sunday

sunday morning, we woke to a spectacularly beautiful day, which suited our plans nicely. we met up with melissa and walked down to the well-known pike place market. having only been in seattle once before, for two days, when it rained the whole time and i never left my hotel, this was a first for me, and i was excited.

i never did see a fish thrown (i guess people have to actually buy them first --the nerve!) but the sights, sounds, and smells were fantastic. i fell in love with the multitude of flowers bundled in stall after stall after stall. not only did they look beautiful, but smelled fantastic. we tried chocolate linguini, tasted different flavored vinaigrettes, ogled fairy princess headbands, took photos, browsed t-shirts and jewelry, and wooden spoons.

















we stopped at the athenian inn for breakfast, where, a small sign outside indicated that a scene from sleepless in seattle had been filmed. while eating, we were joined by another of my co-workers, jessica, who had just arrived in seattle. the food was just okay, but the upstairs view of the harbor, the good service, and the company were excellent.

we continued our meandering through the main marketplace, and when we reached the end, melissa and jessica headed back to the hotel, while dylan, kelly, and i walked over to the westlake center to board the monorail headed for the space needle, and the day’s true destination, the experience music project. the museum itself is architecturally fascinating. designer frank gehry, is also known for, among other things, his design of the walt disney concert hall here in la.

















before entering the museum, we stopped to take some shots of the space needle, but my trip to the top would wait until later that night. instead, we headed in to the emp to enjoy all of the various exhibits, dedicated to music.

the first highlight of the museum was the sound lab, wherein you could play with different features of different instruments. some of those instruments were in the open space and some were in their own sound booths. particularly entertaining for me was the vocal booth where dylan, kelly and i sang our hearts out to the seattle anthem ‘smells like teen spirit.’ sadly, i actually had awesome video of this, but it somehow got deleted☹

the other highlight was the temporary jim henson exhibit. i mean, jim friggin’ henson! the exhibit included a ‘dark crystal’ room, kermit, bert & ernie, furry walls begging to be touched, and the opportunity to be a puppeteer…which i simply could not pass up.

i'm on the far left, on piano

the emp, which deserves far more time than we could give it, gives way to the science fiction museum, which you might imagine, was also very exciting for me. exhibits included items such as the only 3d model of the death star, phasers through the ages, a fan made borg costume. it wasn’t all star wars/star trek, but having seen star trek twice recently, those items definitely stood out.

sadly, it was time to end our exploration and head back to the hotel so that i could change for work, and dyl and kelly could pack up and head home. it was such a tease getting to spend such a short amount of time with them, but i was so grateful for even that, and for their willingness to make the three hour one-way journey to see me.

it was time to remember what i came for, so i headed over to the convention center for a couple hours of working the booth. after the exhibit hall closed, the five of us in town for the show met for dinner.

while waiting to be seated, i received a phone call firming up what had been tentative plans (which is why i hadn’t mentioned them before). remember this guy?


well, we’ve stayed in sporadic contact over the last year since we decided to call it quits (yes, amazingly, it’s been a full year) and when he found out i was going to be in seattle, he expressed an interest in making that portland to seattle three hour excursion to see me. i’ll admit that i was both excited and nervous about the possibility of seeing him again. given that we ended things largely based on the long distance nature of the relationship, not the lack of interest, i didn’t know how i would feel or if it would be awkward, but it seemed i would be finding out soon enough.

our dinner was at a restaurant called palominos, and it was amaaayzing. melissa, jessica, and i decided to split three appetizers and three entrees, so we all got a taste of delicious pistachio encrusted brie, cheese fondue, chicken piccatta, pepperoni pizza, and grilled sirloin steak salad. my mouth is watering again just thinking about it!

following one of the more memorable eating experiences in recent memory, the boys headed back to their hotel, and we headed over to the space needle. having purchased tickets prior to the trip, we were excited for our evening ascension. one of the things that surprised us about seattle was how late it stayed light. so when we arrived at the space needle, roughly around 9:30pm, it was just starting to get dark.















the majority of our time on the rim was spent taking photos, mostly of ourselves. the exhaustion may have played a part, but we were three, very happy, very silly girls. we called it good at around 10:30, wanting to be sure not to miss the last monorail ride back. thanks to train delays/breakdowns, there was no chance of that. we were so tired, we just wanted to be back in our beds, but seattle had a slightly different plan. we exited the monorail, and immediately noticed flashing lights coming out of the door.

there were quite a lot of them it turned out, several police cars, k-9 dogs at the ready, and a small crowd (it was past 11 on a sunday night afterall) watching the activity. i could not miss the photo opp of course, so as we crossed the street, i paused in the middle of the crosswalk to get a shot off. it was then i heard the bullhorn telling me to get out of the street, at which time, i realized that the offending vehicle was directly in front of me, and that that there were several guns pointing my way. what can i say, i like to live on the edge. ;)

we stayed to watch three people being arrested then, finally, headed back to the hotel and called it a night.