coffeeshops

Meet Me In Seattle: the Perfect (First) Date Location

jstueart3 Comments

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If you’re talking to someone on the Internet, skyping them and getting to know them, seeing if they’d be cool to date, and you live far across the continent from each other, let me suggest that rather than have one of you fly all the way to the other’s house, that you meet in Seattle instead.

Seattle is a great and easy city to explore–and is neutral territory for both of you. You have the freedom to explore, or not, the city around you.  And there’s no pressure to meet friends or relatives on a first date.  And everything is new to both of you (or relatively—one of you may have actually visited Seattle).  We gave ourselves five days.  And this was a good time-frame.

This might work for any couple!  Yukoners are always looking for a nice short trip.  Maybe you’re already a couple and you want to get out and see a new city.  This plan for a Seattle trip will work for you. 

1.  In Seattle’s favour, they created the CityPass (many large cities offer this) consisting of six fun-filled things you can do at your leisure over nine days for one price ($74).  They include the Seattle Aquarium, the Space Needle, the EMP museum (science fiction and rock/roll), the Pacific Science Center (with IMAX), a harbour cruise, and a choice between the zoo or the museum of Flight.  No tickets up front–so no pressure on when you have to go.  You can do them in any order, at any time in nine days.  Don’t feel like walking through the zoo?  Go to the IMAX.  Too foggy for the Needle?  Go to the sci-fi/pop culture museum.  (Was a great exhibit on the black leather jacket in pop culture–as well as Captain Kirk’s command chair.)

2.  Get a hotel next to the majority of these.  Let me suggest the Best Western Executive Inn Plus, next door to the Seattle Center.  The Seattle Center has three of those six places in the CityPass–plus a lot more.  You’d be a block away from The Pacific Science Center, the Needle and the EMP.

3.  Bonus: you’ll be next door to the Chihuly Glass Exhibit, and the IMAX, and the Monorail–your connection to some cool places not IMG_1094far away…

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Baked Café: Purveyors of Fine Coffees, Good Foods, and Perfect Days

jstueart5 Comments

A perfect day, and I’ve had them before, almost always contains a visit to Baked Café.  Some days I just come to sit on the black couches and look out the windows at Whitehorse going by.  Sometimes I bring a book to read.  Sometimes I plan official meetings there.  Other times I arrange to meet my friends.  Often, I run into them there unexpectedly.  Baked Café is a community hub, so naturally it’s a great venue for meeting.  There’s a lot of ambience in the wide room, and a lot of ambient noise so that you can speak frankly without being overheard.  Music on the radio.  People standing around talking.  It’s comfortable, and often crowded, but not in a jam-packed way, but more like having your best friends all over at your place, happy.  It’s probably the largest coffeeshop that Whitehorse has.

At the corner of First and Main, Baked Café serves a large range of specialty coffees and teas, cold drinks, as well as a wide repetoire of scones and pastries.  You cannot pass up a scone that is bigger than your hand.  It is a meal.  Cranberry Coconut, Cranberry Chocolate Chip, Blueberry Almond or Raspberry Walnut–they each come in three kinds: white, wheat and spelt.  Awesome soups–my favorites are any of their hearty chowders and their Tomato Basil with or without chicken.  They also serve sandwiches, beef pies, quiches, wraps, salads, cookies, and in the summer, several flavors of gelato. There is something for everyone.  It is a hot tourist spot in the summer, and just a hop away from the Whitehorse Trolley across the street.  Kids love it.  And it’s close to everything on Main Street–a place to begin your perfect day of shopping and touring around.  It’s a block away from the Museum, down the street from the Westmark, next to the river and the Whitepass Yukon Railway building.

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