Touring and museums in Seattle, WA

Captain's log
Earth date: 14-15 July 2014

We have landed in Seattle, WA. Seattle is thought to be the place with a very high rate of suicide, due to dark and dreary weather for the majority of the year; however, according to the Center for Disease Control it is ranked number 7 with 4.7%of the population reporting suicidal thoughts per year. Washington, comes after states such as Nevada, Rhode Island and Idaho, which are two states we will have been through by the end of this trip (Idaho and Nevada). Coincidentally, I write this from the state with the number 1 rate of suicidal thoughts, Utah, at 6.8%. So, next time you are considering not moving to Seattle because of the high suicide rate, just remember Utah. Poor Utah.
Anyway...

Seattle was a blast! We went on many tours including The Underground Tour, and the Duck Tour, which both had quirky tour guides whom, interestingly, were not native Seattleites. Actually while I was waiting for the Underground Tour to commence, I had a conversation with a nearby bartender (the location of the Underground Tour is a historic building, which has a bar) about the great, vibrant community that Seattle had and he told me that nearly all the people working in the downtown, historic and Pike's Market areas are not native Seattleites. He went on to say that the native Seattleites are quite exclusionary about inviting outsiders into their community. This elitist sentiment was repeated by our tour guide on the Duck Tours who made a joke about being quite in certain areas where "the locals" lived as well as pointing out a North Face clothing store and commenting that is was where the locals shopped for formal attire. These were some interesting impressions from people we met and talk to in Seattle, none of which were born and raised there, but moved there from outside the state. A counter example of this sentiment came from Zachary's date, Amy, who works as a graphic designer in Pioneer Square (historic downtown Seattle), who said that she has yet to experience the supposed divide between the locals and the outsiders.

What? A date for young Zachary, you say? Yes, I do say. It just so happens that Zachary knows a customer from his former Starbucks job in Elk Grove, CA. She moved out here after graduating college to pursue a career in graphic design and the two of them were able to meet up and spend an evening together. It was adorable. They met up at the sailboat/yacht races on Union Lake and not to long after introductions, I made an excuse about having to find a bathroom, so the two of them could have some time alone to catch up...After circling the park and spying from afar for about an hour, Damien and I returned and ushered them to Pike's Market for the sunset (Damien wanted some sunset shots of the market, see his post for the pics). Amy came along and introduced Zach to gelato. After sampling the lemon and coffee flavors, they both decided to get a scoop of each, claiming that coffee and lemon together was a delectable combination. Super cute. The double date continued to the Space Needle gift shop (we did not have enough time to go up, unfortunately). At the end this happenstance date lasted about 5 hours and neither of them ran out of things to talk about. :) This ends my observations of my brother's date. For more detailed impressions, give me a call.

Back to the tours. The Underground Tour was interesting and full of Seattle history. Apparently the street-level buildings in downtown Seattle we know today are actually the second story. Seattle is built 15 feet off the ground because in its early stages, Seattle was at sea level and the tide would come in and cause flooding and increased pressure in the sewage pipes which would subsequently cause toilet geysers at certain times of the day. Seattleites lived for 10 years timing their uses of the toilet until a huge fire burned down the town and gave them the opportunity to rebuild more intelligently, taking into account the tides and pressure in the piping. There was disagreement between the city council and the business owners on the methods of rebuilding. The City wanted to raise the entire city above sea level (about 15 feet) and the business owners were less enthusiastic about abandoning the 1st floor of their businesses. So they rebuilt the city with stone instead of wood and decree that all buildings must be at least 2 stories high. Then The City built a raised street that would provide access to the second story of all the businesses, leaving an underground and more private entrance to the shops on the ground level. How did people on the ground level get up to the streets? They built ladders to help people get from the ground level to the street level (which is now 15 feet above the street..).
for more information check out this wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground
Another interesting things about early Seattle is that there were not very many jobs for women to hold, so they became prostitutes, but claimed on their official work documents that they were "seamstresses." The City looked the other way even though prostitution was illegal, until one day the moth wealthy madam named Madame Lou Graham attempted to donate the modern equivalent of 4 million dollars to Seattle education and locals threw a fit. Fortunately for her many of the most prestigious member of that society had taken out loans from her as well as taken advantage of her business offerings. So her money was accepted and schools were built. Sadly her name and legacy is all but forgotten because she was a madame. As if she had many other choices....Other interesting things about her business practices were that she catered to the higher classes of Seattle, so she educated her fellow "seamstresses" to read, write, play music and have intelligent conversations about politics, etc. As a result, many of her fellow "seamstresses" would marry their clients and never have to work again.

The Seattle Duck Tour was a thrill ride on land and water. These "Ducks" are actually DUKWs, which were used in in the 1940's for military operations. The military needed machines that could drive on land as well as float on the water. Eventually these DUKWs were no longer needed, so the Seattle Duck Tours bought them and use them for land and sea tours in Seattle. Unfortunately they removed the machine guns that were once attached to the front of the DUKW. Our tour guide was a tiny ball of energy named, Poly Esther. lol. She played music, screamed and waved at pedestrians and took us to all the hot spots of Seattle including the Fremont Bridge Troll. It was on this trip we learned that whenever a business contracts to build something in Seattle, they are mandated by the City to set aside 1% for commission, purchase and installation of art, which is displayed in various public areas across Seattle. Interestingly the Fremont district (the self-proclaimed center of the universe) sets aside a whopping 11% of said funds to public art in their district. Hence the existence of the immense, bronze statue of Lenin surrounded by guns and fire and the Fremont Troll. For more information http://fremont.com/about/lenin/

All in all Seattle was a blast and a city that has a lot of spunk.

Panda, out.