July 28th, 2012This was our last day in Seattle, and we lounged in bed a little longer than we had planned. Once we rolled out of bed, we checked out of the hotel and left our luggage with the bellhop so we could do some more sightseeing. We flagged down a cab and headed to the Freemont district of Seattle (that was our first cab ride ever!! and probably our last!!) So what is in Freemont you ask?? Well, a Caribbean restaurant of course! It's all about the food!
Paseo Caribbean restaurant is a hole in the wall type of place that always has a line down the street! We seem to gravitate to these types of places!
The cab took us right up to the restaurant and when I say "up" I mean it. There was a big hill I was happy we didn't have to climb on foot!! So I guess paying that taxi fare wasn't so bad after all! I think I would have paid $100 to NOT have to climb UP that hill!!
We got in the long line and waited with everyone else on the sidewalk - I think we got there just in time for the lunch rush! The place was packed. When we got close enough to be inside the building, we noticed they had a couple of tables inside - all were full though. We did get lucky and snatched up a table! As soon as someone left, I went and sat down while Madison continued to hold our spot in line and place our order - we make a great team!!
I ordered the Caribbean Roast which is marked as the "Most Popular" on the menu - I thought that might be a good choice and boy was I right - it was tasty, but so big I couldn't finish it all. The fresh cilantro, yummy aioli, jalapenos, and those marvelous caramelized onions paired perfectly with the succulent morsels of pork marinated in Paseo's special sauce. All of this on a freshly made toasted baquette - yummmmmmmmmm I wish we had thought to take a picture!
Madison ordered the Paseo Press minus the banana peppers - which caused the order taker to let out a gasp! and ask her "are you sure?" haha She was sure! and she loved it! In addition to pork, her sandwich had ham AND cheese on it!! It sure looked yummy. We were happy to have found such a unique and tasty place to enjoy our lunch!
After lunch we needed to work off some of those calories, so we decided to walk around the Freemont area. Freemont is a funky, creative neighborhood with, seemingly, something interesting around every corner! We headed down the steep hill and made our way to the Aurora Bridge. Under the bridge lives the
Freemont Troll!
The Freemont Troll is a humongous sculpture as you can see from the picture! Notice the VW Bug the troll is crushing under his massive left hand - the artist used a REAL car!! This was a great spot for a
Mads on Things photo!!
Walking down another hill under the Aurora bridge we made a right at the end of the road and made our way in the direction of the Freemont Bridge. Along the way we came across a statue of a clown - it had lots of flowers at the base of the statue and signs of love. The statue was of the beloved J.P. Patches - a legendary clown who had just passed away the week before. Patches was well loved and known by all in the Puget Sound area. What a special memorial they have to remember someone who brought joy to so many folks over the years!
Just past the Patches statue, we came upon the Interurban Statue - This is an interactive piece of artwork that commemorates the light rail that used to connect the city of Seattle with all of its surrounding neighborhoods. The statue depicts 5 people and a dog under a shelter. The statue is frequently dressed up and has attracted the imagination, mischief and creativity of hundreds of neighbors each year.
At this time we saw the bus going back to downtown, so we made our way across the street to the bus stop and hopped on a city bus (another first for us). We weren't quite sure how to go about paying for the bus, but the bus driver was so sweet and helped us figure it out. It sure was a lot cheaper than taking a cab back to the city! On our way back, we went over the Freemont Bridge and saw the neon Rapunzel in the window of the bridge's tender tower.
Back in downtown we made our way to the new City Target to buy me some flip flops! My feet were hurting!! After getting me into something more comfortable, we made our way back to Pike Place Market to do some more exploring.
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| Giant Squid in Pike Place Market |
We ended up at Steinbrueck Park where we saw a man with a chainsaw! Of course we were intrigued and went to check it out!
Turns out this was a street performer - The Chainsaw Juggler! and he was just getting ready to start his show. We have never seen a street performer quite like this before, so we stayed to watch the show. He was hilarious and amassed quite a nice sized crowd!
He utilized some of the folks from the audience to help him out
and he made fun of his volunteers mercilessly! It was a lot of fun and a great show - I am glad we hung around to watch it, even though we missed going on the ferry to Bainbridge.
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another volunteer - he had no idea what he was getting into! haha
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By this time we had to head back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and get on over to the
allrecipes.com office for the BBQ. We met up with our buddy from Tampa, Angela, and walked over to the bbq together.
It was quite a nice spread with pulled pork, vege patties, potato salad, coleslaw, chips, you name it! We didn't go hungry that is for sure. Sadly we only had about an hour at the bbq and could not stay for the SeaFair Parade. Madison kept me in line and advised me I had to start saying my goodbyes so we could catch the train and make it to the airport in time to get our boarding passes and still make it to the gate on time. Thank goodness she was there to keep us on schedule! We made it to the gate and our plane started boarding about 15 minutes later! We settled into our seats for the long flight back to Atlanta, and I have to say I was a bit sad leaving Seattle. We had a great time with so many wonderful folks, and it was all thanks to the wonderful generosity of the
allrecipes.com website!!
I can't say it nearly enough
