Pit Stop

Marriage is a long, winding road that sometimes you drive too fast along and one person almost falls (gets pushed?) out of the vehicle. Those are some sharp corners… I like to think of anniversaries as sort of a pit stop on that road. You stop, enjoy the scenery, drop a load (of cash, in my case), and then hop back in the car, wondering if you’ll both make to the next pit stop. This analogy is lame, so let’s get on with the story. Our sixth pit stop took us to the Westin Seattle.

I won this goodie off of Priceline for the rock-bottom(?) price of $90 per night. Unfortunately, winning with Priceline means you are automatically relegated to whatever room they want to stick you in. I had read horror stories online that people who won with Priceline were stuck with the handicapped room on the third floor with a nasty little bed and the view of a wall outside their window. When the girl told me that she was going to give us a city view room on the 34th floor with two double beds, I didn’t complain.



Because we are such uptown people, we decided to grab some late-night munchies from the neighbouring McDonald’s. Yay! The Monopoly game is on! We won a smoothie and a medium fries.





After a nice long sleep in our separate beds (best anniversary idea ever?), we awoke to a bright and sunny Seattle. We set out exploring the downtown in the official city of Hipsters.





So obviously there is nothing more hipster than protesting as a hobby and, as you know, the ‘Occupy Wallstreet’ movement has spread to many major cities worldwide, so guess what? Seattle had it before Vancouver. And hipsters were out in full force.



We watched them from across the street before heading into the top restaurant for 1%ers, Chipotle. Because their food is amazing.








Look out for the giant hipster with a hammer.

I guess I thought we should head to Pike Place because that’s what any good tourist does and that’s what we always do – but…I kind of hate that place. The main reason being that is wall-to-wall on a Saturday afternoon of a long weekend and I hate people. I figured that one out today.











Of course, the FIRST STARBUCKS was bumping like always, which I’m confused about. There are like 10 other non-clogged outlets within a five-minute walk…this one doesn’t even have chairs. I don’t get it, but I also don’t think Starbucks tastes better than McDonalds. (I’m right on that, by the way.)







After walking the streets and trolling Nordstroms and Barneys for several hours, we headed back to the hotel so Marty could sleep and I could relax, watching documentary about marijuana. Weird. I didn’t want to watch it, but Marty fell asleep with the remotes and I didn’t want to get out of bed to grab them, so, yeah. Interesting.

After the rest, we headed over the bridge to Bellevue as I was kind of on a hunt for something. First stop was at The Bravern, where Neiman Marcus is housed.





I dropped a pile of cash at Neiman Marcus, all the while singing that horrible Blu Cantrell song from 2001, “Hit ‘em Up Style (Oops!)” Wahh, that kind of ruins it, because I bought some Chanel shoes.



I couldn’t let these babies out of my sight once it sunk in that they were mine! I probably shouldn’t have spent that much on shoes, but I do silly things all the time. Yeah, I’m chalking this purchase up to “silly”.




So sensible, right?

For dinner we headed to the much-ballyhooed Tom Douglas joint, Dahlia Lounge. Tres chic.







The food was pricey, but absolutely delightful. Just…yum.



After a late-night snack hunt (for our weekly SNL viewing), we crashed from exhaustion. The next morning we raided the also-ballyhooed Top Pot Doughnuts for breakfast before our main outing of the day to the Experience Music Project Museum.



HIPSTER ALERT. Actually, it’s been in overdrive the entire time we’ve been in the city, but this place is like their Batcave. Retro. Doughtnut. Shop. I can’t even spell it out further.


Broken old tv. Check.


Skeleton paper cut-out like from grade five. Check.


Seattle fair trade coffee. Check.


The doughnuts were OK, but the coffee was superb.

We walked over to the museum because taking the tram was so pricey. The walk was nice…right through another hipster-ish neighbourhood.


A dreamcatcher! A hipster must have been here, leaving clues behind.


Obligatory Space Needle shot.

You’ve seen the EMP building, right? So crazy/awesome it makes my brain hurt. It must have been a pain in the ass to build.





The first exhibit we visited was ‘Can’t Look Away’ – an exhibit on horror films, just in time for Halloween!








Freddie Kruger’s glove and Edward’s Scissorhands.






Jason’s mask.


The scary-ass face of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

By far, the coolest part of the exhibit was the Scream Booth, where you go inside, they guide you through this little video and then you scream your lungs out and they take photos of it. I was supposed to look like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Ummaa…



Marty was supposed to look terrified, but he ended up looking scarier than me.


Definitely a creeper.


This is apparently what I look like as a monster.



The next exhibit was Avatar. This is the best museum evarrrrrrr.




This was a cool screen where you put a tablet thing down and all kinds of options pop up. We’ve reached the level of computing predicted in ‘Minority Report.’

I created a plant species for life on Pandora.











Obviously the museum is also about music since, well, we are in Seattle after all. However, Marty and I don’t care about Jimmy Hendrix or Nirvana.






This is MJ’s glove (who else’s would it be?) I’m sure he’d be happy to see it is resting on a black velvet cushion.

After running through the ‘Battlestar Galactica’ exhibit, we headed back outside and wandered the park before heading back to the car for the journey home (or Macy’s – whatever’s first.)







Like mentioned, we stopped at Northgate before our run for the border. At Macy’s, it was Christmas! Yayyyyyyyy



And so concludes our fun anniversary weekend stateside. No further blogs upcoming at the moment…I think. I need a life!