So I finally convinced the wife to take a train trip up to Seattle. I booked Amtrak, a “City Pass” package of tickets to the local sights, and a stay at the Hotel Ändra near the train station. Not a lot of planning, but everything worked out well, except it was far colder (near/below freezing at least one day and close to that the others) than I had expected so we had to scramble from building to building to keep out of the cold. I wished I had brought my heavy down jacket and some gloves, but at least one day I doubled up my shirts and survived.
We booked a full bedroom in a sleeper car for travel both directions, which meant we had a private room with its own shower and toilet. Traveling via sleeper car also includes meals in the dining car and other amenities.
Departed San Jose Amtrak station around 8:30pm on Saturday, March 7, we shared dessert and drinks in the dining car after settling into our room and chatted with two gentlemen who were traveling around the country from one meeting (one of the couple worked for a law firm specializing in international corporate law) to another on a rail pass. What a great way to do business travel, I’m envious!
Sleep the first night was spotty, the tracks through the Sacramento area were rough and bumpy. Once we started our way through the mountains, the train slowed considerably and the ride was smooth and relaxing. A lovely breakfast an hour or so before we pulled into Klamath Falls, and another enjoyable conversation with a woman who traveled by train to visit her sister.
Lunchtime on the train was probably our best meal on the way north, chicken ragu over rice which was perfectly prepared and delicious and we chatted with a librarian and her former law enforcement husband about our respective jobs. Dinner near Tacoma was shared with a lovely couple from the great plains in Canada who regaled us with their tales of their cruise that they were returning from by rail.
We arrived in Seattle on time, around 8:30pm on Sunday, and took a short cab ride to our hotel for the week. We wandered around the block before settling in for the night, dropping into a “Ralph’s Deli” and bought a snack of halva and chinotto sodas for later.
Monday morning started off great, we wandered into a local northern French bistro and shared a plate of sliced sausages and a couple eggs broiled over ham with gruyere cheese while the two college-aged kids danced and joked behind the bar. Orange juice was being squeezed (my wife later said it was very very good orange juice, she even liked the pulp, which she usually doesn’t) as we watched and I couldn’t help but sneak some of the dijon from the dish at the table on my bread. Then we wandering around the waterfront to find our way to the Seattle Aquarium, first going through the Pike Place Market (and avoiding the tourists taking photos and buying seafood).
Getting to the aquarium, our intended destination, seemed straightforward but was not. We must have gone down 3-4 flights of stairs, took two elevators, and crossed a number of streets and parking lots to get to the aquarium but boy was it worth the trip. The aquarium focused primarily on local sea life, particularly as they cycled fresh sea water from immediately below the aquarium, it being located on a wharf, so the cost of operating the aquarium and the quality of life for the fish and myriad corals (so many invertebrates!) must be greatly improved. Everything about the aquarium was top-notch and well managed.
After the aquarium, we hopped on a harbor tour boat and enjoyed a quick jaunt around the local harbor. Heavy snow on the water certainly was picturesque, good thing we were inside an enclosed boat.
We stopped by a local furniture store, McKinnon Furniture. We had seen ads previously, they specialize in hand-made (build-to-order) arts-and-crafts and shaker furniture; very high quality furniture at high (but not outlandish) prices; too bad we had already finished most of our furniture buying with the completion of our master bedroom.
An early evening snack of ramen and sushi, then back to the hotel and a wonderful fine dining dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, Lola. The high-cuisine take on Greek was delicious, I had the “tastes of Seattle” prix-fix dinner of fresh-baked pita with a number of spreads (olive and fig, pepper and tomato, and cauliflower and anchovy added on), coffee-infused goat (yum yum!) and baklava and ice cream for dessert. Also had my first taste of ouzo with some suggestions by the waiter, many thanks. The wife had lamb kababs and lamb meat balls, plus a trio of caramel ice cream, spiced chocolate ice cream, and bitter orange sorbet for dessert.
Tuesday, after a breakfast at Lola, we jumped on the historic monorail and rode it to the park by the space needle to visit the Sci Fi Museum and the Science Center. The Sci Fi Museum was a real highlight, quite a nice collection that was well organized and curated, alternating between different eras of the genre and between different social issues raised by the authors and film makers. It was nice to see a lot of effort paid to the often un-sung authors who provide the foundation on which the genre rests, comfortably. The Experience Music Project was not our cup of tea, and was surprisingly sparse, but the exhibit of block-print signs used by musical acts, county fairs, and the like was enjoyable.
The Science Center visit started with a brief snack and a viewing of their infotainment “Under the Sea” IMax film; I’m always happy when 3-d movies are shown and it was standard IMax fare. The rest of the museum was interesting but a little run down, but we still had a lot of fun until closing time (watching the naked mole rats, toying with their scale model of the Puget Sound, etc), when we returned back via the monorail for a touch of shopping and a decent dinner at an Italian restaurant adjacent to our hotel.
Wednesday was our trip to the zoo. The bus service in Seattle is incredibly confusing (pay when you get on if you’re heading in to town, pay when you get off if you’re going out of town, differing rates depending on how far you go and the time of day, etc.) But it was frequent and we just paid more than we had to at least once just so we didn’t have to figure out what we owed. The zoo was nice, although many of their larger animals were kept indoors due to the cold weather; we had a great deal of fun in the rain forest exhibit, particularly their walk-through aviary where we sat for probably 45 minutes watching and listening to the birds fly around and sing their songs (if you could call ‘em that.) The ocelot mother and cub were also a great joy to see, even if they spent most of the time asleep in the sun. Other exhibits were nicely arranged by climate and region of the world, too bad we rushed through much of it ’cause of the weather.
Dinner at the nearby “Serious Pie” pizza restaurant (apparently run by the same folks who run Lola) which put a capper on our stay in the city; we shared a bottle of asti (sweet sparkling wine) made with muscat grapes and had wonderful pizzas; mine a simple cheese pizza but with the cheese being mozzarella from the milk of the water buffalo (I couldn’t tell the diff, personally) and she a clam pizza with some sort of crumbly cheese (delicious!) Dessert of a fabulous chocolate & hazelnut mousse and we were off to pack and to bed.
Thursday morning, after a too-big-breakfast via room service, we taxi’d down to the train station and off we went. More great conversation, lunch with two guys (not together) who were of our generation, one a student from Taiwan, another traveling to see family. Dinner was with a retired engineer from GM with a German accent who was returning from Vancouver where he spent a week skiing. Breakfast the following morning, and we were back in San Jose on time at 9:55am on Friday (yes, each way ends up being ~25hrs).
Traveling on Amtrak was a great deal of fun, we really enjoyed the relaxing time on the trains (nowhere to go, nothing to do but to look out the window or read.) The staff was always friendly and helpful, and I was surprised by the reasonable cost. Sure, it’s not fine dining, but it’s better than a hotdog at the snack stand and community seating was a nice opportunity to be social with folks having a variety of backgrounds. Having a smoke-free train and staying at a smoke-free hotel was a definite bonus, last Amtrak trip (~1993?) was in a time when smoking was allowed and commonplace. How times have changed!