Thursday both Troy and I worked full days, so David and Karen were on their own for most of the day. It sounded like they had plenty to keep them busy. They did a coffee tour that went to several coffee shops around Seattle, including the original Starbucks location. They got to try samples of different coffee and hot chocolate.

After the coffee tour, they stopped in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Troy and I had been there before and enjoyed it. For lunch, they ate at Elliott Bay Café in Pioneer Square before heading back into the main part of downtown. They waked through the Westlake Center and took a ride on the Monorail to go to the Seattle Center.

The next stop was the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. Neither Troy or I are that interested in science fiction, besides Star Wars and LOTR, and we'd always heard mediocre reviews of the EMP, which is why we've never been to either before. David and Karen really liked the Science Fiction Museum, but they thought the EMP was a waste of money. Thankfully you can just pay one admission and you get into both, so it wasn't too bad. Apparently a lot of the exhibits at the EMP are kid-oriented and there just wasn't much of anything that interesting to learn about.

By the time they were done with the EMP, Troy and I were ready to pick them up to go to dinner. We tried to make the early ferry, but decided we wouldn't get there in time because of bad traffic. We decided to go eat dinner at one of our favorite Italian places, Ristorante Machiavelli. The bread is quite interesting there because it has pieces of olive baked into it and is served with a different type of oil dressing. I got the fettucini alfredo, Troy got the spinach ravioli, Karen got the eggplant parmesan, and David got the special of the day which was fennel bulb ravioli.

After dinner we rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island. It was a little cool and windy once we got out on the water, but it was a great view of the skyline and Mount Rainier.

Ferry ride near Seattle on Vimeo.

We also had dessert at B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill. I shared a piece of carrot cake and Karen and David shared some kind of chocolate cake with vanilla icing and some raspberry filling.

We went back to the apartment and played some games, including Apples to Apples and more Mario Kart 64. Only one more full day of their trip left.