Awesome Day in Seattle

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Seattle:

Erika, Grant, Eric, Francis and I had a fantastic day together. We met at 7am at our place to head out for our “Magical Mystery Tour.” We got to the border and, because Erika was among us, we all got asked to go in and speak with immigration. We had a nice chat and a couple of laughs with the young fellow who had Erika fill out the paperwork for her temporary visa. Yes, you read that right, we had a few laughs! I’m sure most people can’t say that they saw their trip off to a fun start with a US border crossing but, for us, it happens to be true.

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Once on the other side, we started taking goofy pictures of each other in the car and just generally had a pleasant time together. After not too long, we all realized we were hungry and so stopped at Denny’s for breakfast. Classic. We sat criticizing the menu, and the US diet in general, only to be put in our place when our reasonably fit waitress served us a reasonably decent meal. As easy as it is to slag off American culture at times, we were wrong on this particular occasion.

Appetites sufficiently sated, we were back on the road and heading for Seattle and stop number one: the Space Needle. Again, contrary to most parking experiences you may hear about, ours happened to be amusing and rewarding. I can’t even explain; there was just something about the vibe going on that made even mundane tasks fun. So, car happily parked, to the needle we went. More goofy pictures ensued. Actually, it wasn’t so much the pictures that were goofy, but the tactics that went along with taking them, such as each taking turns lying on the pavement so as to be able to fit everyone into the shot, along with the entire height of the needle.

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Once atop the structure, phone calls were placed to loved ones, as much for the gratification of being able to say, “Hi, I’m calling you from the Space Needle!” as from being motivated by an already acute missing of said loved ones. And, predictably, another series of snaps was also pursued. Having achieved five separate copies of pretty much the same photo ops, we left the needle and headed down to the Puget Sound waterfront. We had a couple of drinks each and took yet more pictures, artsy ones this time (indulge us here) of each other through various pints of beer and glasses of wine.

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With a fuzzy, warm, summertime buzz to complement our already elated moods, we headed back to the car. However, we had to wait for a train to cross. It was going pretty slowly and so Eric and I, feeling inspired by the buzz and the elation, decided we should do something neither of us had done before! We ran aside the train, hopped it, and rode it for a short time. Erika missed the first photo op though, so we had to do it twice…

Finally back at the car, we drove to Pike’s Place Market to hunt down a restaurant to have dinner in. Along the way, I bought myself a novel in a second-hand store, in anticipation of English novels being in short supply in Poza Rica, only to have Eric hand me a second one! So I am set for a while. After much deliberation, we selected a balcony overlooking Pike’s Place on which to eat our supper. Three out of five ordered paella only to be told there would be a twenty-five minute wait. Thinking we’d still be okay to get to the airport, we decided that that would be no problema! Twenty-five minutes happened to be a bit of an optimistic prediction though, and, as we waited for the food, anxiety about time started to turn the mood just a bit. This was made much worse when we finished eating only to get stuck in hopelessly slow traffic. There was real panic as we crept along trying to get to the freeway and I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to make it in time, or not.

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Those of you who heard me say that the whole thing wasn’t really sinking in should know that, at this point, it was starting to hit me. When we finally did get to the airport, it hit me full force. I couldn’t stop crying when the goodbyes were said, and I felt extremely sick. We checked in nevertheless.

When going through to the gates, Erika and I were asked to step aside and go through “extra screening.” This was a bit distressing but, in the end, turned out to be nothing more than having our carry-on looked through and an extra pat down. Once we were at our gate, we got called to the desk and began to wonder if we were being picked on! They just wanted to make sure our boarding passes were stamped though, so we dismissed the thought. We were soon on our plane, which ended our day in Seattle…