" A culture, we all know, is made by its cities." Derek Walcott

As we walked around the downtown streets of Seattle, with our luggage, diaper bag, camera bag, laptop bag, stroller and oh yeah - our baby, we looked for some sign of where we had gotten off the light rail from the airport. Joe had his GPS, but wasn't getting a signal and I had no idea how to get to our hotel. It felt like the Amazing Race - Baby edition. At last I spotted a map located on a street post...this is where the tourists find their way and we were exactly that. Joe and I argued for a few minutes on the street - oblivious to who was walking by and probably laughing and I still had no clue exactly where we had to go to get to the hotel. When finally our hero appeared from his shop and said "do you need some help?" I was happy to say "yes!!" He also asked us if we were Canadian. I looked around for signs of a maple leaf. "takes one to know one" he told us followed by directions to our hotel. Coming from a small town in Ontario, big cities always excite and scare me. My experience in Toronto or Montreal is that everyone else is in a rush, walking with their heads down on their Blackberry (shout out to Waterloo) or iPhone and no one has the time to help a pitiful tourist trying to find their hotel amongst the skyscrapers. But Seattle is different. It's as though many different small towns have been pushed together by the forces of nature to form one large small town. People smile as you walk down the street, they help you find your way and welcome you into their small town.