Friends and a Morning Out

One of the wonderful parts of moving and living in different places is the friends that I meet along the way.  I will also say that the introvert in me does find it hard at times.

A few weeks ago a friend here and I were talking about how we enjoy going downtown and so we decided to find a Saturday morning and go downtown. We found the first weekend that our husbands were home so we could sneak away.

It has been so long since I have been downtown early on a Saturday morning. Actually I am not sure I have ever done it before. I do remember spending quite a number of Saturdays at the library when I was in grad school. It was a super windy day. I thought for a few minutes I was in the windy city. Since it was Saturday morning we were able to find parking without a problem. Then we walked toward Pike Place.

We knew we were early there were a number of shops that were not even opened yet. The clock will let you know that we were early.

I love bread especially the artisan bread. There is just something wonderful about a piece of bread with some butter. Now I am sound like Miss K would loves her bread and butter. Maybe we know where she got that from. Back to our morning downtown. We walked and saw a bakery open with various breads for sale.

Our first stop was Piroshky Piroshky since the line was not long. In fact there wasn't a line at all which is unusual for that shop.

Then we walked down the street to Starbucks. Now this is not just any Starbucks but Starbucks, the Starbucks that started the coffee craze that encircled the globe. One of the first places that my husband and I went when we were just getting to know each other when we were living in Taiwan was Starbucks. Starbucks had opened near my apartment and so I took him there. I wonder how many countries I have had a Starbucks coffee?

They have mugs there that are only sold at the original Starbucks. There is often a line there as well. It really is the same coffee but there is something about getting it at the original. I used my birthday gift card to get a coffee. The red cups are back. Is there something delicious about the coffee that is served in the red cups. I did get a Peppermint Mocha which is a special treat for me.

With my coffee in my hand and my pastry, I was ready to walk through the market. Though it was hard to walk, hold my coffee and pastry and take photos.

I love the colors. I love the flowers, so fresh, so colorful. I wanted to take some home but didn't want to carry them around so instead I took photos of some of my favorites.

I thought these were pretty. I do like the fall flowers.

There was a stand selling cheese - I love cheese, good cheese none of that processed stuff for us. Once we got a can of Cheese Whiz and Bob is talking about it. I can't decide if he thinks that is the coolest thing or the weirdest thing. I think I bought it to introduce him to the culture of cheese in a can. I didn't buy any cheese but did enjoy looking at it all lined up in the case ready to be served with some crackers or some bread.

The flowers were so colorful but the fruits and vegetables also have their variety of colors and everything so neatly stacked and ready to go home and be served. I did buy some pears but I will admit that the bumping around in my bag caused them to bruise a bit but they were still good.

Walking through the market reminded me of the photos we had in our dining room. Three framed photos from the market. My desire was to frame some photos from the markets in Asia to hand beside the Pike Place photos. Those photos are in a box waiting to ship to England so we can have a piece of Seattle there.

I think I have written about my love of markets before here is a previous visit to Pike Place. Here is a visit to a market in China.

We walked to the Spice Market. There they have shelves and shelves of spices and of course their famous spice tea. I would prefer coffee but I do know someone that enjoys it so I buy it.

We wandered through the kitchen shops making a list of some things that we would like. Have you seen the magnetic measuring spoons? I think that would be great to keep them together but make it easy to get them apart to use them.

We ended our time downtown with lunch at a little Mediterranean cafe. I enjoyed a panini.

We had plans to then go to a few of the thrift stores on that side but the wind that morning had knocked out some electricity so traffic was slow and when we made it to one of the thrift stores it was closed because of no power. We did get to Goodwill and I found a dress for Miss K for $3 and a few books.

It was a fun morning and time in the city. I am thankful for the friends that I have met along the way. The memories, the laughs, the chats, the prayer times, and the encouragement. Friend so make it hard to leave one place but we are not talking about leaving today we are talking about enjoying the time with friends and where we are living.



Beth