Recession be damned

Another beautiful day in Seattle, slightly warmer than the other days. Today Jessica, Michelle and I left Ed to do whatever and went into the city to check out more of the sites. I was really happy Michelle ended up coming because she knew how to get around town easily which would have taken Jess and I much longer to figure out. We ended up going to the famous market, Pike Place. Jessica, of course, had to see the first Starbucks and get coffee there (and so did hundreds of other lame tourists). The whole market was super crowded. We ended up combing the market for interesting souvenirs for friends and family but we all failed to actually purchase something for anyone other than ourselves. You can find anything there from flowers, food, hand-made crafts, jewelry and shirts. I can only hope that, all the colors of the market will be etched into my memory for a long time. The best part of the market was being able to taste test all the food: dried fruits, nuts, honey, exotic (olive or balsamic) oils, jerky, jam, and basically anything else you can think of. I was seriously about to drop like $25 on a medium-sized bottle of this Sun-Dried tomato olive oil for Julia but in the end we moved on and the moment passed. (Sorry Jules.) Jess bought some Mount Rainer cherries that we munched on the rest of the day. We ended up eating lunch down near the market at some Mediterranean place that Michelle's brother, Carlos, apparently loves. i think it was called Falafel King? I dunno. It was nice seeing people of all types selling and buying. Commerce at it's finest. While I was there, I forgot that we were in a Recession/Depression because of how happily people were dropping money all around, especially on something as simple as a huge boutique of flowers. In front of the famous flying fish market, a man proposed to his girlfriend in front of everyone. needless to say, it was fun to people watch while we were down there.

Michelle ended up dropping Jessica and I off in Belltown (I think) to check out the sculpture park. We then headed to the Seattle Center to see the Space Needle and to go to the Experience Music Project. We had seen signs that advertised that there was a Jim Heson's Muppets exhibit that we were both interested in seeing. I got us somewhat lost in the Seattle Center but we eventually found the EMS (which is connected to the Science Fiction Museum which is where we later found out the Jim Henson exhibit was being held). We did the museum thing for awhile and learned a bunch about the music of Seattle. We briefly wandered the nerd wonderland of the Sci-Fi museum only to take in all of Jim Henson's finest. I have to say Jim Henson was pretty inspiring to me. I have a huge urge to start drawing regularly again. He had such a wonderfully fufilling career.

Tomorrow we are off to Vancouver. I hope they stamp my passport because I haven't had a chance to use it yet.