Cold, Wet and Gray Seattle (Part 2)

Index:

Picking up where I left off….

After finishing up at the EMP Museum I made my way back to the Sheraton to claim my bags and switch over to the W Seattle for my second and final night.  The reasoning? I needed to get one more night to requalify for SPG Gold status, and they had a fairly decent rate of $120/night.  Currently the hotel lobby is going through a renovation and I have a feeling that what was driving a lower rate at this hotel, as in the past I think I have seen this property in the $180/night range.  Other than rates, what it means is that instead of entering through the front of the hotel, they are using a side entrance on Seneca Street and there really isnt a lobby to lounge in, if that is your thing.  Suppossedly the bar/restaurant has been relocated on the 2nd floor, but I didn’t check it out.

Heading up to the room I found that I had been “upgraded” from a Wonderful room to a Spectacular room, which are identical, just that the Spectacular rooms being on the 14th floor and higher.  As usual, the bed was comfy, large bathroom, but what I did like was the sitting area at the window.  Coming back to the hotel to rest up for a bit after a full day wandering around the city and before heading back out for the night, it was nice to kick back there and look out at the city.  Even if I didn’t have a view of the Space Needle.

W Seattle - Spectacular Room

W Seattle - Spectacular Room

W Seattle - View of the Seattle Central Library

After dropping my bags I was definitley needing some lunch.  Every time I come out here I seem to be search of the best burger in Seattle.  In 2010, I discovered Red Mill Burgers (amazing burgers) and this year I headed out to Blue Moon Burgers in South Lake Union.  I probably should have ordered a standard burger to get a good comparison, but opted for the December special: The Festivus Burger.  Essentially it was a meatloaf sandwich, and while good, it didn’t steal the spot from Red Mill.

Blue Moon Burgers - Festivus Burger

I opted not to ride the South Lake Union Trolley (or now known as the Seattle Streetcar – South Lake Union Line, due to an unfortunate acronymn), and walked back along Westlake Ave back into the downtown core.  I don’t exactly remember what I did for those few hours in the afternoon, but I do know that I eventually I wound up at the Kinokuniya Bookstore located in the International District/Chinatown area.  It’s a Japanese copmany that has a few locations in the US and other countries.  I’ve perused books in their stores on multiple continents and found the one in Sydney to have a good mix of books and a wide selection of English-language ones as well.  Seattle on the otherhand, pretty much just had items in Asian languages, which meant there was almost nothing in there I could read and ultimately buy.  I at least looked through a few things before heading down to Pioneer Square to see if I could find dinner.

It wasn’t looking good for options, but I headed into the Merchant’s Cafe which claims to be the oldest restaraunt in Seattle.  I figured that this would be a place for dinner, but once I sat down at the bar I wasn’t feeling very impressed.  As such I just had a Pyramid Hefeweizen and some sliders which were pretty decent, but I just didn’t see too much on the menu.  At this point I needed to head back to the hotel – I was starting to get a headache from drinking only coffee and beer all day, and I needed ibuprofen and water stat!  Some R&R at the hotel for a few hours and I was back in the game ready to go to find a real dinner!

I settled on heading to the Elysian Brewing Company in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, which was uncharted territory for me.  Elysian is a local Seattle micobrewery and they (I think) have three “brewpubs” in the area.  It had been highly recommended to me and found myself trying several of their brews – the favorite being the Bifrost Winter Ale.  As for food, I kept it simple and had the Pork Chile Verde, which very good.  I stayed here for a while and opted to walk a bit down Pike and Pine until the bus came by and deposited me back in downtown.  Being nearly midnight, it was on the quiet side around Westlake and a short walk later I was back in my hotel ready to pass out and go to bed.

Sunday, Decemeber 11

Surprisingly, I didn’t sleep in that late.  I wasn’t going to have much time in the morning as I had a 12:10 flight to Memphis to catch.  Since I can’t get enough of Top Pot Doughnuts, I headed there for a second day in a row, but not first noticing that on this morning was the Seattle Jingle Bell Run.  Streets were shut down, runners were everywhere, the plaza and streets around Westlake were jammed full of people – people that I had to negotiate my way through to get to my very delicious, but I’m sure unhealthy doughnuts.  I didn’t have my full sized camera with me, so I didn’t stick around to take any pictures.

I did return back through the crowds, but I didnt go straight for my hotel.  I had not on this trip yet made my way down to the waterfront, so I headed down to there to just sit for a minute before heading back up and through Pike Place Market.  By now it was getting close to 10AM and that meant I needed to grab my bags and make my way to the airport on light rail.  Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long and got to SeaTac just over an hour before my flight.  At the TSA checkpoint I ran into a problem with the e-boarding pass scanner being busted for the second time in two months.  Although this TSA officer didn’t try to blame Delta, but had someone go fetch another so I wouldn’t have to go back and print a paper boarding pass at a kiosk.

Today’s flight would be the last time that I would hav ethe opportunity to fly the Seattle-Memphis route, which as of January 4, 2012 has been discontinued (along with Memphis-Panama City and 5 others).  I’ve taken the SEA-MEM flight three times this year, twice as a Silver Medallion and this last time as a Platinum Medallion, and I never missed an upgrade on those times.  Compare this to the SEA-ATL flights where I’m lucky to be the 27th person on the upgrade list for zero seats.  I will miss this option in this new year and now I guess I will have to try to avoid going non-stop through ATL and do double connections through MSP, SLC or DTW (if those are any better for upgrades).

Delta Air Lines Airbus A320 - SEA-MEM

Service on the flight was pretty good as usual with Delta.  Meal orders today were being done front-to-back (sometimes they jump around the cabin by passenger status), and being seated in 4B, meant I would get whatever was left.  On today’s flight that meant I got the inflight cheeseburger, which really isnt super horrible compared to some other options available on aircraft these days.  The rest of the flight was mostly spent surfing the web, since the A320 does not have personal entertainment.

SEA-MEM - Delta First Class Hamburger

Having almost 1h30m to connect in Memphis is more than plenty.  I decided to walk around the concourses a bit since this will likely be the last time I pass through for some time and settled on going and getting some Memphis BBQ.  I had decided to go to Corky’s in Concourse A, despite the fact that I usually grab my BBQ from Interstate BBQ.  It reminded me that I like Interstate BBQ better and on another note it was really quiet over here!  I think its the sign of what the future holds for the Delta Air Lines Memphis hub, if they keep reducing flights and frequencies here.  I just wonder how much longer until the Amsterdam flight gets removed from the schedule.  My guess is after Summer of 2012 – hopefully I’m not right.

Memphis Becomes a Ghost Town by 7:00PM

The flight back to Panama City actually was the second to last to depart for the night according to the departure boards in the terminal, although it looked like perhaps the Amsterdam flight might have been delayed a bit.  The flight had roughly 18 people (out of 50 possible), and by the time we boarded they still had not catered us, so we had to wait for that before we could go.  Taxiing away from the terminal and out to the runway, we went past most of the other Delta gates, which were largely empty aside from a few planes here and there.  That sight in itself just makes it feel even more of a ghost town.

I got home to rain unfortunately which was very fun to walk through from the terminal to my car given that Panama City is completely uncovered – makes me wish the airport authority had thought about that before it opened in May 2010.

To summarize, I had a really good weekend in Seattle, as I always do.  There’s never a shortage of good food and brews and things to keep me occupied.  More generally speaking I really like the “vibe” of this city and always look forward to heading back out there.  Hopefully, my next trip will be sooner than the past times, as I would really like to head out there in the summer-time.  I haven’t done that since my Imagine Cup days back in 2005, having gone every other time in fall, winter, or early spring.  Maybe Seattle can be to 2012 what New York City was to 2011 for me…

 

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