Visiting Seattle
I was lucky to visit Seattle recently. It was the first time I have been overseas. It is a beautiful place. I loved the mountains in the distance. I also loved the food. There is a huge range of different types of food. The servings are very big. I stayed near the university. There were lots of interesting people.
Posted by: Gwydion Callard, on 05/10/10
I was hardly able to take my eyes away
I was very lucky recently to have the chance to fly to Seattle. Seattle is a city in the far north-west of the United States of America. I got to stay for two weeks. It was my first holiday overseas. It was also the first time I have ever travelled by aeroplane. It was both exciting and scary.
Seattle is close to the border of the USA and Canada. It is located in the state of Washington. This is not to be confused with Washington DC. The area is known as the Pacific North-West.
Famous landmark
Seattle is famous for its biggest landmark, the Space Needle. It also has a monorail system. The monorail is one of the only working elevated monorails in the world. Seattle also has a reputation for being a constantly rainy city. But it only showered for one day while I was there.
To get from the airport to the city, you can take a high-speed tram across the outer suburbs and into the city centre. One of the first things you can see from the tram is Mount Rainer. You can also see the Cascades in the distance. The Cascades are a group of towering snow-capped mountains. I was hardly able to take my eyes off them.
Food is amazing
The second thing I discovered in Seattle was the food. The quality of the food in the city is amazing. There are a lot of things to eat that we don't seem to have in Melbourne. While Seattle is smaller than Melbourne, it is an older city. It seems to have more diverse cuisine. There are Russian bakeries and Mexican burrito stands. The servings are huge. They were far bigger than I am used to here. After the awful food on the plane, it was a huge and delicious relief.
The whole city is quite disability-friendly. Seattle is also one of the most liberal cities in the United States. It is a very bookish and academic city. My friends were kind enough to host me at their house. They live just near the university district. It is like a small city within a city. It is filled with students and artists. There are also many other interesting and happily eccentric people.
Exciting conclusion
My trip had an exciting conclusion. I was heading by train to Los Angeles. When the train was in Oregon I realised I had left my passport back in Seattle. I had also left other important documents.
I had a scary day of urgent phone calls. Fortunately my wonderful friends send my passport to the embassy in Los Angeles. I had to stay in an airport hotel in the biggest city I have ever visited. But it also meant I got a tour of Los Angeles.
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