Love and Gingerbread Latte

I know Starbucks is a "big bad multi-national" and I'm supposed to shun them, but I can't help myself. The first time Ren Evans bought me a Gingerbread Latte, I fell in love.

It was December 2000 and I was fresh off the plane from Australia (actually, crushed and exhausted off the plane from Australia), landing in the USA for the first time. Nathan's brother Ren was picking me up from the airport in Dallas because Nathan, who I hadn't seen since we first met in Europe, was in New Orleans taking finals. Ren and I had never met – he arrived at the airport with "Helen. Blonde. Australian. Japan Airlines" written on a post-it note. So it was an odd little arrangement, really.

Ren and Chad, his mate from the lumber company, picked me up at DFW and took me on an impromptu tour of Dallas – lunch at a revolving restaurant overlooking the city, dessert at a place that I think was called Love And War In Texas, and shopping at a mall called The Galleria which, to my amazement, had an indoor ice-skating rink. It also had a Starbucks.

Ren asked if I'd ever had a Gingerbread Latte. I hadn't. In fact, I'd never been in a Starbucks before (I lived in Before-Starbucks Brisbane). "Come on," he said, "They're genius." He bought me a Gingerbread Latte and although I was an avowed coffee-hater, he was right – it was genius.

So I blame Ren. That's where my soft spot for Starbucks started, and I can't shake it to this day. It mainly surfaces around November, really, when they bring out the Gingerbread Lattes again. But I may have a larger problem on my hands: Berry has decided Starbucks (or "Cake. Shop." as she calls it) is one of her favourite places.

The first Starbucks for our little part of the world opened in November, and we pass it every day. We go on little "dates" there, the two of us, more often than I should admit. She already thinks the large red chair in the corner belongs to her, which creates trouble when another customer has the nerve to sit in it. She likes to have milk in a big-girl cup, and dance to the Christmas carols and practice her jumping on the carpet.

She is a Seattle baby, so perhaps I should've expected that she'd have a soft spot for Starbucks too. But I'm going to blame her Uncle Ren anyway. He can take it.

Where it all started

For anyone who's ever wondered what the very first Starbucks looks like.... this is it. Turns out it opened in 1971... for some reason I thought Starbucks was older than that. We went to this one (again) on our third-last day in Seattle, right after we said our goodbyes to Pike Place Market.

It's true what they say: Seattle really does have a Starbucks on every corner. I don't drink it myself, but I'm told any coffee is good coffee when you're cold 80% of the year...

Seattle's also home to "the largest Starbucks in North America" (to quote the excited girl who served me there). I took my mum and dad to that one -- by accident, not as a tourist attraction I swear -- when they visited from Australia. I don't have a picture of that one, maybe because it's too big...

Last day

We spent one last day in Seattle with Dad and Tomas, before the big trek. The Pacific Northwest is our kind of place, and it's hard to leave when we've loved living here so much. We count ourselves incredibly lucky that we ended up here after the hurricane.

We went one last time to the University District (Nathan spent a year at UW during undergrad, so we hit some of his old haunts again). We took Berry one last time to The Land of Nod, pretty much her favourite place in the world. We took Tomas to the very first Starbucks, and we went, of course, to Pike Place Market. There was a street festival going on down by the markets, a very sunshine-y afternoon with lots of "unique" people (the kind only Seattle can produce) in the crowd doing some mighty crazy dances. One stand-out: an old man with a beard, wearing a fedora, a tutu and random streamers of tulle... Berry was transfixed.

Yeah, we'll miss it here.