My Trip to Seattle

I had a friend take me to the airport Thursday night: my flight was scheduled to leave Anchorage at 10:45, so Corissa dropped me off at 8:30.

Unfortunately the plane was stuck up in Barrow, so didn't even get to Anchorage until 11:25, which meant that I didn't get in to Seattle until well after 4:00 in the morning! Poor Katy and Taylor had to get up in the middle of the night to get me, and then had to sit there and wait for me! We crashed into bed as soon as we got to the apartment.

Friday morning, Katy took off for work and I got to sleep in till noon. What a comfortable bed she has! I totally slept in...

After a quick shower and a bowl of oatmeal, I headed outside to walk over to her shop. She got off work at 2:00, so I did some window shopping to kill some time then met up with her at the salon. I found the coolest little shop, full of recycled nick-knacks and whatnot. They had these bugs encased in acrylic as key rings, necklaces, and finger ring. I almost bought myself a ring with an ant in it... like I need a ring with an ant in it. Still, it was cool

After she finished up at work, we headed off down the hill to her favorite bookstore, the half-priced one. I promised myself I wouldn't buy any books, but you just know I did. She did, too - so we were both happy. We ate lunch at a little cafe she likes, then headed on downtown to Barnes & Noble to see if she wanted to spend her $25 gift certificate. I think we were both a bit tired because she decided not to buy anything just yet.

We headed off to the convention center to get her favorite treat: Lemon Crepes! My goodness, they're good. We ate our snack and then went back to the apartment and took a nice, long nap.

Dinner that night was a really good pizza at a funky little joint she likes. It was very good, but very Garlic-y.

Saturday we both got to sleep in a bit, not getting out of bed until 9:00. Katy took her shower and off we went for downtown Seattle. I'd signed us both up for an Architectural Tour of Historic Skyscrapers... it was very cool. A 2-hour walking tour that highlighted some of the buildings and their impact on Seattle.

We had just enough time for a bite of lunch afterwards before Katy had to go to work. She left me with all kinds of ideas on how to spend my afternoon, so I was well taken care of.

I took a 1-hour boat cruise of the harbor (very interesting), did some shopping at Pike's Market (of course), got myself another lemon crepe, and managed to locate the bus stop to get me back to the apartment in time for yet another nap.

This time Katy got off work at 6:00, so I met her at the salon and we walked over to an Organic Pizza place that I had seen during my window-shopping the day before. Yes, I know... more pizza. But it was really quite good.

Sunday was even more relaxing: Katy and I got a sack lunch and headed off to a park she had just found out about called Volunteer Park. I have no idea why it's called that - but it's a very nice park. They had a greenhouse full of the coolest plants, an Asian art museum, a water reservoir, and very nice grounds with HUGE trees.

We found a park bench and ate our lunches, wandered around a bit in the greenhouse and museum, then headed off for downtown again. I wanted to go to Victoria's Secret (since we don't have one here in Anchorage) and she wanted to go to the Clinique counter at Nordstrom's.

We also had another bookstore to go to: Elliot Bay Book Store, down in the historic part of town. What a COOL PLACE that was! We went in the back door, unbeknownst to us, so all we saw to begin with was a crowded little shop with wooded floors, antique book shelving, and used books in piles EVERYWHERE. Katy and I browsed around for a while, slowly making our way to the back of the room.

That's when we realized that what we thought was the back was really a corner where you turned to get into the real bookstore. OMG! That place is 3 stories tall, and is filled to the brim with thousands upon thousands of books! Katy and I just kept saying, "Oh my gosh - do you see that!", "Look at that!", and "Oh I've been looking for this book!"

Unfortunately we were on a schedule that night and had to catch the bus to take us to our final diner together. We found the coolest restaurant called ... hmmm... I forget what it's called. But it featured food from around the world = each 3 months is dedicated to a new country, then they switch gears and head off to a different one.

While we were there, they had food from Tunisia = very tasty, although also very spicy. Taylor had a seafood chowder that had swordfish, shark, all kinds of interesting fish in it. Katy had a tuna dish that was baked into a pastry triangle and came with a side of pickled lemons. I had the couscous with olives, apricots, chickpeas, and all kinds of things in it.

Of course we had desert: Taylor had something called Yo Yos (fried donuts in a very tasty dipping sauce), Katy had something similar to ice cream but made of honey and tahini (ground up sesame seeds), and I had your basic Hot Fudge Sunday.

This left us with JUST enough time to get me to the airport and on the plane home.