Weekend Adventure: A tourist in my own city

It’s a cold Wednesday evening as I check in at downtown Seattle’s Green Tortoise Hostel near Pike Place Market. It’s everything I could expect for $25 per night. The worn-out, mold-colored carpet looks like someone drove a lawn mower over it. I’m staying in a “dorm-style” room, with eight wooden bunk beds separated by large green sheets that act as privacy curtains. A solitary gray square of fabric covers my mattress, while a thin wool blanket stretches only halfway across the bed. There is no pillow.

Tonight is free spaghetti night. In the hostel’s common room, Japanese paper lanterns hang from a crusty yellow ceiling and a medley of unmatched chairs and multicolored tables are scattered around the room. Most people have finished dinner and have moved on to the booze. Older folks sip vodka from paper cups; younger travelers swig Amstel Light or Pabst Blue Ribbon out of brown paper bags, wary of the United States’ 21-and-over drinking age.

As for me, I’m a Seattle native — practically born eating salmon in the shade of an evergreen tree near a Starbucks Coffee shop. With only my Frommer’s Guide to Seattle and a few personal belongings, I am here to answer the question: How do tourists see Seattle?

I strike up a conversation with two guys from Perth, Australia, Owen McNulty Cooper and Nick Terry. They’ve been drinking beer since 3 p.m. For them, the night is just getting started.

“You’re here to see what it’s like to be a tourist in your own city?” asks Nick, a gangly 21-year-old with a mess of greasy hair hanging past his shoulders.

“That’s right,” I say.

“Wicked,” he says. “Wicked.”

After the quick introduction, they consent to let me tag along with them. Here’s the agreement: They get to be the tourists. I get to be a fly on the wall and write down everything they do in Seattle.

Bring on the tourist traps. Let’s swarm the cheesy gift shops that sell Space Needle snow globes. We’ll Ride the Ducks, ride the monorail and then ride the ferries. Heck, maybe we could even hike along the pier and pop into Ivar’s for some fish and chips.

“Naw, mate,” says Nick. “We’ve got tickets to see a band called Holy F*. Let’s go.”

We hail a cab and head to Capitol Hill. We’re late. The band had already finished its set. We order beers and Nick asks the bartender which local brew tastes best. He gives them Black Butte Porter from Portland. Owen tells me it tastes like chocolate. Nick tells me it tastes like sex. In my notes I scribble, “Aussies adore anything alcoholic,” to which Owen laughs and says it’s true for him.

“Man,” he says, “even the beer here tastes delicious.”

They decide to change venues for cheaper drinks. We walk along Pike Street and venture into a red-lamped bar called the Cha Cha Lounge. I don’t mention it to them, but I come here about twice a week. Rainer Beer is on tap for two bucks a pint. Pitchers are five bucks when it’s happy hour. Nick and Owen spread out and chat up the room. About $35 and several pitchers later, the three of us are drunk, or “pissed,” as Owen puts it. Last call rings and we spill out of the Cha Cha onto Pike Street.

We amble up Broadway, passing the city’s best sex shops and most outgoing transvestites. The Aussies spot Dick’s Drive-In and start sprinting like it’s the Olympic 100-meter dash.

“Hamburgers!” Owen screams, sprinting down the street. “We love Seattle!”

After heading back to the hostel, Nick and Owen make friends with an off-duty hostel employee and smoke pot together. I head to bed. The room sounds like a jungle. There’s one gentle snorer, one loud snorer, one soft cougher, one loud cougher, one guy who spends all night reading, one guy who spends all night whispering into his cell phone, one angry guy who’s trying to sleep but can’t, and then me, the drunken “tourist” who’s four hours away from waking up with a screaming headache.

I wake up for the free breakfast, but immediately regret it. The headache is awful. I try not to vomit while watching other people down waffles and drink milk. I cower among the upbeat travelers who seem eager to get their days started. I’m the only one who doesn’t seem excited.

Aimée Anderson has stayed at the hostel since October, when she moved here from Arizona. She says the two places couldn’t be more different.

“God, it’s so liberal here … In Arizona it’s a lot more judgmental. One time I was in the U-District waiting at the bus stop and there was this guy talking to his friend on the phone. He was like, ‘She just wants somebody around because she needs somebody. It’s really hard for me. It makes me sad.’… It was shocking. He was talking about his feelings,” Anderson says, “People here talk about sex in line at the Gap. They talk about being good parents and breastfeeding their child. You just don’t hear that kind of stuff in Arizona.”

Sunlight streams through the windows, and I realize what a beautiful day it is. The hostel is kitty-corner to Pike Place, and through its “Farmer’s Market” sign I make out the glass-like Puget Sound reflecting a crystalline blue sky.

Nick and Owen tumble from their room wearing the same clothes as yesterday.

“Java,” Owen mutters. We take off toward a coffee shop, the sunlight stinging our sleepless eyes. Another group from the hostel bustles away to visit Jimi Hendrix’s grave at Greenwood Memorial Park.

“Legend has it that if you leave your [guitar] pick there overnight, the next morning you can play ‘Purple Haze’ left-handed,” says the brochure from the hostel’s front desk. I don’t mention to the eager fellowship that the graveyard is in Renton — a good 40 minutes from Seattle by bus.

After a sizable walk, we enter Bauhaus, a café with a luxurious view of Interstate-5 and the numerous cranes and construction sites that spread across South Lake Union’s skyscape.

The barista asks if this is our “first Seattle coffee experience,” and then designs hearts in the lattes’ foam.

“Wow, that’s pretty,” Nick says, before neatly slurping off all traces of the barista’s art.

“The biggest thing I see about Seattle is that the people have been really nice to us, eh?” Owen says. “Maybe it’s just that we have Australian accents. Or that they’re just really super friendly.”

After Bauhaus, we head to a fashion boutique called Zebra Club. A T-shirt there costs $60. But Nick and Owen spend nearly an hour trying on outfits. In the end, they spent about $400 each on designer jeans, jackets, sweaters (they call them “jumpers”), hats, belts and shoes. Apparently everything here is cheaper than in Perth.

“We rinsed that shop, eh?” says Nick as we finally leave.

I had thought that the Australians would’ve been rinsed by one of our famous downpours. As it turns out, visitors spend nearly $5 billion per year in Seattle — not by any stretch a drop in the rain bucket. Each day in Seattle, a tourist spends about $505, according to Seattle’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. That’s the equivalent of 100 Java Chip Frappuccinos or a modestly priced bottle of wine at the Metropolitan Grill.

After more than 20 straight hours of doing exactly what I didn’t expect to be doing as a tourist in Seattle, Owen finally breaks it down.

“Yeah mate, we never really look for the touristy things to do. We could go up and see the Space Needle and it would be a pretty view and all, but where are we going to find out about the culture of the city? From the top of a tall building? Naw, we’re best off getting pissed (drunk) at a pub and meeting locals. Or having a terrible night’s sleep so we can get up early and head out for a walk in the sunshine and say g’day to some more people, eh?”

Owen and Nick never rode the Ducks. We didn’t even walk by a shop that sold snow globes. There were no awkward scenes from Lost in Translation that translated into hilarious anecdotes about annoyed Seattleites or angry travelers. Instead, we met many people, many who turned out to be gracious and warm hosts. To my new friends, this is what being a tourist is all about.

“Yeah mate, I’ve been lots of places,” says Nick. “I’ve done coke in NYC, smoked B.C. bud in Vancouver, met hippies in San Francisco and now I’m drinking coffee in Seattle. I mean — this is a beautiful city. It’s green everywhere. But I wouldn’t be down for the voyage if I couldn’t enjoy some friendly local company while I was here. That’s the point of coming. That’s the point of tourism.”