Greetings from the States!!! As I hinted - Sascha and I couldn't resist the urge to pay Seattle a little visit since we happened to be so close to the U.S. border. The actual border crossing was an extremely unpleasant experience. Only the bare necessities were exchanged...No hello, good morning, please or thanks - just a simple and straightforward: "Where are you from?, "Where do you want to go?", "Why?" and "It's 6 dollars to enter the United States". They were such arrogant pricks that I really had to pull myself together not to say anything. Anyways, 6 dollars, two bag searches and another two unfriendly people later we were in Coca-Cola land. Since it was Sascha's first visit to the U.S. I knew I had to show him the most important bits of American culture first - so straight after checking into our hostel I took him to Chipotle. It's McDonald's Mexican style - actually even owned by McDonald's and I practically lived of their Burritos whilst I was working in D.C. 2 years ago. The second tackiest thing on the itinerary was watching Twilight's Eclipse. We felt we had to since the majority of the movie was shot in Seattle and in a forest near Vancouver. Other than that we went on a water taxi to check out Seattle West - which has a totally different vibe compared to mainland Seattle. We sipped Pina Colada overlooking the beautiful beach with the mountains in the distance and felt that life couldn't get much better - but that was before we started munching away on our Fajitas : )
So yeah, Seattle has been sweet. We are on our way again tomorrow - taking the ferry to Vancouver Island. But not before we had the mandatory coffee at the First Starbucks opposite Seattle's lively Public Market and a visit to the museum to get a little bit of culture into us - an exhibition about Kurt Cobain and Andy Warhol - that way both Sascha and I are happy : )
I am definitely hoping to see a few whales on the way to Victoria...We were lucky enough to see a black bear up close in the mountains in Whistler!!! So fingers crossed that was only the beginning of this trip's wildlife spotting : ) Whistler was awesome by the way! Beautiful scenery, crystal clear water - we both felt like being trapped in a postcard. We swam in the Lost Lake, did quite a bit of hiking and explored the impressive mountain range by taking a Gondola up the Whistler Mountain and to the peak of Blackcomb Mountain. To compensate for all the fresh air and exercise we joined into a Club Crawl that was organized by the hostel. It involved hopping from venue to venue which was great - and the evening got as ugly and promoted heavy drinking as much as one would expect of a night like that. But good fun altogether and nobody got hurt, tattooed or married ; )