City Livin' in Seattle

Sweaty, smelly, and wearing the same set of clothing we’d worn for weeks, the first thing we did once we checked into our hostel in Seattle was shower. We luxuriated in the hot water and pulled on our clean city clothes and we were like new people. Just down the road from our hostel the Pike Place farmers market hugged the shore of the Puget sound. After our much needed Baptism we wandered into the din. Fish flew over our heads as salesman heaved their catch onto the steep banks of ice. They lined the multicolored bodies up in rows; the live ones shuddered and slide suddenly down the pebbled ice. We tasted free samples of nuts and honey, and walked reluctantly by tables laden with handmade leather journals. After we visited the sculpture park down the road we found our way to a cheap Mexican joint and gorged ourselves on chips. That night in the hostel we drank a bottle of wine out of our blackened cowboy cups and played War. We stumbled into a back room that had been designated as a smoking lounge and sat around awkwardly while a white kid from Ohio who had come to live in the hostel played chess with the tall, black chef of the hostel. A small woman with dyed black hair and a faint eastern European watched the two play. We left pretty quickly, feeling awkward and strangely unwanted. Afterwards we headed out to a dive bar across the street. We bought each other shots of whiskey and tequila and sat down next to the wall of darts. Red-faced dart players slouched one by one up to the line and wiped their hands on their jeans before closing one eye and taking their best shot.

We woke up in the morning in time for free breakfast, hung over but happy despite the early hour and the lingering odor of our mysterious smelly roommate. The small independent bookstore across the street didn’t open until eleven so we waited outside until they finally pushed out the first cart of sale books. After browsing shelf after shelf of anarchist literature and homemade zines we walked out into the heart of the city and towards Seattle’s only real claim to fame, besides the rain— the space needle.

Truth be told, we bypassed the needle completely, content merely to take a picture of Seb in tree pose underneath it. Instead, we spent our money on the joint museum complex that housed The Experience Music Project (otherwise known as the Jimi Hendrix Museum) and the Sci Fi Museum. Sebastian wandered in a dazed stupor through the exhibits of Hendrix’s pictures, guitars, and writing. We learned more that we ever needed to know about the Seattle music scene before and after Hendrix and banged around with the kids in the music studio upstairs. We made a quick pilgrimage to the adjoining Sci Fi museum where we saw the original Star Trek jumpsuits and the Terminator, which will be remembered forever thanks to a small boy with a speech impediment who ran excitedly towards the glass and yelled, “Terminadohs! Dad, look! Terminadohs!”

We left with Seb grumbling in good-humor about our exposure to that noxious disease known as nerdom and we walked back to the Hostel to eat some free dinner. On the way a homeless teenager flicked me off and smiled. That night we ran to Queen Anne’s hill to watch “Bright Star,” a beautiful and quiet movie about John Keats and the love that inspired his greatest poetry. After the movie, we walked back to the hostel in silence, strolling arm and arm through the dark city