Finally, A Trip to Seattle!

So, my wife and I finally mustered the courage to try and figure out that darned ferry system. We were so happy that we could walk from home to the ferry, then from the terminal on the other side we could walk to all kinds of things in Seattle. Round trip for both of us, the tickets cost $13.40. It's pretty fun to be able to navigate a city without a car. So much less stress- I would HATE to have to find parking down there, and it would have been considerably more expensive to drive there than take the ferry. We ate lunch at Cafe Campagne . It was about $25 for both of us to eat, and the food was the best I've had since we got here. I got a lamb-burger with aioli, roasted red peppers, greens, balsamic onions, and french fries fried in duck fat. She got a tuna baguette with an olive tapenade and greens, with a couple fennel-y gherkins on the side. Service was great! We were really braced to meet the kind of jerks you meet in touristy urban areas. Instead, everybody we met was just as nice as they had been in Portland. Got coffee at a little place called the "Chocolate Box." It was adorable inside, but their roast was a little too blonde, and the baristo let half my espresso run down the drain. That's after they forgot my order and served 3-4 people before me. But I was impressed at some characteristics of the house blend- it can be tough to get a lighter roast without making it too tart.
It was a great day. We didn't have the money- but we needed something to remind us why we went through all this trouble. Seattle feels so full of possibility and variety. I felt like I had poked through every nook and cranny of Nashville. I had gotten to the point of getting the Nashville phone book to look for random things to do- and not finding much in the way of anything that interested me any more. Seattle has so much left to see, and so much of it is within a pretty quick walk and a relaxing ferry ride of my front door.
So we're a lot happier about our decision than we were yesterday.