(photo by pdgibson)
I’m on another trip to Redmond, and since I had to stay over the weekend again decided to switch hotels to for a couple of days so that I was in downtown Seattle. Whilst Bellevue (on the east side of the river) has a great shopping mall and is very close to the Redmond and Sammamish Microsoft campuses, Seattle downtown (on the west side) has much more diverse and arguably lively population and events.
I decided to stay at the Courtyard Marriot on Lake Union for a few reasons… 1) I’m starting to get a good number of Marriot rewards points, 2) I like their hand lotion, 3) it’s reasonably priced, 4) It was close the annual Fremont Fair site, which a friend (Katy) had promised to introduce me to!
I have recently learned that street festivals are pretty much a weekly occurrence during the Seattle summer, however in all the times I have been here I have never before attended one. The Fremont Fair is an extra special festival since it celebrates the summer solstice (the first day of summer). The Fremont event is also very famous (and popular) due to the fact that plays host to the annual Fremont NAKED bike ride! Hundreds of people turn up early in the morning, strip off, get painted head to toe in all kinds of crazy patterns and colours and then parade through the streets for everyone to see. Unfortunately it was raining in the morning, so decided to skip the parade in favour of Apple store shopping, much to Bjorn’s disapproval…
After a failed Apple store visit (the whole of the Washington state is out of stock of 16gb iPads 
), I got showered, got changed and walked from my hotel over to Fremont. The walk itself was really nice – partly due to the face that walking anywhere in the U.S. is rare, but equally because the whole 2 or so mile stretch was right next to the west side of lake union. That spot seemed to be dock central! There were hundreds of yachts and power boats, ranging from 1 person 1 sail petite boats, through to who knows million dollar floating places of luxury…
I also walked past a beautiful set of floating homes which were surrounded by lovely trees, colourful plants and a sidewalk made from an old stretch of railway tracks! What an amazing place to live…
After a brisk 40 minute stroll, I crossed the bridge which lead directly in to Fremont. Despite the fact that I had missed the naked bike ride, I did spot of a group of friends who were in hysterical laughter at two of their group (a man and women) streaking nude down the side of the river! I guess they really got in to the flow of the festival (or of the beer). As I arrived 4 hours after the naked ride, that was the only signs of nudity I witnessed.
As soon as I arrived at the east side of the bridge, it became quickly apparent that the street festival was still in full flow. Thousands of people were flowing in and out of the streets which were blocked off to cars and hosting the hundreds of stalls selling food, drink, art and general knick knacks which would normally only be found in specialist stores (or perhaps in some cases at the bottom of the shelf in a far corner of a large department store).
The festival had a deliberate hippy vibe to it, with many people wearing and selling tie died clothes, straw hats and all kinds of beads to wrap around various parts of the body. Despite the laid back dress sense, the lack of ‘Can I help you’ sales people and the fascination with a long bearded man swinging colourful ribbons around his head, there were stark reminders of Americanism from the numerous (and increasingly annoying) people asking for signatures on petitions for various new laws ranging from the ability for grocery stores to sell alcohol, through to legalising cannabis!
Perhaps also typical of America, the number of food stalls seemed to top any others. There was a huge selection, everything from friend corn to noodles, and from Chinese to Lebanese! Katy I and I ended up going for a satisfying cheese burger and fries (well, when in Rome…).
Last weekend I was at the Isle of White festival in the UK, which was a 3 day event filled with music and involved most people wandering around with some kind of alcoholic drink in their hands at most times. One thing which was noticeably different in the U.S. was the ring fencing of the alcohol zones. The beer garden areas were tightly controlled by ‘door’ staff checking everyone’s IDs and ensuring that no drinks were taking outside of the fenced in (literally) area. We stayed for 1 beer each (well actually, Katy had 1.3 beers and I had 0.7, since I shared some of mine when I noticed she was drinking it WAY faster than me), and then went for a stroll around the rest of the festival.
There were at least 3 stage areas where local bands provided an eclectic selection of music. Other than whilst drinking beer, we didn’t stay around to watch the bands perform properly – but it was nice to have the music in the background whilst browsing the market stalls.
I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that such thing as a ‘Professional stone balancer’ exists 
…
I couldn’t help but wonder whether there was some trickery involved (perhaps filed down stone to create a flat surface, or hidden wire), but it was still fun to watch. It seems that stone balancing is a regular event at the festival as there are other photos (with different stones) on flickr.
One of the first things I noticed when I arrived at the main festival street was the number of people who had painted faces! I was keen to get mine done, although Katy was not so enthusiastic. A beer or 2 later, and after a little bit of arm twisting, she changed her mind Here is what we ended up with…
The festival alcohol zones were only serving beer and I was in the mood for something else, so we decided to go find a bar. We ended up in the Ballroom bar, mainly due to the face that it had a big ‘Cocktails’ sign outside. Luckily as we arrived, a couple of were leaving and we managed to grab a curb side high table out the front of the bar. I love people watching, so this was a great social spot to watch the world go by and talk to randoms. It turned out that our table was a prime spot for people to place their drinks whilst they went out for a smoke – the bizarre thing was that no one seemed to remember that they had put them their, so NONE of them were collected again! We ended up with at least 3 full pints and numerous other nearly full bottles and cans on our table. Great place to sit if you are on a budget!
Since we had some spare seats, we were joined by an American couple who turned out to be really great to chat to. The guy (Bob) works at Microsoft, so we talked about work for a little, but I then discovered that he is a big dance music fan! He also knows all of the ‘right’ clubs to go to for proper clubbing! We ended up exchanging contact details, so I’m looking forwarding to some clubbing nights with Bob next time I am in town Here is Bob and Katy with her ENOURMOUS ‘slice’ of pizza (or ‘pie’ as Americans call it)…
After Bob and his girlfriend (we think) left, we were joined by 2 girls who also turned out to be really nice and sociable. We went through the normal conversations of ‘Are you from Australia?’ and ‘You don’t look that old’ (that’s becoming harder and harder to take seriously), and then shared some info about our plans for the night. One of the girls was quite cute and from Starbucks. The other one looked a little like Kirsty Alley and was very skilled at ensuring there were no awkward quiet gaps, by quickly asking questions to switch topics when the conversation showed a hint of dropping. I’m not sure if everyone is always that easy to talk to in Seattle bars, or whether everyone was just in the flow of the festival spirit, but either way it was great to meet random fun people.
By the time we left the bar we had got through who knows cocktails, had some interesting conversations and were ready to head to the Skylark bar where another friend Chris Niccoli and his band were playing.
There wasn’t much sunshine, however the rain held off (which I was slightly disappointed about due to the fact I had spent $17 on a new umbrella) and the day turned out to be loads of fun. There is a lot to be said for the lack of pretentious attitude and low inhibitions which the Fremont festival encourages. If all Seattle street festivals are like Fremont, I would definitely be a regular attendee if I lived here.
