Seattle or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Inner Sci-Fi Nerd - June 30th - July 19th

Viva viva viva viva viva Sea-Tac! We've got the best computers and coffee and smack...

You know you're off to a good start when, on your very first day in a new country, you stumble across an International Beer Festival and can therefore cure the jetlag with drinking! Welcome, my friends, to Seattle. Condensing my three weeks into one entry may prove to be an impossible feat, but I'll try my darndest.

Phwoar.

I'd like to start by saying that Seattle is a very good looking city. With the majesty of the Olympics overlooking Puget Sound on one side of the city and Mt Rainier on the other, (not to mention that Space Needle, he's such a nice guy), I barely glanced at the men...but when I did manage to tear my eyes from the natural wonders of the Sound and have a solid perve at the other natural wonders...heh, well they weren't too bad either. Of course, the best looking people in the whole of Seattle were the people I had the good fortune to leech off for almost three weeks...my dearest friend Milly and her equally lovely housemate Astha (cheers ladies).

Seattle isn't without its dodgy side, for starters there's a good many homeless people in the Belltown area (which is also home to a chunk of the Seattle yuppies), including one guy who decided to park himself across the road from Milly and Astha's building at one in the morning and sing, off-key, as loudly as possible. You want to know what the real 'Seattle Sound' is? It's a combination of the cawing of crows and seagulls, the shrill whine of the ambulance siren, the hammering of construction and the chorus of the hobo 'battle of the bands'. This is why the Seattlelites invented grunge, it was the only genre of music loud enough to compete with all the background noise. I had trouble adjusting to Seattle when I first arrived and it took me the full three weeks for me to start liking the place. The odds weren't exactly stacked in favour of Seattle, what with the jetlag (I kept waking up at 3 a.m which is 10 a.m Sydney time, also known as 'normal time'), the flu (it accompanied me on my flight over and still hasn't picked up on my numerous dropped hints for it to bugger off), the eventual dependence on Nyquil in order to try and solve both problems (it caused more problems than it started) and just the general feelings of displacement and confusion everyone has to deal with when they're faced with the infamiliar (re: 'Milly, WHY DOESN'T THIS SHOWER WORK? This backward American plumbing system is vexing me!').

That and, as cool as Seattle is, I had difficulty fitting in with its rhythm. Seattle's a strange mix: both casual (almost to a fault) and upmarket (yuppie, ugh) at the same time. Everyone's got at least three different expensive, new-fangled, technomological gadgets, but they'll go to a classy Italian restaurant in shorts. What?! That and there were quite a lot of cool places (four tiki bars!) but there just wasn't enough freaky in the tiki, at least not enough for this former Newtown rat. Where had the famed Seattle underground that had brought forth the greats, like Cobain, disappeared?

Capitol Hill.

Oh, how my opinion changed once I found this little slice of home in a land far away from home! All of a sudden my hair colour was tame, my sense of style made sense and the ever-present coffee houses were...still ever-present, but they had vintage clothes and rainbow flags next door. Hooray! Capitol Hill is also home to great food, quirky little joints and a statue of Jimi Hendrix on Broadway (rub the head for good luck).

The main disappointment I faced whilst in Seattle was the lack of good bands playing in July. Here I was in the land of good music and all the good music had decided to temporarily vacate the city for a month so I was left with only one gig to attend. Boohoo. The good news is that my one gig was a Klaxons gig and the plusgood news is this gig happened before Jamie decided to botch a stage dive and fracture his tibia (I'd like to nominate myself as his replacement as I can sing those high notes in It's Not Over Yet better than he can and I'll take any reason to be sandwiched in between James and Simon...clearly there's something in the Strathford-upon-Avon water). The doubleplusgood news (for me) is that the Australian fans had to miss out because their gig was after the accident and I, therefore, get gloating rights.

The gig was definitely one of the better moments of my Seattle experience. I'd had a shocker of a day - I'd experimented with a different sleeping pill (note to self: never again), woke up at 3 in the afternoon feeling as though I'd been socked on the back of the head by an entire orchestra of blunt instruments, faffed around the flat for a while trying to wake myself up and then looked at a text message from Milly reading "Are you ready for the gig tonight?" only to realise I had about half an hour to get ready and get out the door. Shit. I raced up the hill (as slowly as possible), met Milly and Sean and promptly felt a fresh onslaught of pain and suffering from joyous cramps. We rocked into Queen Sheba's Ethiopian Restaurant (naturally my first thought was oh so politically correct: "What? They have food there now?") with me looking like the by-product of death's final cough, wanting nothing more skip the gig and instead be lain out on a rock somewhere in order to be pecked by birds.

And then the food arrived.

I don't know if it was the ibuprofen or the bold flavours of the Ethiopian food (a cuisine which now sits in pride of place next to Thai and Spanish in the list of 'Sam's Favourite World Foods') but I managed to find my second wind (well, actually, it was more like the first for that day) and had never felt more refreshed in my life. We rocked up to the gig late (oops) but we caught most of the set, even if we had to see it all from the back. Fortunately, Chop Suey is a small venue so I could still see the stage (not to mention the rather attractive individuals who were on the stage) and there was a nice little piece of eye candy standing directly in front of us (yeah, I was totally there for the music), so I wasn't too irritated that I'd broken my tradition of being in the front row. Unfortunately, Chop Suey has no ventilation so it was bloody hot and sticky for most of the gig. Oh and naturally the little new raver bastards in their day-glo body stockings chose the back as their little fortress so it was difficult to hear the post-song banter over the cries of "YOU GUYS ARE SO HAWT!!" So, the boys were really good live, the highlights being Gravity's Rainbow (the one song off Myths of the Near Future that I'd properly listened to...'properly' here means 'heard more than fifty times'...the reason why I barely knew any of their other songs pre-gig was because I couldn't stop playing that one song) and Golden Skans, which kickstarted the next little Klaxons obsession (let's not discuss how often that song has been played over the past couple of months) despite their drummer (Steffan, the almost-fourth member who, as Sean correctly noted, looks about thirteen and dropped so many beats during Skans that I almost nominated myself for the position of new Klaxons drummer...any excuse, really).


Top Seven Best Things About Seattle (not in any specific order, as always):

1. Cheap flowers at Pike Place Market - The rest of the market is like any other market in the world, but you cannot find more beautiful flower arrangements for the right price. $10 for a bunch of flowers which completely obscured my view of the oncoming traffic as I walked back to the apartment building and would have set me back at least $25-30 had I been in any other city. Anything that is bigger than my giant head and that cheap has to be worth it.

2. Red Light & Pretty Parlour, Capitol Hill - Vintage, glorious vintage. Red Light is actually a thrift store chain, they've got a bunch of stores in Portland and a couple in Seattle but the stock is quality (and the stock that isn't quality is often good for a laugh) and organised by decade. The fact that they even made an attempt at organisation won me over instantly. Pretty Parlour is smaller but more fun and retro in decor as well as in fashion.

3. The Space Needle - It may seem ridiculous, especially if you're a local but you can't not go up to the observation deck at least once, if only so you can take in the views of the Cascades and the Olympics at the same time. Try not to go weak at the knees once you experience the view, it's a quite a long and presumably deadly drop to the bottom of the tower.

4. Oddball Mini-Museums - I originally wrote off the Ye Olde Curiosity Shop down on the Seattle waterfront as a rubbish little tourist lure, filled with tacky little 'Got Rain?' t-shirts and Space Needle mugs and what have you. Then I got bored and wandered in. Yeah, it's a tourist trap, but it's a tourist trap with a real mummified body among other things. I don't know why an emu egg is classified as a curiosity, but there's some stuff up on the back wall that's worth checking out if you're in the area. Also, on Capitol Hill there's the Seattle Museum of Mysteries. Say hi to Phil and eavesdrop on people debating the existence of Bigfoot in the Washington forests, find out where the ghost of the first woman mayor of American, Bertha Landes resides and ask to have a go of the theremin.

5. Famous Graves - Jimi Hendrix (who, sadly, I missed as he is buried all the way out in Renton), Bruce and Brandon Lee were all buried in Seattle. You can spot which graves are theirs easily, even if you're a stupid red-haired tourist because of all the pilgrims gathered around, taking photos. Is it morally wrong to do so, do you think? I have no idea...

6. The Science Fiction Museum & Hall Of Fame, Seattle Center. - God, how embarrassing. I originally went here for the Experience Music Project and only dared to venture into the Sci-Fi half of the museum simply because it was free with the EMP entry. My name is Samantha, and I'm not a Sci-Fi geek but at the same time it just so happens that a lot of the pop cultural thingies I like just coincidentally happen to be vaguely related to that particular genre, and for the record those pop cultural thingies certainly do not AT ALL extend to anything beginning with Star, whether it be Trek or Wars, thank you (uh, hi Samantha). It's a really extensive museum, they have everything from the uh, cool side of sci-fi (re: Blade Runner, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Red Dwarf) to the usual rubbish convention fodder (Trek, Wars, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, that Joss Whedon shit...etc.) I was so surprised to find myself preferring this over the less-than-overwhelming EMP, even...dare I say...enjoying it.

7. The Abundance of Live Music, Everywhere (especially on Capitol Hill) - The best thing about Seattle is that in so many places, you can see musicians getting their gear out and playing a live set...even in the smallest cafes.

Top Seven Places To Eat/Drink

1. Queen Sheba Restaurant, Capitol Hill

Bliss. There's something that feels so natural about eating with your hands, especially when you can also eat the plate that your food is served on. Plus, how good is that food? Australia needs more (well, one would do) Ethiopian restaurants, it might just lure me back home. America would do well to ditch all the Mexican restaurants and replace them with more Ethiopian, for I just can't get enough.


2. Broadway Grill, Capitol Hill

Try the giant chocolate chip cookie, served warm and still in the skillet with ice cream on top. It's like an orgasm in technicolour. The crab cakes were great too. The waiters are so fabulous, darling (I felt right at home) and there's Red Light a few floors down. Er, I recommend that you try on clothes before you go to the Grill.

3. Phuket Thai Restaurant, Queen Anne

The best Thai restaurant with Thai Food (I love how they phrase it as though there would be some other kind of cuisine at a thai restaurant...) in the second (possibly third, but I didn't get to see much of Fremont, sadly) best neighbourhood in Seattle. Conveniently near Easy St. Records and the local indie cinema. Try the Swimming Rama (again, this dish needs to be introduced to Australia posthaste, it's basically like Satay Chicken but with the addition of spinach. Mmmm. ) and complement it with a Thai Iced Tea (American Thai restaurants are awesome because they all serve thai iced tea, as opposed to Sydney Thai restaurants which barely ever have that particular drink...the only place I recall is the second-rate joint near my house where the food is meh but at least there's tea).

4. Etta's - Belltown.

I had my first traditional Sunday brunch here. As it was my first time, I was rather nervous (had to have a strong cocktail in order to get myself in the mood) but I was very pleasantly surprised by the size (just right) and quality (again, phwoar) of the dungeness crab cakes. I want more...and I'll spare you all and refrain from making a poor quality joke out of the possibility of having coconut cream pie next time.

5. Salty's, Alki Beach

Phhhfttt, beach. I've seen pathetic little spits of sandy land at the edge of Tuggerah Lake that have more claim to the title of 'beach' than Alki does. The sand is grey (what little sand there is) and miserable looking and you can't swim in the water because even in the pleasant warmth of summer, the water is still too cold. So why do people still insist on coming here? Two reasons. One is the brilliant view of downtown Seattle, which might even top that of the Space Needle, because from Alki the Needle is included in the skyline. The other is Salty's, a buffet restaurant that a bunch of us journeyed (ugh, damn you Steve Perry) to for Sean's birthday. At first I thought "Ugh, a buffet? Does it look like I do buffet?" and then I discovered that well, yes actually I kind of do...but only on the condition that said buffet is Salty's and that it's the Sunday brunch buffet because oh my lord, what a spread. Delicious. No danger of salmonella poisoning here. There's a ridiculous amount of top-class gourmet selections here, including Atlantic Salmon with miso and something-I-can't-quite-remember-but-whatever-it's-fabulous dressing and a delightful little dessert called key lime pie which I've never seen in Australia before and that fills me with shame and disappointment.

6. Tini Bigs, Belltown

You know why American beer is so piss-poor and made from strained and fermented cat's vomit? It's so people will leave it for the rednecks and seek superior fare amongst the wide selection of 'whyhelloI'mdrunkandyou'rehotoratleastIthinkso' martinis! It took Milly one, possibly one and a half (bless her little cotton socks) and me about three (very bad effort, where on earth did my indestructible Irish liver disappear to?) before we were slaughtered. I suggest the Burning Man Martini (chilli and chocolate, is there a better combination?). I also suggest that you not mix martinis, for the consequences may be dire.

7. Coastal Kitchen, Capitol Hill

We went to Coastal Kitchen during Jamaican food month (their cuisine changes every few weeks...you might be lucky and get to sample Sub-Saharan African food one week and then the next week find they've changed to Italian and ...I imagine...they'll want to put cheese on top of everything) and we were lucky. That jerked chicken was good (I'll let the Futurama fans finish off the rest of the sentence).

Top Four Worst Things About Seattle

1. The Hobo Chorus

There are only two million people in Seattle, which is nothing compared to the five million in Sydney, yet I'd say the homeless population is about equal. Which is quite depressing, especially when they're all asking you for cash and if you gave your spare change away to every single person asking for it, you'd soon be joining them on the corner.

2. The Coffee

Yes, it was Seattle that was responsible for Starbucks. I think you can blame Seattle for most of the annoying coffee chains that have sprung up over the past ten years, except for Gloria Jeans, which is clearly the work of Satan. I didn't have one decent coffee the whole time I was there. I was told this is because I chose iced coffee each time but hey, it was summer and it was quite warm for Seattle, why the hell would I drink boiling hot coffee? If you want good coffee, go to Portland. Not only is their coffee vastly superior to their northern neighbours, they also have free wi-fi everywhere.

3. The Experience Music Project, Seattle Center

Oh Seattle, city of the emerald hue, you let me down with this one. It wasn't completely boring (they had video interviews with Ruth Brown and Henry Rollins) but it just wasn't as much of an experience as I had hoped. I barely spent an hour trolling around. Sure, the Jimi exhibition was great but the rest all looked a bit sparse. I'd say to anyone wanting to go here, come back in ten years when they've picked up their game a bit and for this trip...um...gonextdoor.

4. Everything Shuts At Once

I now recognise this to be a nationwide issue (like the cheese fetish) but come on Seattle, I thought you would be so much cooler than that. Bars shutting at 2 a.m because of silly liquor laws? The whole city shutting down after 11 on weekdays and maybe 2 if you're lucky on weekends? Not even Sydney is that slack.

Discography

Despite my poor gig effort, Seattle will forever be associated with the following:

Klaxons - Golden Skans. Will someone please get this song out of my head, I am begging you, please stop this madness! Seriously, you don't want to know how many times this song was put on repeat, particularly in that last week in Seattle. And in Portland. And well...I'm in Santa Fe now and still not tired of it, although there have been other tunes on high rotation to help curb the Klaxons-induced insanity. Damn you sexy Simon Taylor and your so-indie-it's-almost-emo hair. And that music video. Omfg. No wonder I find him (and James isn't too bad either) attractive, they're so obviously gay!

Obviously there has to be some Nirvana, the question is which? I'm going to go with School.

Robyn Hitchcock - Viva! Sea-Tac. Awesome, awesome song about the city, sung by a loony British bloke with a kink for the streets of Belltown. Get it here, because it took me ages to find this song, those of you in Australia have no chance of obtaining it and everyone deserves to hear this little gem.

Weezer - Undone (The Sweater Song)

C.S.S - Let's Make Love & Listen to Death From Above

Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around, Comes Around. Arrghhhh. Damn you Timberlake. I hate you so very, very much for making me love this song. To be truthful, I fell in love with this song during the flight over to the U.S.A, in a double bill with Nelly Furtado's Promiscuous (double the arrrgghhhh) and yes, I am totally blaming the cabin fever for this one.