tour, where I got a quirky personalised tour (as this was the first time they had had only one customer show up in the tours history - they did, however, have a fully booked afternoon tour that same day), so I got to forgo all the formalities once again, and as well as listen to some gossip from various vendors around Pike Place market, got to sample some fantastic food, wine and deserts, as well as buy some very good quality fresh coffee, tea, cheese and chocolate gifts for the folks back home.
After a wonderful day at the Seattle Art Museum, I also got see The Golden Compass (which was good, though sadly not as wonderful as it could have been - I have a feeling the directing and screenplay let down the actors and the story, which was a little disappointing). The Seattle Symphony, however, was wonderful, and listening to Handel's Messiah with Christian Knapp (conductor), and Celena Shafer (soprano), was definitely a treat I would like to experience again.
My final day was spent visiting the Key Arena (whose name always reminds me of my completely unrelated, but much loved Bogie and Bacall film, 'Key Largo'), and the various attractions around the Space Needle, with the Experience Music Project, Pacific Science Center, and Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame being some nice places to visit.
---And you know, even after all of that, and how much I really loved my whole trip, I still don't feel I have gotten to see the full beauty of Seattle, and of course Oregon, and Vancouver. I really do think this calls for another trip in the summer if I can save up for it - I would love to spend a few days just strolling along the coastline, and experiencing the forests and lakes of Oregon, with a stop-off in Vancouver for a bit of exploring, and then back down to Seattle to explore the islands around Puget Sound, and finally track down 'Twice Sold Tales' (that bookstore with the resident cats - it used to be in the Queen Anne neighbourhood, but unfortunately moved to the University district, which I ran out of time to explore).
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