With my new days of self employment and flexible hours to call my own I get to go on these two. Three. Hour walks though downtown. I try to time them with least chance of being rained on. But I don't always get it right. I walk through Queen Anne to Seattle Center. And then follow the Monorail to Westlake. From there to Pioneer Square and back home up 1st with a quick stop in the Market for some plums or leafy topped carrots. One time I bought dates. I do this almost every day. Unless. It's cold, windy AND rainy. That's the triple threat of heading to the gym instead. Which yields no conversations, no carrots and no inhales of sea air mixed with fruit stands mixed with slow walking tourists.
I've really come to love the Market. I love how you have to talk to someone for every single purchase. How many apples? How many tomatoes? How are you? I spread out my modest buying power to as many of the stands as I have items. Tomatoes from the first one, the stand kitty corner form the pig. Asparagus from the place inside, on the right. With the clever punk rock girls and the sassy signs about not squeezing the fruit. Clemintines from the stand a little ways down on the left. The place I bought the ripe plums for my birthday cake. The one where the girl hinted I should bring her back a piece.
I bump into tourists as they. Just. Stop. Walking to peer at a wall of tulips. Or listen to a shaggy kid strum away on his guitar. I stopped being annoyed by it as soon as I took it as an opportunity to see what they are seeing in this city I've come to take for granted. In this city that they spent a few hundred bucks each on a plane ticket and few hundred more a night on a hotel. They notice what I would other wise walk by. And for that, I don't mind the second of awkward as my hands hit their hips and I can smell their shampoo. The tulips are really that lovely.
And that kid was playing my song.
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6 comments:
i am that tourist - with out the ticket to fly. dreaming of getting to live the sites of the city...
As always, I love the way you write ... you have a wonderful talent for pulling people into your mind and eyes. I can see the tulips just as you saw the tourists seeing them. I have to remind myself to look at how beautiful this city is.
I just came home from week in sunny Rome, where everyone bumps into each other all the time and supermarkets are dirty little necessities tucked away in dark alleys. If you need something you go to a Bar, which is not a bar the way we think of it, but a place to grab a shot of espresso (consumed at the marble bar in front of the espresso machine) and then take a grilled panino or cup of gelati on your way back to work (or church-gawking if you happen to be a tourist). Yes, well-bred Europeans eat their lunches on foot. Or you go to a farmacia, where you can buy all things medicinal and body-care related. Or you go to a street market (like our PPM), setup on one of 800 million of Rome's open squares or the fish monger or the butcher. They have whole stores where they sell nothing but cured meats! Or you go to a pizzeria, where you buy a length of rectangular pizza to your liking, fold it like a book, wrap it in paper, and go on your merry way. Or you go to a wine bar, where you can while away a couple of hours between work and dinner (9 p.m.).
Since I got back two days ago I am doing everything I can think of to recreate the lifestyle I enjoyed there as a visitor, and that includes places like Pike Place Market. And lots of walking. So thank you for that little reminder. And walk on.
Talking to people to purchase something is a rarity.
I remember trying to do it in Paris and in Mexico. That's something I don't recognize has having to do at home, but I do live in a pretty friendly part of the South. People say hello and ask how you are, and sometimes they even listen to your answer. Sometimes I listen to theirs.
It would probably be awesome to live everyday as a tourist, but you need the right city for that, I think.
R-dean: Toronto is a beautiful city - many opportunities to play tourist in your hometown. Going off your Flickr account seems like you do lots of that already.
Thank you, Matt, for making my day AGAIN with your nice words.
I love the story, Susie! The Market is the prefect place to capture Rome in Seattle. Maybe not the flavors exactly, but the bustling and loud conversation. Perhaps our paths have crossed?
Adrian, I love the South. I have a day dream of spending a summer in a sleepy town. May you find some opportunities to chat about tomatoes with your neighbors.
and here I thought "Here Comes Everybody" was a song by Autolux.
gridlock
the taxi driver turns off
my favorite song
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