Seattle

Justin and I were able to go to Seattle for 5 days. We had so much fun while we were there.

We left on Thursday morning. We made our flight right on time. We didn't have to wait long either. We got through security, went to our gate and they had already started boarding the first section. It was awesome. I don't like flying very much so it was nice that we were able to sit next to each other. I think we found the last two seats that were next to each other as well. We flew Southwest and they don't have assigned seating. We landed in Seattle around 10. We decided not to rent a car and just take public transportation. We got our bags and were looking through some of tourist brochures that were there to decide what we wanted to do. After that, we went and found the train (like trax) to go to our hotel. We got of the train and started walking in the direction of our hotel, not really knowing exactly if we were going the right way or not, but we found it. The train was only a block away from our hotel so it was very easy to get around there. We checked in and relaxed for an hour while looking through the brochures a little more. We decided to go to Pikes Place first and check it out. While on our walk there we hadn't had anything to eat so we stopped for lunch at The Hard Rock Cafe. First time I've ever been there. It was delicious. After we finished our walk to the market. We didn't do much at the market, just walked through it really fast. We ended up at the aquarium. They have City Passes there where you get a discount to go and do five attractions around Seattle, so we decided to get those. We started at the aquarium. It was cool to walk through and see all the different fish and animals they had there. Justin touched a starfish and had me do it as well. It felt like a rock. Never doing that again though. I don't like fish or anything out of the sea! We also found a fish with teeth. It's very weird to look at. After that we walked down a little more and decided to do the Argosy Cruise. It was an hour boat ride and it took us around the harbor. On it, there were telling us a little bit about Seattle and all the different things that were at the harbor. I don't think I can go on a boat that small again. I was getting seasick. We weren't sure what to do after that so we walked a little bit more around the area and decided to walk back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel around 5 and we still had a lot of time left in the day and we didn't want to waste it. Even though we were getting tired we decided to to the Underground Tour. The tour took us around the underground Seattle. We learned about the history of Seattle and how it started out. Very interesting. We had no idea what to do for dinner after that so we ended up eating at The Bistro connected to our hotel.

Friday was another busy day for us. We wanted to get up early and get an early start to the day but we ended up sleeping in because we were so tired from Thursday's activities. Once we were up and ready to go we had already decided to go to the Space Needle and all the attractions around there. We hopped on the train to go to our destination, but before we could get there, we had to catch the monorail. We got off the train and started walking in the direction we thought the monorail was... we were wrong! We took about a twenty minute detour to get to the monorail. When we finally reached it, it was right next to the station we got off on, just in the other direction we didn't walk in. So we hopped on the monorail and headed for the Space Needle. It wasn't crowded at all when we arrived which was nice because we ended up getting there around 11:30 when on the paper it said started the busy time. We were standing in line to go up the elevator and had to wait about 10 minutes. We finally got on the elevator and I had no idea that the doors were glass and you could see through them. I don't like heights so that freaked me out for a second while on the ride up. When we got to the top it was so neat. We sat down and were looking through the windows before we decided to go outside. It was so windy! The views were beautiful though. Looking out at the harbor and then the skyline, so much fun. While we were on the observation deck I swear I could feel it moving. Don't like that feeling. After about an hour we decided to head back down and go do some of the other attractions. We went to the Pacific Science Museum next. There we started out watching a 40 minute film on polar bears. Very informative. After that we walked around through the galleries that they had. It reminded us of Discovery Gateway. It was cool seeing everything though. We decided to get some lunch at a cafe nearby. After lunch we ended up at the EMP Museum (Experience Music Project). They had some cool things in there. There was a sculpture I guess you could say of guitars that played themselves. You put on headphones and you could listen to the music there were playing. We watched some concerts that they had there and then walked through another section on movies and some of the things they used in them. We timed it perfectly because as we were about to walk out, someone came down and told everyone that the museum was closing. We debated about going to the Space Needle again. We ended up at the top one more time because it wasn't busy (such good luck!). This time we didn't spend as much time up there. It started to sprinkle and the wind picked up a lot more. We found our way back to the monorail and back on the train to the hotel. We stayed there for the rest of the night because our legs were killing us from all the walking we were doing.

Saturday was kind of a lazy day for us. We stayed in the hotel part of the day but we decided to use our last city pass and brave the weather and go to the Museum of Flight. First we had to find a bank open to give us money for the fare for the bus. It took us about a half hour before we were able to find something open. We were surprised not a lot of stuff was open on Saturday there. We ended up finding a bank and made our way to the bus stop to catch our ride to the museum. On the bus we found some other people going the same place we were. We got to the museum and started wandering around. We started at the space section first and learned about the space station. Next we wandered around the planes and ended up in a room like the control tower for the airport. We sat and watched a couple planes land and take off. After we went through how airplanes started and then ended up in the WWI and WWII exhibits. It was neat to look at the planes they used and learn more about history. The museum took about about 2 and a half hours. We found our way back to our bus stop and our friends from the bus were there too. I guess we decided to finish up at the same time. We didn't have to wait long for the bus thank goodness because it started raining a lot more by the time we were done at the museum. We went back to the hotel, found some dinner and just relaxed there getting ready for Sunday.

Sunday was a slightly cold day but didn't start out too bad. Our main thing we went to Seattle for was to watch the Patriots play the Seahawks. We made our way to the field and just followed everyone else there. It was really close, about a 10 minute walk. When we got there we still had about an hour before they opened up the gates to let everyone in so we ended up just standing in line. We saw a lot of Patriots fans there. I was surprised by how many either made the trip or lived in Seattle who were Patriot fans. It made the experience so much better though. We were let into the stadium and I swear about a third of the people there were for the Patriots. We found our seats and we were by a lot of Patriot fans. There were some Seahawk fans around us but not as many as our Patriot fans. We were sitting really close to the field and being able to watch them that close made part of the experience. We were also sitting by a family that had just moved from Boston to Seattle a month before and they were Patriot fans. They had to go to the game because it was there where they moved to. It was fun talking to them about Boston. The teams came out and started warming up. It was cool watching the teams warm up and seeing how they started out the game. It was an awesome first half. We were doing so well. Patriots were winning. Then the second half started. It was alright until we started messing up. At the very end of the game, Seahawks came back and one it by one point. 24 Seahawks to 23 Patriots. It was sad walking out of that stadium but we were excited to have gone and seen an NFL game. That stadium is the loudest stadium in the NFL. I'm surprised we weren't deaf by the time we left. Throughout the game the weather started to turn. It started drizzling and then progressively made its way to a full on pour. We both brought sweatshirts and I convinced Justin to bring out wind breakers/coats. I'm glad we did too because by the time we walked back to our hotel, our clothes were soaked through. It wasn't that cold, just very wet. We changed into dry clothes and hung up our wet ones to dry. We went back to the Bistro for dinner that night because everything else had a long wait. We ended there, had some dinner and made our way back to our room. We had to pack and get ready to leave in the morning. We tried going to bed early, but that didn't end up happening.

We woke up at 4:30 to get ready to go home. We finished packing our wet clothes that were almost dry and went to check out. We wanted to make the first train back to the airport because we didn't know how long it was going to take us to get through security and all that. We ended up on the second train and made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We ended up with about two hours of time before we were to board the plane so we got some breakfast and played games on our phone until it was our turn. Justin was able to board the plane before I was so he was able to get us seats next to each other. The flight back wasn't as smooth as the flight there. I freaked out a couple times because I don't like turbulence. We made it back safe and I was glad to be home. My dad picked us up from the airport and took us back home. It was so nice to get away and have a vacation. No stress about work or school and we were able to spend some time by ourselves. Every trip we've been on has always been with family except for our honeymoon so it was nice and relaxing to get away. We will have to figure out our next trip now. I will post some pictures soon of our trip.