Seattle WA - Hilton

 We headed to the airport dark and early on Thursday morning with a collection of luggage that reminded me of our early-marriage travels!  (Not clearly visible - our stuffed backpacks)

After landing in Seattle via Chicago about 12 hours later, we walked to our airport hotel ... which was a depressinging long walk.  In reality it wasn't THAT bad, but considering expectations of it being on-site it wasn't great. Wifey was 'over-it' so the pictures below also aren't great.  

Due to the new Hilton policy, instead of receiving free breakfast due to our Diamond status, we received two food/drink credits.  We had left-over quesadillas we brought from home that satiated our hunger and were able to use the credit for fancy coffee, candy bars, a one breakfast sandwich, and a fruit, granola, and yogurt parfait.  All-in-all a win!

Sadly, just as we prepared to walk back to the airport to catch our train to downtown it began raining.  Instead, we took the hotel's shuttle back to the airport (saving us a few hundred yards in the rain, and probably doubling our commute).  

Seattle WA Tourism

After checking into our hotel in Seattle, it was around 3:00 pm, and we headed back out to make the most of our brief stay!  

We caught the lightrail which was across the street from our hotel and rode for about 45 minutes until we reached Seattle proper.

We headed first to the Pike Place Market to visit the original Starbucks and a yogurt shop called Ellenos that Wifey had found on Instagram.  

Key Lime Pie Yogurt

Apparently this Starbucks location services almost exclusively tourists and always has a line.  We waited patiently, the weather was beautiful and the people friendly.  

Once inside, the store is divided into two sections.  One where you can pursue souvenir merchandise and then the opposite where you can place your order for coffee.  Hubby tried the Pike Place Market exclusive Chocolate Covered Strawberry Nitro drink.  Wifey got a creme frap ... (still off the caffeine).

After knocking out both of these 'must-see' destinations, we were hungry and started scanning the area for a promising restaurant.  Apparently most places around the market close pretty early.  As we walked back toward the train station and later the Space Needle (our other 'must-see' destination in the city); we saw a Chinese restaurant called Mee Sum Pastry with Sesame balls in the window.  GIANT Sesame balls!  Now to understand the significance of this, you must understand that wifey loves sesame balls.  Since we were ordering these, we also ordered a couple of hum bao (pork and chicken curry) and called it dinner!  

Leaving Park Place Market, we walked about a mile to the Space Needle and bought our tickets to ride to the top!  

We were outdoors!  Mask free life! 

Leaving the Space Needle much later we power-walked back to catch the light-rail/train to our hotel.