Fast forward. It’s later in the day this time, but that’s what happens when your car rolls in to the apartment at 10:30pm after a full day in the Olympic sun. And then, of course, by the time you unload and watch the Olympics themselves on TV, it’s late and no one wants to get up on time.
Just as well since today has been designated as a day to knock around the city of Seattle. To soften the blow of being a tourist when most citizens of the city are secretly annoyed with them, we’ve opted for a weekday adventure to mitigate the madness of camera-toting heards of hayseeds and foreign tourists scrambling to capture shots of the ‘real’ city. It’s a guy throwing a fish, people, not a tapdancing Sasquatch.
[In a grizzly movie voice]: “In order to become the tour guide his parents so desperately need, Bryan Rivard must become…a tourist.”
I was of course happy to do it, doing my best to quash my displeasure of crowds and all things goofy. So of course our first stop after parking downtown was at Seattle Duck Tours to buy a ticket for a later time, but since they had room we opted to depart in 6 minutes. After a brief detour to a set of porta-potties that likely violated the Geneva Convention, we climbed into the back of the WWII era amphibious vehicle and took our seats as the guide began giving a shpeel about safety while intermixing a number of canned jokes and crowdpleasers. Rarely have I felt so painfully Seattle as I did when I leaned over to my brother and whispered something to the effect of “this has so been done before.” Also, that I knew the Space Needle before it was big.