Entries from September 2007 ↓

Previously… on 31th July 2007… 

On day 2 of our trip we started having a “continental breakfast” at the Red Roof Inn… Nothing special actually, but enough to satisfy our appetite… well at least for a couple of hours…
After that we jumped on our Toyota and we went to downtown Seattle, where we enjoyed a little ride on the monorail and we had our first encounter with a mall…
Needles to say I was shocked by the prices…
Everything was so cheap I almost fainted!
(Just a little sidenote: If you’re visiting Oregon BUY, BUY, BUY! Don’t wait to go somewhere else to do it since there’s no sales tax in this wonderful State!)

Then we went to Pike Place Market, a pleasantly noisy and colorful market just near the sea, were we had a nice lunch on the pier. The restaurant was called “the fishermans” at the pier 57 and it was a fantastic meal. After the lunch we headed toward the Science Fiction Musem and the EMP (experience Music Project), which are on the same building (and you can buy a combo ticket to visit both).

Consider at least 4 hours for the EMP and 1 for the Science Fiction Museum.

It was a great afternoon, but we had to skip some stands inside the EMP because we were late. If you love music, there a lot of memorabilias and a funny “music room” were you can test your musical attitude: there are interactive stands where you can learn percussions, strings and vocals. We also visited the Science Fiction Museum, but it’s not very big: ok, there are some awesome original costumes from various movies a huge ALIEN queen… but not much more.

During the evening we booked a room in a motel 6 and at then we went on the Space Needle to catch some night scenes of Seattle. It was worth the cold wind, because some of the pictures taken by Alessandro are truly Amazing. Check on the Flickr Page regarding the day.

Stay tuned for more

Ok, let’s try to do a nice summary of our vacation, day by day. We will try to post as many hints and directions as possible in order to share our “vacation know-how” with you.
My thanks goes to Elena, which wrote the main parts of the events on her diary

30 July 07

Our vacation started early on the morning of the 30th of july, probably the longest day of my entire life. My brain and my body disagree on the exact duration, but it was fun nonetheless.
We started at about 4 in the morning, collecting everybody on our rented car: the flight started from Milan (we live about 150 km West) at 9, so we need to get there really early. It was a good move, because we found almost no one on the check-in queue and we were soon going to have a breakfast. Our Flight company was KLM and were bound to do 3 steps:

1. Milan to Amsterdam
2. Amsterdam to Minneapolis
3. Minneapolis to Seattle

Everything went smooth (even at amsterdam the gate authorities asked us lots of questions, but everything was nice and people were polite) except in Minneapolis. Some of us was held after the document check and was questioned. I think that the guy which was questioning me was a bit too rude but Giovanni was almost accused of being there for illicit activities. We know the difference beetween strict and paranoid and that officer was a bit too much on the wrong side of life. We had to wait nearly 15 minutes for Giovanni, but in the end everything went well and we entered the main section of the airport.

First steps on usa land

We had to wait nearly 2 hours for the last trip, so we took a stroll inside the airport. Me and Maxx were ready to taste the vacation…so we bought a burrito. Each. We were exposed to the lower cost of food which is peculiar of the USA: the burritos were much larger compared to those we are used to eat in italy. Of course they were delicious! We were also amazed to see a statue of Snoopy and an ipod vending machine!

Seattle here we come

The rest of the travel was good and at the airport of seattle we rented the sturdy car which brought us to san Diego: a Toyota Sierra. (here the first picture near the AVIS parking). Of course we rented also a GPS (a Garmin, can’t remember the model)… which was non functional until we got out of the parking. After some wrong turns (Alessandro was driving and even though he is an awesome driver we did a couple of wrong turns before arriving the Inn).

Red roofs inn

This was our first stop: we had 3 bedrooms, with 2 queen beds each, near the airport.

The rooms in the USA are, generally speaking, HUGE compared to our european standards

. Each Queen bed can hold a couple of people. We tried to find a place were to eat a sneak and drink a beer, but everybody was tired and freezing (there were some chilly gusts of wind) so while Nanni, Elena, Ines and Alessandro went to bed, me and max went to… Denny’s! The results were… 2 amazing plates (picture) ! it was a very good start

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i’ve joined the blogrush service, in order to link similar blogs and exchange exposure. It’s still brand new as service, but i’m quite sure it will work beautifully!

Stay tuned for updates!

…the Bagnacaoda’s Guide to the West Coast!

It’s not that we pretend to know everything about USA now, but we can give a few suggestions to those who want to travel like we did ;P

Stay tuned!