Meeting Chris in Seattle

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Yet the tradition continues, with only a few hours of sleep, packing my bags in the middle of night, ready for the next stop. It was 4am in the morning and I was stuffing my backpack with the final things before I searched the internet for the cheapest bus ride to Seattle and booked it and so my next leg of the trip was locked in.

After 4 hours on the bus and a customs border check, I arrived in Seattle, the city of Microsoft, Grunge music and the birth of Starbucks. I made a quick call to Chris(my roommate at COP), we had arranged to meet in Seattle as this was his last stop before flying home. He had already touched down in Seattle and I had to meet him on the corner of 3^rd Avenue and Columbia St at Pioneer Square which fortunately was not too far from where I was dropped off. So I picked up my backpack and started walking 3 blocks north of the station. “Tugboat”(Chris’s nickname) I screamed at the top of my lungs, waving my hands in the air as I was happy to see him.

my bus
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From there, I met Andrew, Chris’s University friend from way back when they studied together in Australia. Which was who’s place we were crashing at for the weekend. Once in Andrews house, we met Seth(Andrew’s roommate) and from there, we had a few beers to mellow down while waiting for another crew of friends who were also coming down from Vancouver. But dinner was our first priority and so Andrew took Chris and I along with his friend Wes to a very local and underground Sushi place called Musashi’s. A cheap eat but one of Seattle’s finest sushi restaurants, it was only a little place on the corner with at most 10 small tables where credit card was not used, bookings were not allowed and waiting lists were long. We put our name down for a table of 4 and waited outside along with many others that had the same idea. 30 minutes later, we were in eating Albacore, Tuna and Salmon Sushi along with Miso soup.

Chris
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$13 and a full stomach later we went back to the house to meet the crew who had drove in from Vancouver. All up, the people who were to make this weekend was Andrew, Seth, Lindsay(Andrew’s GF), Matt, Karsten, Liz(Canada),Chris and I(Australia). We had a pretty multi-cultural group and there were some interesting times to come. After having another few beverages at the house we were off to Latona’s Pub literally right across the road from Andrew’s house were we had the chance to get acquainted with the group. This did wind up with me throwing up along with Karsten later on in the night.

Chris sleeping after Latonas
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The next day, again blessed with unusually glorious October weather in Seattle, we went downtown. We first visited the original Starbucks on Pikes Place to get a drink. They don’t make it any tastier but the place was packed like a flee market and there were lots of souvenirs to buy. Then we walked through the famous Pike Market Place, where there were lots of little market stalls selling custom made jewelry and paintings and face masks and apparel and home made pickles, where Chris decided to buy a jar. Then 6 of us boys decided to help him out and the jar was finished in minutes. Following on, we went to the Pike Place Fish Market where we witnessed employees tossing fish across the market to each other and catching it before wrapping it up for the customer who bought it. This was really neat to watch.

Matt refusing to sleep after Latona's
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Back out on the streets through the market we saw a guy holding a “Free Hugs” sign and so we gave him a hug and I offered him to take a lunch break jokingly and held the sign up for the next 10 minutes, but I wasn’t getting any hugs.

Then out onto the Wharf we walked, and I forgot to mention that Chris and Karsten were wearing almost exactly the same T-shirt the whole day, which was a black t-shirt with a tuxedo as the print. We walked around and took snaps before we drove to Gastown Park to relax and throw a Frisbee around. We rolled out a picnic blanket and umbrella and some camping chairs while we sipped on a case of Bud Light. Funnily enough, we ran into a wedding and it just so happen that Chris was dressed for the occasion so he ran up and took a picture with the Groomsmen. Then, later we ran into some monks strolling along the park and again we ran up and took a picture with them. But the funniest picture was when we ran into 2 Thai ladies they were wearing identical outfits and so Karsten and Chris just had to run up to them and again take a picture. This time it was wedding style, they lifted each girl up under the knee and the neck like they just got married. It was a classically hilarious photo.

Karsten wants to be last to fall
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As the day went by we went back to Andrew’s house and got ready to go to his Church dinner event. We ate some amazing and authentic Egyptian food, met some of Andrew’s family, took pictures with some randoms and dressed up as pharaohs before leaving and hitting Lenny’s pub for a showdown before it was time to say goodbye and part ways once again in the morning.

In the morning, we gave our goodbye hugs. A few more great friendships made and I think it won’t be long before I will be in this part of the world yet again.