Our (brief) explorations of Seattle, lots of animals and a farewell to a faithful friend.

The plan was to head to Seattle to sell Macy and on Tuesday evening, the Ebay auction for her ended. She didn't sell for that much money but she has gone to a new home where we hope she'll be happy. It was somewhat strange to see her being driven off, and a little sad as she has been the closest we've had to a home for the last few months. It also brings home the fact that we'll be leaving North America very soon. I'm hoping that she'll be known as Macy still!

In the meantime, we've been making the most of our time in Seattle and the handy downtown location of our hotel – its the Moore Hotel and definitely recommended for being friendly and pretty good value, plus they didn't bat an eyelid when we brought in our kayaks to leave in their left luggage area.

We've wandered around the Pike Place Market, which is the oldest farmers market in the USA, and is filled with fresh produce, fragrant flowers, colourful arts and crafts, and fish. Close by is the first coffee shop opened by Starbucks, but by no means is it the only one in the city! Seattle has an interesting history in terms of its structure, and was wiped out by a fire in the late 19th century. This gave rise to a two tiered city, due to the sidewalks and shops being developed at one level by private owners, and the roads being built at another by the city. As bizarre as it sounds, it means there is an underground system that we took a tour down to see parts of which was pretty entertaining, though certainly odd to be stood under a skylight that people were walking above!

One of the best deals we found was the CityPass which gave us entrance to 5 attractions for $39 (about