In Photos: Seattle Up-Close

On Monday, my boss and I played tour guide to a lovely couple visiting from Washington D.C. and on their way to Hawaii. They had a long layover here, so we took them round Seattle and out to lunch in Bellevue. After a quick driving tour of the International District, we stopped at Pike Place.
 As much as I love my Chloes, they're horrendously uncomfortable in the cold. I was glad I wore them anyway, because my boss hadn't told me our guests were Chinese diplomats! Gotta look your best when entertaining foreign dignitaries! I am sworn to secrecy... ok, not really, but I will be polite and professional and only refer to the couple as Mr. and Mrs. Z.
Our guests were so excited to go to the very first Starbucks. When we walked in, Mr. Z turned to me and said "This is where the empire started." He kept saying "This is a special place for us." We're blessed with many quality coffee roasters in Seattle, and even though Starbucks may not be my favorite among them, I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Z. It's a pretty big deal.
 La Panier still smells exactly the same way as it did when I was a kid. Like croissants, bien sûr. I have very early memories of my mom taking us down to Pike Place just to get a couple pains au chocolat. Well, I had one yesterday and am happy to report that they are just as good as they were when I was little.It took a lot of will power, but I managed not to order any macarons on top of my chocolate croissant order. I'm trying to limit myself to one pastry a week, which is hard.Ducks at Green Lake play it pretty cool. They'll start swimming up to you, but if you don't have food they'll just continue on going, all nonchalant, like they weren't expecting anything anyway.
After Green Lake, we showed Mr. and Mrs. Z our office building across the street, made a quick stop at my apartment so I could take my dog out, then headed to Alki Beach in West Seattle. We only stayed a short time at Alki so they could take photos of the city from across the water. I took some too, which I published in this post. After that, it was off to the airport so our guests could catch their flight to a much warmer, less foggy, destination.
I could get used to days like this.♠