Part 1) Shopping in Seattle. Part 2) Talk Derby to me

Spent the day yesterday looking around Seattle, which was great. Pike Place market was like a cross between Covent Garden and the Covered Market in Oxford - flowers, fresh fruit, fish and loads of delis and cafes. We also had a look around a small museum about the Klondike gold rush in the 1890s. Seattle was in the midst of a depression at the time, but managed to successfully market itself as the gateway to the Klondike (in Alaska), attracting massive amounts of money from all the prospectors who travelled through.

This morning we got on a plane to Chicago and are feeling right at home using the underground. We went out this evening to see some roller derby, which is a brilliantly insane American-invented sport. If anyone's seen Whip It, the film Drew Barrymore directed with Ellen Page starring, you'll know what I mean. There are two teams of girls on rollerskates - one girl from each team has to try and get past all the opposing team members, who try and 'jam' her to prevent her getting through. This translates into some pretty violent maneouvres and crashes! They all have great names, including Killary Clinton, Mel Content, Athena DeCrime and Karmageddon. Pete and I agreed we'd steer well clear of the team captain of the home side, Beth Amphetamine. Apparently she's an ex-boxer, trapese artist and speed skating champion. She had muscles on her muscles and was frankly quite frightening. By the end of the evening I was debating what my roller derby name would be....