Starbucks and BubbleGum

I had one day in Seattle, and when my friend asked how I wanted to spend it, "Pike Place Market" was the obvious answer. He graciously agreed to escort me, and I ought to stress the word "graciously" because he manoeuvered the narrow downtown streets in his great big truck like he'd been doing it all his life. I'd have never survived driving there on my own. He risked his life for me to see this, I swear.

So here it is.

The Seattle, Washington waterfront.

And, of course, Pike Place Market.

This is the very first Starbucks. Only, technically it's not the first; the first one was actually a few blocks north of this one, but was moved five years after it opened. So, it's the original still-Starbucks Starbucks.  

Almost as interestingly, this is the lineup for coffee at the very first Starbucks. It goes all the way down the sidewalk away from us, two and three people deep, and disappears past that white truck you see on the road down there.

Behind us, just a few blocks away - another Starbucks.
And nary a soul in the line-up.

Inside the market...

Oh, and...

"Have you ever heard of the bubblegum wall?"

"The what now?"

Gross? Sure.
But it made for some fascinating photography.

Parts of the wall are several inches thick with bubblegum, up to 15 feet high and 50 feet long. People have left notes and wrappers and little bits of themselves all along the way, and when it gets hot and sunny in the alley, the gum melts into a sort of Dali-esque art.

In November of 2015, the wall was cleaned with the help of 130 manhours and some high-pressure hose. It is estimated that over 2300 lbs of gum was removed. Within a day, the gum started to return, with memorials to the victims of the terrorist attack in Paris that same month being among the first displays to appear.

Back outside.

That Target was the home of the vacant Starbucks I mentioned previously.

Then it was back into the craziness that was downtown Seattle on a random Thursday afternoon in the summer, for supper, and to the house to rest up for the rest of the mission ahead of me.