Little trip on New Year's Eve. We went to explore the city. Pike Market was good as always with tons of yammy things. We went to the first Starbucks for coffee and to "Piroshki" for the obvious (from the name). At Pioneer Square we went to the Underground Museum to know how Seattle happened to be what it is now after the great fire of late 18th century. Facing the imminent construction after the fire, the locals took advantage and improved the landscape of the city by building new brick houses first and later leveling the land to protect from tides. As a result alot of the groundfloors happened to be literaly underground, where we got lucky to roam and listen to the city history. In the nutshell: some poor lad from a glue store put the whole city on fire, the city got nicely reconstructed but still being nototious as a sincity with 10:1 male to female ratio and marketing itself as a gate to gold klondikes (2ooo mile to the mainland, however). That was apparently life before Starbucks and Microsoft. So, Seattle grew into its today wondeful, multifaced city.