I Slept Fine in Seattle

As a proud American, I watch a lot of television. This has always been the case. As is such, I often base my impression of cities I have never been to on what I have learned about them from television.

In my mind, Philadelphia is the streetwise city that allowed the Fresh Prince to maintain street credit even after "Parents Just Don't Understand," San Francisco is the wholesome bastion of family values that allowed single parent Danny Tanner to raise three delightful young women, and every town named Springfield is built around a nuclear power plant that has made most of its citizens dumb, yellow, and eight-fingered.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that not only does Frasier Crane not actually live in Seattle, but that he's also a fictional character played by Kelsey Grammer. This disillusioned me so much that I refused to drink wine, speak with polysyllabic words, or even listen to talk radio for three days.

After getting over my initial shock, I was able to appreciate the beautiful city of Seattle. Somehow, I managed to visit during the one week it wasn't raining. Consequently, I felt the need to document this rare occurrence with pictures.

The first things I see upon entering Seattle are Safeco Field and Qwest Field, the homes of the Seattle Mariners and the Seattle Seahawks. I immediately lost a game I wasn't even playing.

As bad as those teams have played recently, they are better off than the Supersonics, a basketball team that was unceremoniously ripped away from Seattle because the city refused to pay for a new stadium.

Seattle introducing new visitors with their sports stadiums is the equivalent to Phoenix posting a giant thermometer at the edge of town to greet summer tourists.


Fortunately, the view soon becomes more promising. Seattle wraps around Elliott Bay, providing the cultured area with a great deal of waterfront residents. Pretty much anyone living in the crowded city is treated to a scenic view, which I'm sure is a necessary complement to spending nine months of the year enveloped in rain.

As a big admirer of the Eiffel Tower, I thought I would be a big fan of the Space Needle, but it turns out the French are much better at constructing World's Fair towers. Most pictures show the Space Needle towering over Seattle's skyline, but it is actually located a few miles away from the city's skyscrapers and is no more physically imposing than, say, the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. Parking was expensive, so I took pictures from a McDonald's located about 100 feet from the base of the tower. Needless to say, it was a magical experience.

My favorite place in Seattle is the Pike Place Market. The market is a shopping experience in every sense of the word. Energetic fishmongers toss giant fish around and yell out bad jokes about getting crabs. Street performers line the streets, providing entertainment to the steady stream of passersby. A Venezuelan band is followed by an a capella gospel group, which is followed by an electric guitar player.

The market is home to a seemingly endless line of quirky shops representing virtually every culture in Seattle. It is beyond my grasp how some of these hidden specialty shops stay in business, but it is definitely fun to peruse the coin collection store, admire the thousands of posters in the print shop, and laugh at the taxidermy bat staring at me through the window of a gift shop.
Best of all, it's a place Frasier Crane wouldn't be caught dead in.