15 Mar Seattle

The other weekend I went to Seattle. I went there with a close friend of mine back from Sweden who is an exchange student in Kelowna in Canada. Seattle is about halfway (-ish) so we decided to meet up their over the weekend.

Seattle is beautiful city, but without a car, our options tourist-wise were limited to pretty much downtown Seattle. Among other things, we did the obvious one, to go up the Space Needle. We were up there both day time and night time. I would recommend doing both; during day time you can see the mountains surrounding Seattle in all directions, which is awesome, and during night time you can see city bathing in electrical light in the dark, which is always a great view.

In lack of a car we also signed up for an underground tour. Apparently Seattle underground tunnel system, unlike most (maybe all) other cities, has not been dug out, but instead the city has been built above. The reason for this was very interesting to hear, and included endless troubles with tide, malfunctioning sewer-systems, streets rising over a dozen feet higher than the sidewalks, and a Swede. Apparently the Swede was the one starting the fire when Seattle burnt in the early 1900s. After this, we were told he moved to San Francisco, which a couple of years after that also burnt to the ground…; the connection between these events were unclear our guide told us. However, it should be pointed out that the fire was seen as a blessing rather than a calamity. Anyway, both I and my friend really enjoyed the underground tour and I would really recommend it to someone visiting Seattle.

All in all, Seattle is a cozy town, but compared to my earlier trips (among others San Diego, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Napa), I wouldn´t necessarily put it in the top of a recommended to do list; however, if you have a weekend and some dollars to spare you´ll definitely enjoy your time there.