Week 27: 06/28-07/04

Week 27

     06/28 - Today I visited the weekly Farmer's Market in Ballard. It's supposedly one of the best in the country. I think it held up to it's reputation. There were a ton of quality stands to buy fresh produce as well as craft booths and whatnot. For lunch, I enjoyed some delicious BBQ at Kickin' Boot. I will definitely go back there (because I was unable to pay! They didn't take Discover and my debit card hasn't arrived yet!). SO I'llllll be going back to pay my bill haha. Oooops!

     07/02 - Guess what today is! Today is the day I picked up the lovely Melissa Raney up from the airport :) She has arrived to visit with me for 4th of July weekend. I woke up bright and early, skipped work, and hopped in a Zipcar. The airport was really easy to get in and out of. They have a "cell phone lot" that I chilled at for a little bit as I waited for her plane to land. It made a lot of sense because it kept the traffic down right by the pick-up zone. Anyways, everything went smoothly and she arrived in one piece and we headed home to regain some well-needed rest.

     At this point I began my new job as a Seattle tour guide, and it was quite fun! We headed on over to MOD Pizza downtown to grab some Made on Demand pies. I'm not sure if this place is up on my restaurants list yet but I intend to put it there, it cheap and fun and delicioso.

    After lunch we headed on out to explore the classic downtown Seattle touristy stuff. We started with Pike Place Market and I took the opportunity to horrify Melissa with the famous Gum Wall. I did manage to finally leave my mark on the wall, however, when I added one of my KPFF business cards.

...horror...

     We continued our journey through the market with a fresh carton of strawberries in hand, eventually wandering on over to Seattle Center and the Space Needle. It turns out the best way to enjoy a visit to the Space Needle is soaking wet. "How might one accomplish this?" you might ask. Well it's easy! Simply pre-order your ticket for the SN about an hour and a half in advance, then head on over to the International Fountain within the Seattle Center Park. Once there, laugh at the antics of confused children with pool floaties (it's a fountain, not a pool) and sit far enough away from the fountain that you build up too much confidence. It will get you somehow, be warned. We got ridiculously soaked and ended up looking super ratchet by the time we got up to the Space Needle observation deck haha. We had a blast though.

Ratchet but happy :)

     We eventually escaped the hustle of downtown and headed back to the apartment to relax and chat with Ryan. For dinner, we walked up the hill to Capitol Hill area for some yummy Mexican food at Barrio. All in all, a solid first day with Melissa in town, but I had some big plans yet to come...

     07/03 - Today was beach day! After a big mid-morning rooftop brunch, prepared by myself and expert strawberry-slicer Melissa, we hopped on a bus to Discovery Park. As I may have mentioned before, I like this place. It's technically in the city, but you would never know it because it's so isolated from everything. We trekked along the bluffs to arrive at the beach, where we enjoyed the sunshine walking up and down it. Eventually, we plopped down exhausted and both fell asleep. When we woke up the tide has moved in quite significantly, to the point that if we had slept much longer, we may have had some wet toes.

     After hiking back through the park, we headed on over to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks to check out the fish ladders and skip on over to Ballard. When I mentioned the "fish ladders" to Melissa she was rather confused as to what I was talking about. It was more fun to just not explain and let her see for herself haha. In Ballard, we quickly came to the decision that we were starving, and that the only fix to this problem would be pasta. After some smartphone searching we decided to try out Palermo Pizza and Pasta. It was amazing and they dished out large amounts of food, something uncommon for the prices in Ballard. Even though we were starving we still had a good deal of leftovers to take back with us. Once our hunger was satiated, We wandered around in Ballard for a while and ultimately hit up D'Ambrosio Gelato. Another successful day as Seattle's newest tour guide.

'merica breakfast

     07/04 - Happy Fourth of July! I'm very blessed to have Melissa here to spend it with, she's really great like that. The plan for today is simple: 1. 'merica 2. Party 3. Fireworks. We headed on over to a BBQ/party held by some of my coworkers and it was a great time! I brought my signature chocolate chunk banana bread (still need to add to the blog). It was a rather long day, but a fun one. My friend has an apartment right by Gasworks Park, where the main fireworks viewing is held. They launch the rockets off from Lake Union so our spot was ideal. At one point we mozied on down to Gasworks to see the mass quantities of people there...there were a ton. My "picture of the week" is from this venture. Though it was the first 4th of July that I've broken from family poolside tradition, it was a really really great one, especially with Melissa by my side and my new friends to hang with.