arctickitty

Our new AirBNB room was a little smaller but roughly the same. There wasn’t a toaster and it wasn’t stocked with dishes. This was OK because we didn’t need either and we didn’t have to fear all the dishes falling onto the floor. I got my nails cruise-ready while Special Someone napped. I also changed from my Scandinavian-themed outfit into my mermaid-themed dress.

Day 2/Seattle Day 2 continued… After breakfast at The Swedish Club, we resumed walking. Somewhere around here, Special Someone got a message from our Airbnb asking why our stuff was still there. Those of you who’ve been reading from the beginning know what happened next… We found out that we’d only booked one night, not two, which meant we’d only paid half of what we needed to pay. They had a room elsewhere in the building we could move into for the second night, so we summoned an Uber to take us back. We threw our stuff together and moved rooms. Special Someone was super quiet this whole time and I eventually remembered that he gets quiet when he’s feeling something and it turns out that he was frustrated with himself for making this mistake. He’s so endlessly patient with me when I’m frustrated that I had no hesitation taking my turn. Really, nothing bad happened! It cost a little money, that’s all. We still had a great room in an interesting neighborhood that exposed us to a different slice of Seattle. Far, far worse could have happened. Plus, this placed us in the perfect location for a nap. For Special Someone, since I seem to be unable nap.

We enjoyed the live music. And we timed our meal well to cover two different acts. I started to get even more excited when I saw these guys unpacking. He had that accordion in a backpack! I figured they were pretty serious given the way they were dressed up. FullSizeRender.MOV FullSizeRender.mov FullSizeRender.mov We had a great time.

Finally…breakfast! Even with the five mile walk, it was hard work to eat it all. I adored the little tea pots they had to brew your own tea. Special Someone got both lingonberries and strawberries but I chose just lingonberry.

I see that you’re planning to be on the Spirit this summer…she was following us around and every time we saw her I had to say “Now that’s the spirit!”

When we decided on a Scandinavian theme for our Seattle visit, I typed different search terms into Yelp like “Norwegian” and “Swedish.” The reason we were walking so far for breakfast was the fruit of this unusual Yelp search strategy: The Swedish Club It’s a private club that serves meals to the public periodically. We happened to be in Seattle on a Swedish pancake breakfast day! Before we went down for breakfast, we explored a little.

We continued our walk with our coffees and soon found bridges and water. If I was making a YouTube video, I’d authoritatively tell you all about this area. I’m not and I really have no idea; this is just what I discovered. I am really just a big kid and many small things fascinate me. Somewhere around here, Special Someone asked me if I’d ever seen rivets being installed and when I said I hadn’t, he explained the process. This trip I realized this is one reason I love him; he sees the world so differently than I do, but he also finds joy in small things and shares them, so I feel like I see and get to know more layers of the world when I’m with him. We had such beautiful, sunny weather that we started to wonder aloud together that maybe a museum was no longer a priority for the day. Special Someone floated the idea of kayaking and that sounded nice; we could see places to do it from our vantage point. But first, we continued walking on to breakfast.

Day 2: Second Day in Seattle: Second Coffee After Woodland Park, nature was calling, so we started looking for a coffee shop. The first place had too long lines so I looked on Yelp and found Diva Espresso. It was excellent. A sure path to my coffee shop heart is when a place has a single special, whether it’s their signature drink or a drink of the month or even a drink of the day. If they have two, or a few, that’s okay, too, but if they have a whole wall of “specials” I get lost and it’s not special anymore. I got the daily special, Orange Blossom Latte. It had cardamom. Yum. As you can see, properly frothed milk, too. It wasn’t too sweet for me and the flavors melded together perfectly. I knew why I’d been saving myself. Special Someone got a mocha and these divas used some top quality dark chocolate. This was the real deal.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program: Day 2: Seattle morning walk After yoga and first coffee, Special Someonw joined me for a long walk. I liked all the places gardens were squeezed in. A lot of yards had interactive elements. Yes, I fed the chickens. I enjoyed these kitchen sculptures. Another Little Free Library! These string-wrapped trees reminded me of Lisbon: I still haven’t looked up what this sign means. This was where we entered Woodland Park. It was a very large and wonderful park and we saw many families going to visit the zoo. Outside of the zoo, however, we were surprised to see how it seemed like the authorities had completely given up on enforcing any sort of day use regulations as we quickly realized we were walking through a permanent neighborhood. I have seen all sorts of camps in Seattle over the years, but this was the most permanent looking one. We found it striking that not only were people camping in their own tents and campers and homemade shelters, but some had added tarp or scrap wood walls to the picnic shelters and were using those as their homes. To be fair, housing prices in Seattle skyrockets to an insane degree, so I don’t know know what the answers are. I’ve read accounts advocating for legalized encampments as part of a comprehensive housing solution and I can see the merits in it. But there’s clearly a reason why we didn’t see many non-resident park users more than a few feet away from the zoo. Path alongside the outside of the zoo. And one more little free library. There was no sign on this mailbox but it was very colorful and it was in the middle of a garden in the middle of an intersection so I didn’t think it was for mail so I walked up and opened it.

Now we are going to have one of those topical interludes that may pop up from time to time. I try to keep my face and name off the internet, but what I’ve done is duplicated some of my pictures and just cropped my head off. This leaves me weirdly disembodied but I think they’re still valuable illustrations. Here is ArcticKitty!: This is me dressed up in Alaska. (Not to be confused with Alaska dressed up, which is when one wears boots with their leggings). The above dress up outfit is because I had an important meeting and the person who was the bossy boss of the meeting likes the outdoors so I needed to look respectable but not too much. I would dress like this for a conference. My job normally virtually mandates leggings and Tshirts. This works out because I don’t have to change to go to the gym. Now why this is relevant is that I kept saying to Special Someone that “everyone” on Cruise Critic is going to think I’m super fat once I start posting pictures of all the food I eat. As a guy, I don’t think he understands the lifetime of judgement I’ve faced over food. He suggested I just post a smiley face over my real face but I’m paranoid someone could remove the digital sticker. He says this isn’t possible but I don’t trust technology. I’ve had a self image of being fat ever since kindergarten when the other little girls told me so. I will fast forward through all of the other backstory and explanation, and really people should be happy and healthy in whatever their bodies are, but I also have worked really hard to increase my fitness level over the past two years, and in the course of doing that, I lost 55 pounds and have made significant improvements on permanent health conditions I have. I’ve been frustrated with a lot of my clothes being too big because I didn’t want to allocate much of my budget for new clothes, but this trip was a good excuse to buy some fun items. I never thought I would be a person who enjoys working out let alone someone who’s idea of a bad day pick-me-up is buying a cute workout outfit, but that’s the person I’ve become and I’m not complaining. There’s virtually nowhere to shop near where I live, but lucky for me, there is always workout clothes and they’re always going on sale. (I swear these tangents all lead back to cruising.). The gym here has a dress code that precludes half the workout outfits sold right next door. 🤣🤣🤣. In order to comply, I typically have to wear an extra shirt on top of everything. (Which kind of defeats the point doesn’t it?). So I was looking forward to wearing the cute clothes as intended on the cruise. Additionally, Special Someone wanted to go the whole 99 yards for the formal nights so we got me a bunch of blingy dresses at a thrift store. That’s what I wound up wearing for the second formal night, when hardly anyone else dressed up. We forgot to take any pictures, so I’m showing you a pre-cruise try-on picture. My sister was rude about it. She did not approve. And there was one person who was rude to me about my appearance on the ship. The first time Special Someone got in a hot tub, I just couldn’t do it. We are both comfortable doing our own thing, but I could tell he wanted me to come with him. I knew he’d have a great time, and he did, but it would have been better with me. Why couldn’t I? I’ve never really worn a bikini in public, and that’s all I brought, and I just didn’t feel brave enough to do it. The second time, however, that Special Someone was in a hot tub, I decided to join him after he’d been in there awhile. It was completely fine. At first. This woman old enough to have adult children was talking to us and I can’t for the life of me remember how the conversation got there, but Special Someone commented, “She’s in better shape than I am.” And this lady, who knew his occupation, said to him, “Then how do you pass your fitness tests?” How rude this was didn’t hurt me until much later and I was really glad I didn’t catch it then. Cuss words lady, how do you know I couldn’t pass the same kind of fitness tests? What kind of assumption led you to that? Sure, I have to work really hard at it, but really, you have no idea who I am or where I have come from. We haven’t gotten to this part of the cruise yet, but I think this occurred the same day I ran a 5K on the deck just for kicks, and I’m a person a lot of doctors said could never run. So, yes, I have lots of cuss words for this lady. And choice hand gestures. But I’m glad I didn’t realize it in the moment and just kept relaxing in the hot tub while Special Someone told her about how we’re training for a triathlon together.

Day Two: Seattle I’ve been in a naturally early wake up pattern since I moved to North Pole late last summer. I thought it was my cat babies pawing me and asking for cuddles, but I wake up early even when I’m not with them. This entire trip was no exception. When we’re together, the otherwise self sufficient Special Someone lets me bring him coffee in bed, so I was quietly hopeful that I’d naturally wake up crazy early and feel inspired to walk somewhere for Seattle coffee. Readers, I did! I hit up Jumpin’ Jimmy’s Java just after opening at 7am on a Sunday. One side of the stand is a drive thru for cars while the other is for pedestrians. I liked this arrangement! We have drive thru coffee everywhere in Alaska and it’s always a little awkward to walk through a drive thru. Check out those prices! No inflation here! I got Special Someone a caramel macchiato. I decided to only get one drink so it would be easier for me to unlock and open the Airbnb doors. Plus, I had a feeling I should save myself for Second Coffee. I figured it would find me. Special Someone let me share his drink and it was good but nothing out of this world special. But that price! I would agree with the Yelp reviews that say this is where you go for cheap but not excellent coffee. Works for me! Special Someone has some standards for what he drinks but doesn’t require the level of excellence that I do.

Day 1: Seattle After Dinner Walk After dinner, I remembered to take more pictures while we walked around. At first I was trying to get to the water, but we eventually gave up and just wandered. It was RIGHT THERE, but all the access was private and/or gated and locked up. It made us homesick for Alaska where we can walk to almost any shoreline to explore. I’m very passionate about books and libraries and this was the first of several Little Free Libraries I found during our trip. Special Someone is patient and knows I will always want to stop and paw through them. We marveled at the tiny footprints of these future apartments. We also marveled at the spring bounty and colors. I loved touching them, seeing them, and smelling them.

Day 1 Seattle: Dessert We got ice cream at Salt & Straw. I’d had their arbequina olive oil ice cream in Portland over ten years ago and remember it fondly. I got a split scoop of it with their seasonal rhubarb flavor. Unfortunately the rhubarb was better; the arbequina was totally bland. Maybe is wasn’t a good olive year? The anise was delicious. Special Someone got the cinnamon snickerdoodle and of course he wasn’t in a sharing mood because his was the best.

Day 1 Seattle continued: food at Skal Beer Hall in Ballard The mead was delicious and so was the food. Special Someone wanted a pretzel and beer cheese. Please note, this is the “small” pretzel. It was more than enough. We saw other parties order the larger pretzel and they got served the same tiny ramekin of beer cheese. The cheese was a little sweet. We had a tough time selecting just a few of their platters. This was the Njord Board. The salmon was excellent and much better than Carnival’s. The mustard and veggies and bread were tasty. The only thing we didn’t love was the mussels that were just too smoky. They tasted like arson instead of campfire. We got the sampler of skewers. The asparagus were the best and the duck hearts were fun. 100% excellent on this board. Here is the whole table: Now both Special Someone and I are rarely picky about service but this place was lackluster in that department. The staff just exuded we couldn’t care less, and the lack of enthusiasm definitely detracted from our experience. The check experience then detracted: when they brought the little e receipt device, the server pressed a button to set it to a 25% tip. Not to ignite the CrusieCritic tipping wars, but what kind of a place sets the default to 25%? It felt sneaky and pushy to us and we changed it. Yes, we reduced it.

Continuing with the Scandinavian theme, our dinner spot was Skal Beer Hall. Initially, we were seated inside and I was not feeling it. It was a beautiful, sunny day in Seattle and it was dark and gloomy inside. Additionally, we were seated underneath a speaker and I could not focus on anything. We asked to be reseated outside and at first they said they didn’t think there was room but then they moved us. There was plenty of room. I love to try new things and I want to try All the Things so I am a sucker for flights and samplers. I had never had mead before, so we started with a mead flight. It was really interesting how different they tasted from each other. They were also stronger than I expected and I never had room for an aquavit flight like I’d hoped for. #Aspirations This was our first experience using QR code menus and we did not like it. I am old fashioned and do not use my phone when I’m eating except to take pictures of the food. We found it strange and isolating, but told ourselves we’d better get used to it since this is the Way of the Future and Carnival Cruise Lines.

You’re welcome. Should be lots upfront now. I’ve been dealing with a really strange work situation and I don’t know when I’m going back. Since I didn’t get the word to go in today, I’ve been working on it a bunch. If and when I go back to work, posts will slow down and mostly be when I have time to walk at the track.

Next we went on a long and enjoyable walk through Ballard. We were both enthralled with the greenery and flowers and bushes. I neglected to stop for pictures on that first walk, except for this little intersection park that reminded me of Barcelona. And the Carnival Splendor.

The first place we ventured out to is Scandinavian Speciaties, home to all things Scandinavian, and the inspiration for making the Seattle segment of our trip Scandinavian-themed. Special Someone has been to Sweden and I’ve been to Iceland and we both enjoy exploring other cultures, so we had a good time poking around the shop that was not just a grocery but a little bit of everything store. They had a cafe area with a cafe and dessert menu as well. They had all sorts of yummies in the refrigerator and freezer cases including tubes fish, and Nordic cheeses. We got a small chunk of dill havarti for a snack since we had a fridge in our room. There was a room of books for readers of all ages. Special Someone wanted to buy some cookies for a snack and of the choice of cardamom or spritz, I chose cardamom. I don’t know if I ever took a picture of them, but they were round, buttery, well-spiced, and topped with the chunky, crunchy sugar common to the region. We are a few on our walk, during snacks later in the trip, and finished them off during our hike in Skagway. I am very picky about cookies and these were tops. The cardamom bread also caught my eye. It seemed large and a little extravagant but it wound up being worth it. It reminded me a lot of challah, but with complex warming spice and the crunchy sugar. We snacked on it during our stay in Seattle. When we were close to finishing it, I also finally remembered why it seemed so familiar: I had tried to make it and something had gone wrong with my dough, so it never rose and was too dense, so I’d made French toast casserole with it. Moral of the story: if you see this bread in Seattle, but it. It’s worth it.

I really liked our Airbnb. Seattle lodging was another trip category that we put on Special Someone’s list. It was a 3 story building in Ballard converted to be individual en suite AirBNB rentals. I’m addition to the mini kitchen in the room, there was a full size kitchen on the first floor. There was also laundry on the top floor, which I used our second night, and once we encountered the laundry situation on the ship, I was glad I did laundry at the Airbnb. Special Someone loved the kitchen unit. It was nice to have a fridge, and we used it, but we didn’t really need the full set-up for this short stay. These shelves were slanted and Special Someone feared a landslide of dishes onto the floor. We did not try the Nespresso machine because we both like milk or cream in our coffee and while we considered buying a small carton, we figured that we would buy coffee out since we were in Seattle. Coffee worth buying out is about 15 miles away from my house and a full 30 miles from Special Someone’s place. So for us, it would be a treat worth trying. There was just enough space for me to do yoga in the room, and the rug was the perfect size for under-mat padding. Now why does ArcticKitty have issues with Uber but not Airbnb? The difference for me is their early attitude towards local taxes and policies. At first Airbnb was skipping all the taxes and pretending the same BS as Uber that they’re just an app, but they changed tunes pretty quickly and integrated tax collection into their platform. And why does ArcticKitty harp on local taxes? It’s the budget for local services. Anyone not paying their taxes is stealing from small children. As for the argument of Airbnb taking business from established BNBs, what I’ve seen in many countries is traditional BNBs using Airbnb as a marketing strategy, a way to reach more customers. Sure, Airbnb takes a significant cut of the customer’s money, but in many cases is brings new customers to a business. Some savvy guests will also discover a business on Airbnb and then go book direct. It doesn’t cost the business anything to post; it only costs the customer if they book. Out on the island, one small business booked exclusively through Airbnb and the others, including mine, all had our places listed on there. I have to say I never got any Airbnb bookings as almost all of mine were word of mouth and done in person or over the phone, but it was an option available to anyone who wanted it. And as for the argument that AirBNBs are contributing to housing shortages, I can see the fair points in this argument, but so are hotels, developers, and restrictive zoning laws. Allowing people to place tiny homes in the yards for short or long term rentals is one way to increase housing availability. Building an affordable apartment building instead of an entire hotel is another. That said, this building definitely could have been used for long term housing, though given prices in Seattle, would not likely have been affordable to many.

Day 1: My First Uber Ride Special Someone and I had split up some of the trip planning tasks and expenses and had decided that ground transportation was to be his domain. I’ve generally looked for the cheapest method possible and he generally just uses Uber or whatever seems simplest. I had somehow made it to the year 2022 without having ridden in an Uber or Lyft or any other sort of ride share. We followed the signs to the rideshare area at SeaTac and it was very orderly and organized. This Uber, just like several others we took in Seattle was spotlessly clean and the driver was pleasant. I was very curious to know why someone chooses to drive for Uber, but I was not yet beginning to chat up strangers on this trip, so my curiosity stayed in my head. One of the reasons that I keep Special Someone around is all of his credit card rebates and he had an Uber one as well. We don’t use it at home so we were glad to make use of it. Bonus, it’s a monthly rebate so we got to use it in both April and May. When Uber started trying to come to Alaska, I was very anti-Uber because it seemed to me that they were trying to circumvent all sorts of regulations and taxes and fees and whatnot. I used to be involved in municipal government and local taxation and policy are topics near and dear to my heart. I did not want the state to say that Uber etc has to be allowed across the state; I think the local communities in Alaska should be able to decide how to govern. I think that where the law wound up is Uber is allowed at the state level but a local community can ban or further regulate it. I have been of the mind that taxi cab companies have safeguards in place that make their rides safer, but this could just be bias on my part. I can recognize that I’ve had some poor experiences with taxis, such as having difficulty trying to hail a cab in New York City when my leg was in a brace. I was on a busy corner and taxis would slow down, see me, and then drive off. Several even stopped before pulling away. Other people got taxis without a problem. When I finally got one, the driver took me on a crazy circuitous route that he insisted was the best way. I suppose that the set rate in advance on Uber etc takes out the surprise of what the fare will cost. If the driver wants to drive in circles, that’s their problem. When I had my brace and had to travel to NYC, I would usually try to get someone else to hail the cab for me. The medical buildings I had appointments in had staff who would do just that. Live & learn. I have no idea if Uber would have worked better for me at the time. I always would have rather have walked! Anyway, long tangent aside, I hope that Uber works for the drivers and riders and I hope that taxis work for the drivers and riders as well. I can see many reasons why someone would want to drive for Uber part time without the hassle and investment of buying or leasing a taxi medallion. The name of the game this trip, besides being flexible, was to try new things, so this new thing I tried.

I don’t know why CC duplicated my photos all funny & won’t let me edit.

Day 1, AlaskaAir Fairbanks to Seattle We used iHealth proctored home covid tests using the free boxes from the USPS and paid the $25 for the proctored session. We signed up for our appointments about a week in advance. I was nervous about testing, but that seems so long ago now. Options in our area are limited and nothing would have fit Canada’s schedule. I didn’t want to have to use our Seattle time on testing. So I thank the kind CC members who kept posting different options. iHealth wound up working for us. I went first, at my house, and the proctor kept saying I had a bad connection and I had to refresh the page. The session also started about 10 minutes late. But we got it done! Special Someone did it at his house and did not have connection problems, but his session also started late. I think we had the same proctor. We got our negative results immediately via email and I printed them out just to kill a tree. Time absolutely flew and before I knew it, Special Someone had arrived and I was so busy I was glad I had a detailed to-do list because I just followed it and we got it all done and got on our way in a reasonable time frame. The airport was about 45 minutes from my house and I called my mom for her birthday. I’d only told my parents about my cruise the day before because I thought they’d be upset that my first since covid times trip wasn’t to see them, but my dad had said it was okay because they had an outbreak in their retirement place anyway. My mom was actually excited to hear about the trip and I think the tiny base fare price really helped her with that. She loves her a bargain. I finished Verifly and ArriveCAN while we were in the luggage drop off line. Special Someone and I had our first funny moment about how we do things differently as he wanted to stand in the “Assistance” aka full service line and have them tag his bags and I wanted to self tag and drop them. Both lines were long, but self tag moved much more quickly. I won and saved us a lot of time. We both have preCheck. Fairbanks does the PreCheck card style system where everyone goes through one line, but PreCheck people keep their shoes on and go through a metal detector instead of a body scanner. PreCheck was a game changer for me as I wear some combination of compression gear, wraps, and braces on one of my legs 24/7 and all that is not friends with the body scanners. We pre-ordered fruit & cheese plates from Alaska and enjoyed them a lot. They do a quick service to pass out the pre-ordered meals first. But then we were still hungry, so on the second (full) service, we got Northwest Deli packs. Between those and finally having coffee, we eventually got full. If you ever fly Alaskaair, I 100% recommend using their app to pre-order food. We are not Starbucks fans and the coffee was the usual too-strong burnt beyond recognition. I was amused by the creamer packets. Beer is now $8 and wine and cocktails are now $9. Special Someone had a credit card rebate for onboard purchase to use. That’s handy, I should always travel with him. The sleeper hit, however, was this Five Farms Irish cream. It was divine. I’ve never heard of it. Has anyone? It was better than Carolans, which is better than Bailey’s IMHO. Two creamers plus this whole bottle made my coffee palatable. And the bottle is cute, so I saved it. I do thinks like that. Sometimes. Contents of the NorthWest deli pack. Sufficiently savory. And one last onboard pic. I will occasionally post travel gear or tips that worked for me. My water bottle situation worked really well. We both have sets of Nalgene bottles for hiking and camping and had recently gotten straw lids to use in spin class. The straws were most convenient to use on the go and we did not ah w any leakage problems. Special Someone had given me a set of caribineers for my birthday when I was thinking of taking a glacier mountaineering class. I haven’t taken the class but he said he had no doubt I’d find uses for them. Oh have I. I made very good use of them on this trip. I didn’t plan this one ahead but it was perfect for my water because the seatbacks don’t fit anything! I would 100% bring them again.

They should have played/showed Frozen.

I think I’ll do chronological and pop out any special topics or questions that arise. I realized that last night the idea is chronological seemed exhausting because I was…exhausted.

You’re welcome. I forgot to mention Scott the piano bar entertainer. He played whatever was requested; his crowd was mostly “older” people aka all the 50 year olds.