HEY GUYS!! I DON'T KNOW IF YOU HEARD. . . . BUT WE WENT TO SEATTLE!!
Thursday March 12th
I had an ornithology lab exam this morning at 8am which I think went okay. We were done in an hour and I headed home and got an hour and a half sleep before watching the Game of Thrones season 4 finale with Fiona. We then made a mad dash around the apartment and packed up everything we would need for the weekend before heading off. We stopped off and picked up milk for the weekend while I filled the car up for our journey. We met Aoife, Kate and Bridget on campus and we were on our way by 1.30pm.
We drove from Missoula to Spokane and drove over some incredible views! At one point I think our elevation was 4,000 ft. Unfortunately since I was driving I wasn't able to take any pictures. We made a stop outside Spokane where we ate at Wendys and I also filled the car up. I still had a decent amount left in the tank but we just decided this would be our stop for the next 3 hours until we hit up Ellensburg. The roads along Spokane were 3/4 lane traffic and people were driving like lunatics. I haven't done city driving until now so to say I was nervous was an understatement. We made another stop at Ellensburg where I filled the car up and got a Red Bull to keep me going cause I was getting tired at this stage, I was up at 6.30 am this morning.. We made it to the apartment at about 10.30 pm I'd like to say? I can't remember exactly. Fiona and Bridget went up and got the keys while Aoife, Kate and I waited in the car out front. We pulled the car into the garage and got parked up (Bridget was very impressed with my parking skills hahaha). We unloaded all our bags / food and headed up to our apartment.
 |
| The scenic stop we made when we were roughly 1hr outside of Seattle - it's gorgeous. |
We stayed in 'Seattle City Suites'. An absolutely stunning apartment! Very modern and SUPER comfortable! The girls voted in that I was to get a bed every night we were there since I drove all the way and I'm assuming cause I did the organizing of the apartment too maybe? Either way, I went about deciding which bed I wanted. I went to bed early enough tonight cause I was completely shattered and we were getting up early in the morning to go to the aquarium :)
 |
| This is the bedroom that I stayed in - swanky isn't it?! |
 |
| Kate and Fiona's bedroom - also very swanky! |
 |
| The incredibly posh sitting / dining room :) |
 |
| Another angle of the dining/sitting room. |
 |
| Our cute little kitchen. |
Friday March 13th
Our day began at the aquarium. We got there about 9.35am, 5 minutes after opening and got our tickets. We chose the option that gave us access to the aquarium and also we got the Argosy Harbour Tour ticket with this too. This ticket cost $37 - saving us like a tenner so not too bad. We got to watch a 'dive show' which was essentially just one of the aquarium divers in this massive fish tank feeding the fish and also cleaning the glass. He had this class head piece that enabled him to talk to us on the outside so we could ask whatever questions if we wanted to. And seeing it as a fitting opportunity, we took a selfie with him.. But it's on Bridget's phone so I don't have it :P
 |
| Can anyone spot Dory?! |
 |
| Bonus points for knowing the name of this guy from Finding Nemo :P |
 |
| Nemos in the anemone :D |
 |
| I thought this guy was pretty cute so I snapped a picture of him :P |
We then walked over to the pier where we were going on our harbour cruise. There was one on at 12 pm and we could have made it but we decided to go have lunch and go souvenir shopping. Aoife, Fiona and I got pizza for lunch while Kate and Bridget got chowder. We sat on a deck overlooking the ocean and the islands off in the distance. It was absolutely gorgeous and we had a really nice day for it too. Bridget and Kate went on the carousel that was downstairs in this building and then we hopped on the boat for our harbour cruise. We got incredible pictures of the Seattle Skyline and the tour guide on the boat gave us loads of really interesting history of Seattle and the stories behind some of the buildings.
 |
| The most delicious pizza & a gorgeous view. |
 |
| Another quick snap of the view we had at lunch :) |
 |
| The Seattle Skyline :) |
 |
| The famous five and the Seattle skyline <3 |
After our cruise we made the hike (I say hike because the amount of hills in this city is ridiculous!!) to the Columbia Centre, the current tallest building in Seattle with 76 floors. There is a height limit here of I think 1,000 ft (I could be wrong on that one) because the airports are located close to the city, meaning there is low flying planes. Students only had to pay $9 to go here so that was brilliant! Up here we got incredible views of the city! Everything is so pretty. I Facetimed Mom & Dad from up here so they were able to see some of the views.
 |
| In the distance to the left you can just make out the Space Needle :P |
 |
| The other side of Seattle, including the highway I drove in on - scary stuff! |
 |
| Probably the most artsy photograph I've ever taken. Seattle views & my (Dad's) trusty Nikon. |
We strolled back and took some nice pictures near some Cherry Blossom trees and then we strolled up yet another hill to the 'Gum Wall'. This is probably the most disgusting thing I have ever seen but it is seriously cool! We all added our own little bits to the Gum Wall, leaving our mark :P
 |
| The very pretty Cherry Blossoms :) |
 |
| The fabulous 'Gum Wall'. |
 |
| My contribution :) |
 |
| Yeahhhh, we look fairly disgusted :P |
 |
| Happy out with the extremely colourful wall behind me :P |
By this time, we were all starving with the hunger so we decided to head back to the Irish restaurant that we spotted earlier this morning. It's called Kells and there was Irish music (with Irish musicians) playing there tonight. We all ordered drinks and were so delighted to finally get to sit down after a long day. I was wearing my Montana Grizzlies hoodie, a woman from Montana recognized it and came over to chat to us and see where we were from. Her name was Stacey and she's also from Montana, she brought her friend Monica and her mom Penny over to our table and we chatted with them for a while. We swapped numbers and added each other on Facebook. We've been invited to their ranch possibly sometime in April or May which is incredibly cool and so nice as well! This will be incredibly cool cause I've never been on a ranch or anything like that so I'm really looking forward to it! :D They left shortly before our dinner came and as they were leaving Penny told me they paid for our drinks! Which was incredibly nice! :D We all thoroughly enjoyed our dinners and then we enjoyed the Irish music afterwards for a while before heading home.
 |
| The famous five with our dinners, all very happy! |
 |
| Shepherd's Pie <3 |
Saturday March 14th
Up at a decent time again this morning and our first stop was Pike Place Market. I thought this was going to be a nice small market. Nope. This thing is huge!! There is 5 floors of shops/stalls I think?! Incredible! We walked around here for hours just browsing the different shops. I did find some few souvenirs for Mom and Dad as well as picking up a really cool Montana License Plate as a cool souvenir for myself when I leave this beautiful place in just over 60 days time (CRAZY I KNOW!). We discovered a shop called 'Golden Age Collectibles' and I'm telling you. THIS SHOP IS INSANE! Outside, they had cardboard cut outs of Sam and Dean Winchester and also Castiel (from Supernatural). So I may have fangirled a teeny tiny bit :P Then we walked into the shop. The first thing I saw was the MASSIVE selection of POP! dolls. I was torn between Dean Winchester and Jon Snow (from Game of Thrones). I ended up going with Dean :D
 |
| Pike Place Market - let the fun begin! |
 |
| The world's first ever Starbucks! |
 |
| IT'S ALL SO COLOURFUL! |
 |
| The inside of the market - the calm before the storm! |
 |
| Some of the lovely fish for sale *vom* |
 |
| ALL OF THE POP! DOLLS! These are the Game of Thrones ones :O |
After a few hours of browsing it's safe to say everyone was really hungry so we decided to find somewhere to grab a bite to eat that would satisfy everyone. Seeing as I don't eat fish (or anything out of the water for that matter), it posed a bit of an issue seeing as a lot of places near the sea tend to sell seafood. But we found The Pike Place Market Grill. Everyone liked what was on the menu so we decided on this place. Fiona and I got the potato skins to start, she had never tried them but I reassured her she would love them. And she did! They were divine! Then for the main course, I ordered what was called the 'Big Boy Burger'. It had BBQ sauce in the ingredients of the burger and maybe some other spices maybe? I can't remember now what made it stand out from the other burgers but Fiona agreed with me that it sounded the nicest so she ended up getting one too. We were all so hungry we cleared our plates and had no room for dessert! :P
 |
| The menu :D |
 |
| The UNREAL potato skins! |
 |
| Us and our delicious dinners :) |
 |
| The Big Boy Burger & chips :D |
From here we headed home, but on the way I stopped in this little dessert stall on the way home cause I had been eyeing up the tiny little cheesecakes earlier today. I picked up a Red Velvet Cheesecake covered in white chocolate. I brought this home and had it later today. We all caught up on our energy levels a bit before heading off out again. First, we walked back down to the pier and Kate, Aoife, Bridget and I went on the Seattle Ferris Wheel. This was really nice, we got some really pretty views of the city while it was getting dark. From here, we walked over to Myrtle Edwards Park for a nice leisurely stroll. We walked along seeing this really nice (but weird) fountain and then eventually ending up down beside the water on the 'beach'. We sat here and chilled out for a small while before beginning the next trek uphill.
 |
| The teeny tiny cheesecake on a stick :) |
 |
| The Ferris Wheel all greened up for St Patrick's Day :D |
 |
| The very weird fountain :/ |
 |
| One of my most favourite things to do - sit my water and just relax <3 |
We then walked uphill to the Space Needle. The much anticipated Space Needle. The price of the ticket was $22 dollars for the observatory deck. But included in this was free photographs if we emailed them to ourselves! So this was cool :D We took the views in from outside and then discovered that there is a camera outside, and if we scanned our ticket it would take a picture with us and the Seattle Skyline in the background. So, since we love photos, we took 5 photos: one with each of our tickets. On our way home, I grabbed a sandwich in the deli around the corner from our house. This was legit one of the nicest sandwiches I've had in a very long time!
 |
| One side of the Seattle Skyline at night :) |
 |
| The view in the distance you can see the Columbia Centre with the blue lights on the top! :D |
 |
| I traveled 4,495 miles to visit the Space Needle :) |
 |
| This is one of the free photos we got - I think it's quite cool! (note Fiona's almost non-existent hand). |
 |
| "What a waste of space". |
Sunday March 15th
So today was leaving day :( We were all really gutted that we had to go back to reality but unfortunately it has to be done. I woke up close to 9am, I had a glorious sleep in one of the comfiest beds ever. I got up and immediately starting packing my crap up. Myself, Fiona and Kate were the first up so we started packing up our belongings before waking the other girls up. We had to be out of the apartment by 11 am cause the cleaners come shortly afterwards. We got out just after 11 after putting on a wash of the towels we used and also stripping all of the beds. We started our journey home, with me once again shitting my pants on the city roads cause of all the cars on the road, and this time we had another added inconvenience: rain. And this rain is mental, it was so heavy!
Our drive home was a little different, we took a detour to Dry Falls State Park. While doing this, we got to see real country western side of Washington State. Of course, we had a roadtrip playlist going with some absolute tunes playing so we had a major sing song. The songs ranged from disney - imagine dragons and everything in between. I believe Bridget has some incredible videos of Aoife and I rapping Eminem, Pitbull and also The Lonely Island. We stopped at a little 'Drive In' for some food in Davenport, I also took the opportunity to fill the car up here too as this is our last stop until we get home (we did stop for a pee break). Edna's Drive In had incredibly nice food. We all filled our tummies and then head off on the last leg of our journey. The rain was so bad, and we also had mist and fog in the way of us too. The roads here also don't have the reflective cats eyes on them making it nearly impossible to see where the lines on the road are when there's another car blinding you.
Nevertheless, we made it home close to 11pm. I went straight to bed after driving for an entire day cause I had to be up at 6.30am for genetics :'(
 |
| The banks of the river that used to exist here once upon a time :) |
 |
| My baby and a gorgeous view <3 |
 |
| My chicken strips and chips from Edna's drive-in :) |
This is up there with one of the best weekends I've ever had along with Yellowstone National Park back in October. My next adventure, is going to be a week from this Friday (March 27th) when I head to San Francisco with Fiona, Kate, Desiree, Caitriona and Mairead. I am way too excited about it! But until then, it's going to be all work with 3 exams in the next two weeks, a take home exam, and also proposals to be done. Let the torture begin!! :D
Hope you guys enjoyed this post. I also thought it would be a nice way to celebrate my 25th blog post on Shannen's Travels. My blogs posts for the next two weeks will be going back to being sorta boring but I will still keep up with them for all you at home wondering what the craic is on this side of the world :P
Thanks for reading,
- Shannen.
