Days 6 & 7: Victoria BC & Seattle WA

We had another quiet day, as Emma was still cold and flu-ey. This seems not to have hampered her incredible animal senses as she still managed to spot two or three humpback whales off the starboard bow.
Due to the storms the day before we were late getting into Victoria. We didn’t dock until after sunset, so our trip into Victoria was dark and short. We only had a few hours so we went for a brief walk.

We found a small coffee shop off the main street, a quirky little hippie vegie bar called Re-bar, and had our best coffees since Juneau (I’m still astonished how good the coffee was in Juneau) and two freshly-made desserts: a very zingy lemon tart for Emma and a rhubarb and strawberry tart for me. Yum.

We woke in Seattle, and sure enough Emma is still sick. Not good. With her constant coughing and snuffling neither of us is getting as much sleep as we’d like, so we had a slow start and got into Seattle around 9.30am.
First stop: Pike’s Market, starting with the famous fishmonger’s where they throw the fish. My camera was too slow to capture any decent fish-flying-through-the-air shots, so here’s the token shot of the guys actually selling fish instead of destroying them in acts of aerial chaos.

Breakfast was at Lowell’s, another local landmark, which gave us a fabulous view of the wharf area. Like most American eateries the food came piled about three feet high, but it was good enough we struggled through it.
Suitably fueled-up we wandered through the markets, watched some repeat offender get arrested (he and the cops were on first name terms), then caught the monorail out to the Space Needle (build for the ‘62 World Fair), which would have been worth taking to the top to if it wasn’t $US23 each to stand in a queue for 30 minutes before going up for a 15 minute view.

Instead we geeked out at the Science Fiction Musuem (may the Force be with us) and the Rock Experience (the rock n’ roll museum). On the way out Emma called out “Chris!”
I turned and saw Chris Modzelewski, a Polish-American media guy I first met at the ESOMAR conference in Cannes in 2003 and last in Montreal for the ESOMAR conference in 2005. Now based in New Jersey Chris and his girlfriend Erin were in Seattle for a wedding on Saturday, and being as geeky as we are decided to visit the museum yesterday.

[Insert “small world” cliche here]
Sail-out was gorgeous, with much better weather. We only spent a brief time on deck because - you guessed it - Emma’s cold took a turn for the worst. Another nightly cough-fest. Hopefully a sea-day will help.