Today was Seattle's Fremont Parade, which of course being Seattle featured bicyclists. Naked bicyclists wearing nothing but body paint. Which I missed! So sorry folks, no photos of that here. ;) I took the bus from downtown to meet up with my friend and they were all so packed that I had to wait 40 minutes before I was able to flag one down and cram inside the bus. I overheard a guy on the phone telling someone, "We're all crammed into the bus like sardines. It's AWESOME!" So I got to the parade at 12:15 p.m. and JUST missed the 900+ bicyclists passing
through - including what I heard seemed to be a highlight of naked bicyclists who bodypainted themselves to look like Mormons giving out pamplets. There were a handful of bicyclists who circled around 3 or 4 times - the kind of people who you can just tell on first glance don't mind being naked at all. Then there was a "normal" parade afterwards with marijuana legalization, a gay marching band, belly dancers, occasional topless women, zombies, pirates, people giving out free hugs - your typical hippie fair. =) The rest of the festival featured the usual booths with organic-made clothing, hats, and live music, where we watched this cool band called Slimpickins, with a half-naked rollerblading pirate dancing around them. We also climbed up the Fremont Troll, which is a permanent display (on Troll Ave.) right under the bridge and clutching a Volkswagon.
At night we had gotten invited through connections to this special VIP party for the Art Cars participants in the Festival. They smoked giant salmon in this specially made copper grill, which was created after receiving $10,000 funding from the Seattle Art Society. The grill was themed "Death of Salmon," with the grill shaped like a giant coffin in the shape of a salmon with bars underneath the grill for the pallbearers. When the salmon was cooking it was "smoking like a f***ing locomotive" as one guest said. It was opened by turning a crank which raised the lid straight up which released a giant cloud of steam. And the bars inside the grill were hollowed out and filled with water so the salmon could be doubly steamed - it was the freshest, juiciest salmon I ever had. They also grilled razor clams later. Some of the guests were from Alaska who ran fishing trips. It was pretty awesome and too bad I'm not a native because the people there were pretty colorful and really know the "secret" places in Seattle that you would otherwise never find out by just visiting.
Today was a very chill native Seattle experience. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to doing some real touristy stuff. The forecast calls for clouds but as long as it's not rain I'm not complaining.
