A cup (or two) of Seattle's goodness

I love vacation. It's all the more wonderful after 10 weeks of summer school, but I love coming back to Seattle no matter what the occasion or time of year. These past several days have been full of seeing great friends, enjoying the Seattle-sunshine (yes, it IS sunny here in the summer!), marveling at the incredible beauty of the mountains and water that surround this place, and of course, savoring many cups of coffee from a variety of local coffee shops. I know that when people think of Seattle, they immediately think of Starbucks, but what I love so much about this city is that it is so easy to avoid having to purchase coffee from Starbucks altogether because of the sheer number of independent coffee shops that exist around here. I decided to demonstrate this via a set of photos taken throughout the week of no-Starbucks for Sarah :)

The Java Bean for breakfast

The Tea Cup on the top of Queen AnneCaffe Ladro, one of my favorite cups of coffee anywhere, I enjoyed a couple of these throughout the week!El Diablo, which is ironically located right across the street from my church, happens to have the best, most creative decor of any coffee shop. The Green Bean, the greatest coffee-shop with a distinct purpose I've ever seen, started and run by two young women about two years older than myself, this coffee shop truly does center as a community gathering place for the Greenwood neighborhood (I ran into two people I knew in the 5 minutes I was there one morning, a VERY fun thing!)