Friday, February 3, 2012

Passports and Seattle

Last Wednesday, a friend and I were in Seattle getting our passports renewed. Mine had almost expired and we both needed them renewed to take a trip to Honduras. We got to the agency at 9:30 and filled out the forms. We were told we couldn't get them until the next day and they were sorry for any inconvenience. The bad things about this, is that we weren't going to be in Seattle for another day. We had to leave for Las Vegas that evening. After a lot of prayer and working with the agency they informed us they could process the passports by three and we could get them then. Praise God. Now we just had five and half hours to wait around in Seattle so we decided to find a cafe and maybe some shops.

Now, one thing you should know about me, is that I am not a big fan of cities, and I have no idea how to get around in them. I've flown into Seattle more times than I can count but I've never been in the heart of the place. I'm sure if I actually spent some time there I could figure out the bus system pretty easily but as of yesterday we were all quite lost when it came to the bus system. After walking around in a big circle and asking semi-friendly looking Starbucks baristas for directions we finally made it down to a lovely little place called Pikes Market Place. Quite a popular fish and cute shop market, it dates back all the way to the early 1930's, and is full of a variety of shops. We saw book stores, jam shops, art venders tucked away in sleepy corners, asian booths, and so much more in the cacophony of shops. I was drawn into a particular polish or russian (I'm not sure which) pottery store, after seeing the beautiful painted art work on the pottery. The store lady cheerfully said hello with a heavy accent and continued singing away the love songs that hummed over the radio in Polish. (I'm assuming it was Polish, considering the shop)

Seeing all the fish markets reminded me of my home state of Alaska. It was comforting to smell the smell and see the sound with the barges as we ate in a little cafe for lunch. It was a really nice way to spend our five hours and soon after, we made it back to the agency and picked up our passports with no problem. Praise God!

Even though I enjoyed seeing the art work, the market place, and the tucked away coffee shops in Seattle, I still like the less crowed places in the world the best. Especially if there are mountains or water!