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Washington
November 22 - 26, 2017
Travelogue 1
November 22 (Wednesday): The Seattle Underground

Since my brother and his wife came to visit Connie and I last Thanksgiving, we decided to visit them this year. It was also our chance to meet our new nephew (and Zack's cousin). One of my cousins came as well. Since we arrived on Tuesday night, we decided to spend Wednesday doing some sightseeing in Seattle. Noah recommended an underground tour (there's several), so that's where we all headed after taking the ferry into the city.
What's the Seattle underground? Well, it turns out that the city of Seattle was originally built in a rather lousy location. There were reasons, but it ended up flooding frequently. The fact that they went with quick and shoddy construction for the roads and such didn't really help matters. Fortunately, the city burned down. Yes, I said fortunately, as it gave the city planners the chance to start over and do things right. That involved not only sturdier, less flammable construction, but also transporting massive amounts of dirt from the city's hills (drastically lowering their height) to raise the elevation of the lower areas. Thing is, the shop keepers didn't really want to wait years for that whole project to finish before rebuilding. So they rebuilt at lower levels and, over time, as the roads were raised, what used to be the sidewalks and first floors of the buildings became underground walkways and basements instead.  For a while, it was used as a sort of underground shopping mall, lit by skylights built into the sidewalks above. However, it was eventually condemned and sealed off as part of a very aggressive (and affective) effort to prevent an outbreak of plague. But that didn't stop the underground from being used illegally over the years for shady business ventures, trash disposal, and homeless encampments. Now, it's no longer condemned. A lot of it is run down and sealed off, but some sections are open and used for tours, storage, clubs, and the like. The tour we took featured a few spots in the underground, though we had to go above ground to travel between them. The guide was really good, and gave both a history of Seattle and a lot of trivia, both on the underground and the city itself. This totem pole, for instance, was actually stolen by some city officials who happened across an empty Indian village on their way back from a trip to Alaska and were looking for a souvenir. They got in trouble, but bribed the US marshal and got off with a slap on the wrist. Then the pole burned down years later so the officials actually hired the Indians they stolen the original one from to make them a copy. Talk about a crazy story... Anyway, it was an interesting tour and something I'd recommend if you go to Seattle.
After the tour, we grabbed a quick (and late) lunch and walked around the city a bit. Stops included this little hidden waterfall park (that we learned about on the tour), which was built by UPS (they got their start in Seattle), the city's oldest glass studio, a cool toy store, and Pike's Place Market. After watching the sunset (which happens pretty early during Washington winters), we made our way to a Moroccan restaurant. Now, I love Moroccan food but Moroccan restaurants aren't too common in the US (at least not anywhere I've ever lived) so I normally have to cook it myself. Being able to go to a real restaurant for a change was nice and it was a great meal to wrap up a fun day.


November 23 (Thursday): Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was, of course, the main reason for our trip. In addition to myself, Connie, and Zack, my brother's family, and my cousin, my aunt and uncle (the parents of said cousin) came as well, along with a couple of my brother's friends. So we had a fairly big group. It was a fun day. I cooked, we played some Catan, had a great meal, and so on. Not a whole lot to say, but it was a good Thanksgiving.

November 24 (Friday): Tacoma
My aunt, uncle, and cousin left, leaving just myself, Connie, my brother and his wife, and the babies. In the end, we didn't really want to go into downtown Seattle, or do any Black Friday shopping, but we didn't really want to just sit around all day either. So we ended up going to Tacoma, which is the nearest small city / large town to where my brother lives. After lunch at a nice Asian fusion place, we headed to the Museum of Glass. It features a gallery with works by Chihuly and several other glass artists. The gallery isn't huge, but it had some interesting pieces. There was also the glass bridge outside. Unfortunately, the bridge itself is not made of glass, but it does have more glass on display along the sides and a Chihuly designed ceiling. Back inside the museum, the biggest draw is the glass workshop, which features multiple glass artisans working on a variety of projects for most of the day. When we were there, they were making a solid glass guitar. It was interesting to watch the process, though we didn't stay to see the entire thing (that would have taken hours).
I wouldn't really say that the glass museum is worth a detour from Seattle (especially considering that there's an entire Chihuly museum near the Space Needle) but, if you want to watch the show, it's not a bad place to visit if you happen to be in the Tacoma area.

November 25 (Saturday): Seattle Parks
The synagogue we went to was either in or near Seattle (though not the downtown area) so we decided to do a bit more sightseeing afterwards. I'll note that we had to drive to these places, as they weren't really within walking distance of downtown, or each other, for that matter.
Out first stop was Gas Works Park. If you couldn't guess from the name, it's an abandoned gas works that was changed into a public park. While the rusty tanks and equipment were fenced off, they were rather cool to see and gave the place a neat vibe (sort of the whole green post-apocalypse thing). The park also features great views of the bay (or is it a sound or something?) with downtown Seattle in the background. It was a cold day, so we didn't stay too long, but Gas Works park is a neat place to walk around and take some pictures.
Getting back in the car, we drove over the the locks. Locks, in this case, refer to the locks used in canals and rivers to raise and lower boats so they can move between uneven parts of the water way. Kind of interesting, and you can watch the locks work when a boat comes along, but I'm not sure they really should qualify as a tourist attraction.
And that was it for the day. We headed home the following evening (after a fairly lazy day) so I could get back in time for Monday's classes.
While I still haven't spent all that much time in Washington State, there's certainly a lot of fun things to see and do there. Though I'd really recommend trying to time any trips to the Seattle area during the 3 months or so of good weather that they get in the summer.

Travelogue 1




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