I woke up at 4am this morning to my phone alarm making a ruckus (this is the first time it’s actually worked – I missed quite a few classes and a final exam before I decided to just stop trying it). I accidentally flung it down on to the bottom bunk, which contained Logan. 2 minutes later.. still going off. I hear the rest of our roommates rustling (our room sleeps 8). I hear Logan fumbling around for it. I feel like an asshole. Finally, I hear him turn it off and slam it on the window sill.

Me and Dakota pack up our stuff in the dark, then sneak out to the lounge, steal some fruit from the kitchen, check out, and head on our way to the 4:37 am airport shuttle that leaves from 2nd and Pike.

We arrive at the airport. No delays so far. Me and Dakota qualify for additional screening, of course. An hour later, we are thoroughly violated, approved, and sent on our way. We fly to Cincinnati with no complications.

Our flight is supposed to leave at 3:00. I should be home with ample time to be ready for my 6pm shift at Blue Martini. The flight gets delayed until 3:40. Then until 4:45. They realize they’ve overbooked the flight. We are asked if we’d be willing to take the 7:30 flight instead. We don’t say anything. They offer us a $400 credit. We accept.

Now it’s 11:25, and we are hoping to catch our flight within the next 30 minutes. If not, me and D will enjoy our second honeymoon in a shoddy hotel.

YES! Our aircraft has landed and we are boarding. My travel logs are done, thank god. Hope you guys enjoyed them.

Amy (Julian’s girlfriend) wants to take us to an art gallery in town to show us a particular artist, who makes pottery out of preserved fish. Sort of morbid, sort of awesome. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. I would have bought one, except I can’t think of a good place in the house for a dark brown fishskin vase covered in preserved fish heads, and I didn’t have 800 dollars on me.

We head to Haggen, the grocery store where Julian has been working graveyard shifts, pick up some breakfast (Tim’s wasabi potato chips and a cranberry-grapefruit vitamin water for me… two fantastic things that you won’t see unless you head west), and head back to Seattle.

Our first stop is Ballard district, which is in northern Seattle. It seems to be a trendy little spot in the city. I spent a day here this summer when I was on tour, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. Amy’s dad owns a coffee shop in the area, so we headed over to see him. He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. He gave us free coffee and ice cream… I had a scoop of honey-lavender. It’s probably the only time I will taste something lavender-flavored in my life, but it was AMAZING. I wish I could get it shipped to my house, but I doubt ice cream is mail-friendly.

Our second stop is downtown Ballard, which is where I spent most of my time on our tour-stop. We find Amy’s favorite place for pho (a Vietnamese noodle dish that you should all go eat now if you haven’t already), which is down the street, then head back to the hostel.

Amy’s in the fine arts program at WWU, and her class is heading to Seattle because every first Thursday, museums and galleries in Seattle have free admission. We decide to crash their field trip and tag along. We head straight to the Seattle Art Museum. It was great. I tried to take pictures, but security was all over the place so I only snagged two.

Then it was further south to explore more galleries. They were all amazing, but me and Dakota were absolutely pooped. We had to be up at 4 the next morning to catch our plane, and we knew we couldn’t stay up much longer. We also knew that we absolutely had to eat sushi at Sushi Land on Queen Anne’s Hill before we left, so me, D, and Logan said goodbye to Amy, and caught a bus northbound to Sushi Land.

..

If I had to pick anywhere to eat sushi, it would be sushi land. Me and Logan discovered it last year roaming around Queen Anne, and we’ve been hooked ever since. It serves its sushi on a conveyor belt, on plates that range in price from $1 to $3 dollars. It’s ridiculously cheap, and still tastes good. There is no wait, and you don’t have to tip a server, because you just grab the plates as they pass in front of you. It’s perfect. We stuff our faces and head back to the hostel.

Logan parts ways with us to meet up with Amy and co. in Ballard (he’s not flying out until next Tuesday, so he can sleep in tomorrow), and we just nerd around on the internet in the hostel lounge until midnight or so, then crash for a little nap until our 4:00 alarm. So ends our adventures in Seattle, but not necessarily our spring break, assuming we’ll get stuck in the airport for a few more days. We’ll see what happens.

Julian vaguely remembers a nice view spot that he found here a few years ago, but doesn’t quite remember where it is. Two random turns later, we are on the road that leads straight to it. We drive up a mountain and find an open spot that overlooks the water and mountains and the entire town. It was awesome.

I took about 200 pictures, then we headed down to the marina and watched Julian skip rocks (when he was 8, he completely dominated a rock skipping competition – in the adult division).

We drove around a bit more, and found Washington Park… a park. We headed down to a dock/picnic area and just pittered around for a bit. Next thing I know, I see a seal pop out of the water. I freak out. I have never seen a seal outside of a zoo before. It seems to be following the boats around, and eventually follows one right up to the dock. We freeeeeak out. I think we all took about 100 pictures a piece. It was strangely friendly, and had one gigantic white eye, which was kind of creepy, but tolerable, because it was a freaking seal. Eventually, it got bored with us and went after some boats in the distance.

We eventually made it to the ferry and headed over to the islands. I put $10 into a change machine and got 9 silver dollars back. I then found out that vending machines take dollar coins here. Neat. If vending machines do that in NC and I somehow missed the memo, just don’t mention it.

We arrive, and immediately realize the island is completely desolate. Then we remember that it is off season and nobody wants to come to the San Juan Islands when it is 40 degrees outside. Makes sense. We start walking around town, and notice that people seem to celebrate “Popeye,” a seal that happens to have one-white eye. We find Popeye stuffed animals in store windows and even a Popeye statue near the waterfront. Was the seal that we spent pre-ferry time with the Friday Harbor legend? I mean… are there other seals with one huge white eye that regularly hang around northwestern Washington?? I guess we’ll never know.. but.. it is exciting to think that we hung out with Popeye before we knew he was such a big deal.

After going to the Whale Museum, then eating homemade marionberry icecream from a local coffee shop, then eating a god awful attempt at queso dip at Dos Diablos, we hopped on the ferry back to Anacortes, then Julian drove us to Bellingham, home of Western Washington University and Death Cab for Cutie. He had planned a wine tasting for us (aka bought seven cheap bottles of wine from Trader Joe’s), but I only made it to bottle 3 and passed out on the floor. We had been up for 20 hours already.. I had had enough.

So ends our day of random exploration in northwestern Washington… back to Seattle tomorrow to attempt to do everything we haven’t had time for before we head back to the east side.

Yesterday was not the best day. We all woke up brutally hungover. Dakota lost her camera, and I have a broken rib. I decide to head to the closest urgent care center while Logan and Dakota go camera shopping. Google tells me that there is one located on Union and 5th… only five blocks away. I arrive at my destination, only to realize that I forgot my wallet. I walk back to hostel.

I get back to my destination. It’s on the third floor of the city center. I finally find the office and head to the front desk. I ask them about their urgent care facility. They tell me that their urgent care is actually located off of 15th Street. Great. I walk back to the hostel.

I ask the chicks working at the hostel if they have any recommendations. They tell me that Harborview Medical Center has an urgent care facility that is independent of their ER, so it will be cheaper, and it’s usually fairly quick. They call me a cab, and I head to Harborview. The nurse at the front desk informs me that they actually got rid of their urgent care facility, and handle all of their patients in the ER. Great. I decide that I might as well stay, since I did already pay for a cab out here. I inform the registration assistant that I was diagnosed with the flu last week. She gives me a face mask and tells me to wear it. Everyone is staring at me. After about an hour of waiting, I overhear people talking about how they have already been waiting here for 4 ½ hours. No thanks. I remove my face mask and take a cab back to the hostel.

I mean, you can’t really do anything about a broken rib. You can get a prescription for pain medication, and they might wrap you up. I’d rather wait and get it taken care of in Raleigh where 1) I’m not missing Seattle time and 2) I won’t have to wait 5 hours.

Logan and Dakota get back around the same time as I do. We go explore a toy store and a shoe store, then head back for free taco night at the hostel. We had plans to go check out a bar on 2nd street called Viceroy (a kid working at the shoe store was DJing there that night), and perhaps hit up conveyor-belt sushi and hike up Queen Anne’s hill. I was hurting pretty bad, so I decided to call it a night at 8:00. It was sort of reasonable, considering we had to be up at 6:30 this morning to check out and catch our first bus on time.

I am intrigued and slightly confused by people in this bus station. They seem mentally retarded, and I am still skeptical. Seriously, all I can think is… downs’ syndrome. That might make me a bad person. Lots of extremely slurred speech with absolutely no substance at all. They all seem to know each other. I think most of them work at this station at one point or another. A couple of guys came over to me and started talking to me about my cat, whose photo is on my desktop. Logan says they are much like people on the harbor.

The San Juans should be a good time. I don’t really know what to expect, but Log says they are full of artsy folk and galleries and coffee shops. Should be fun… we’ll see.

After drinking 44oz. of local brews in the hostel lounge, we decided it was time to head back to 2nd street. A certain whiskey bar, named The Whiskey Bar, had caught our eye while we were searching for dinner. It’s an awesome bar. It’s fairly small, and there’s a four-piece band smushed in the corner on a tiny stage. There are paintings of almost-naked women with cowboy hats and guns.

Dakota buys a shot of Makers for the three of us. I end up sipping it, because it is nearly impossible for me to take a shot of liquor, and this was an enormous shot. Logan puts a whiskey sour in front of me. I continue to sip and take pictures.

A guy comes up to us and tells us to submit our pictures on the bar’s website (which he maintains) and he will buy our drinks next time around. We take note. He suggests we also try another bar down the street. We head that way.

We arrive at bar 2. I don’t remember the name. There are pinball machines everywhere. The tables are old pinball machines. It’s an awesome bar. We order a pitcher of PBR.

Next thing I know, I wake up in my hostel bed, still wearing my clothes from the night before, having no idea how I got there. I feel like one of my right ribs are broken and I am thirsty.

I wake up Logan. He asks me if I had a good time last night. I said I did, but I don’t exactly remember what happened. He proceeds to tell me that we got kicked out of the 2nd bar because I was barfing into the PBR pitcher. When did I get so classy???

I trek downstairs to get a cup of water from the hostel kitchen, and find Dakota in the lounge on the computer. She tells me that her favorite part about last night was when Logan was on the phone, and I was trying to take pictures of him (I guess I found some artistic value in it at the time). While I was doing this, I was singing some sort of jingle, and Dakota wrote down the words to make sure she would never forget them. This was my song.

“Slam cam… that was blurry but I don’t give a fuck… that was the wrong setting but I don’t care… yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah”

The yeah-song continued on for quite some time. I guess this was pre-pitcher rolfing.

I am alive though, and am probably going to head to urgent care today because my right lung-rib area is putting me through some serious pain. Other than that, we head to the Columbia building today, as well as the Seattle Art Museum… then up to Queen Anne’s Hill tonight for the best view of the city imaginable. And perhaps heading back to the bar we got kicked out of to see if we can find Dakota’s camera there. I’ll let you know how that goes.

It’s sad that pizza time was the only time I will have with them this year, since they are some of my favorite people, but they do have school this week, and they still had to drive all the way back across the state to the desolate shithole of a college town they call Spokane. It was fun while it lasted. We talked about going out, but ended up in bed by midnight (3:00 your time).

Today we did as much exploring as possible within walking distance. This visit is a bit complicated, because Logan and I have explored most of this part of the city before, but Dakota is new to the area. We took D back through the main spots, including the waterfront, the aquarium, the EMP, and the space needle… but we only paid to see the aquarium, since the best thing about the EMP (Experience Music Project) building is the exterior of the building itself, which is free, and going up to the top of the space needle is not worth twenty bucks when you can pay only four bucks to go to the top of the Columbia Tower. I’m broke, so I prefer this method of tourism.

We explored the SAM (Seattle Museum of Art) sculpture park, since the SAM itself is closed on Mondays. It’s right on the bay, and the view is awesome. It’s also right beside Pier 70, the building where the participants in Real World Seattle dwelled.

Speaking of celebrities, Logan introduced me to the concept of “microcelebrity” today. A subtitle of celebrity in which one is well-known by anywhere from a few-dozen to several thousands of people. These types are becoming prominent due to the internet – blogging, Myspace and Facebook profiles… many people are microcelebrities without even knowing it. If everyone on my mailing list actually read these, I think I could qualify.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-12/st_thompson

We headed back to our favorite grocery/deli, where I made another friend who was friends with the friend I made yesterday. This grocery sells a ton of 22oz. local brews, so we each bought two and headed on our way. After spending dinner money on beer, we wanted to find something cheap. Everything in the market is closed. We walk to 2nd street. Everything is closed. We walk to 3rd street. We walk and walk and walk and finally find our saving grace among a plethora of homeless crackheads and shady pubs: Mom’s Teryaki. Glorious. We stuff our faces and head back to the hostel, where we are currently enjoying our local bottled brews.

By the way, me and Dakota are sick. Somebody is always sick when I am in Seattle. Last year, Logan was dying of some sort of deathly fever, but he was a trooper and didn’t let it get in the way of our adventure. I was diagnosed with the flu on Thursday, and Dakota has just been really sick, but we are both now in that awkward hacking stage that is somewhere between death-sickness and recovery. We are the people that everyone in the lounge stares awkwardly at us because we are constantly hacking our lungs out.

I don’t know if any of you guys have been flu tested, but I wish the process on no one. Let me fill you in. I was sitting in urgent care on Thursday, waiting to figure out what was wrong with me. In walks nurse with an 8-inch Q-tip. The physician looks at me with sympathy. The nurse proceeds to insert half of this Q-tip into my face through my right nostril. I am not exaggerating. I have no idea how so much of this Q-tip entered my head, but I am fairly certain that it was poking somewhere between the back of my eyeballs and my brain. She repeats the process in my left nostril. I am also fairly certain that this q-tip was also doused in either battery acid or fiberglass, because it felt like she was trying to sample tissue my frontal lobes. It was the most painful five seconds of my life. I almost never cry when I am in pain, but by reflex, I immediately began snotting and sobbing all over myself. I am getting a flu shot from now on.

I am about 20 oz. behind my travel mates because I have been writing, so I need to get back to business before we go explore the bars of Seattle. Hope all is well on the east side… I will fill you in on whatever shenanigans we get into tonight.

As most of you know, I write when I travel, and I mail my logs to a very select hundred or so people in hopes that maybe five of you will find them somewhat interesting or entertaining.

Why did I choose to spend yet another spring break in Seattle? I don’t have a really well-thought reason except that I fell in love with the city last year, and I can’t keep myself from finding ways back whenever possible. I snuck through Seattle for a day in June as well while I was touring, but a 24-hour exposure is just a tease to me. I need a good few days in this city to even begin exploring it, so that’s what I’ve decided to treat myself to. I also brought friends along – Logan Sayles, a great friend who I met at NCSU design camp when we were sixteen, and Dakota Keck, an awesome chick who I really barely knew until our accidental temporary vacation in the Atlanta airport quickly fostered a friendship between us. I’ll get to that later.

Well I guess I can just get to it now. Delta Airlines. They make you feel so good when you successfully purchase a $172 round-trip ticket to Seattle. Me and Dakota were headed to the airport yesterday (Logan flew up early to visit his hometown on the harbor), ready to catch our 2:25 flight to Cincinnati, then straight to the west coast, arriving around 6 p.m. Simple enough. I will speed through this to avoid drawing out yet another customer complaint regarding air travel, but I just need you guys to see the irony of our lives.

Delta airlines calls us while we are on the way to the airport. Our flight has been rescheduled. No, now it is cancelled. We are now scheduled to fly out at 5 p.m to Atlanta, wait 3 hours, then fly out at 9:46, arriving in Seattle around 12:30 a.m. Sad. We lost our first night in Seattle. And it’s 1:00 and we are already checked into RDU, and our ride is long gone. And wireless isn’t free.

I order iced coffee from Starbucks. They give me iced tea. We read Cosmo for two hours.

We arrive in Atlanta. Dakota’s parents come pick us up (they live right outside Birmingham, which is about an hour drive from the airport) and take us out for some grub. We return with plenty of time to catch our flight.

We head to A19. Free wireless. We become enthralled. We casually notice that there are only four of us waiting for a nonstop to Seattle. We continue Facebooking. Finally, we look up at a side-screen that is occasionally displaying the fact that our flight was actually changed to gate A2. We quickly pack up our things, glad that we noticed in enough time so that we didn’t have to run. We arrive at the gate 10 minutes early. We feel lucky. Then we notice that nobody is there, except another pissed off and confused guy. We look out of the airport window, and see our plane. We wave frantically at the pilot. They wave back and signal for us to hold on. We feel relieved. We wait. Nobody is coming out to get us. Finally, the attendant comes back inside. We ask her what is going on and she said they closed the gates ten minutes prior. We ask if we can get on the plane, since it is right there, still connected, but she says it is full and there is nothing we can do.

So we are stuck in Atlanta. Delta shuttles us to a lovely Comfort Inn Hotel with a Mexican restaurant/night club attached. As much as the thought of grinding to Latino hip-hop tunes was appealing to Dakota and I, we decided to just stock up on potato chips from the vending machines and call it a night. The situation wasn’t THAT bad. Yes, we were spending our first night of spring break watching Rock of Love 2 in a cheap Atlanta hotel, but we had a flight booked early the next morning, and we’d be in Seattle by lunchtime. It was a nice little mexi-trash honeymoon for us.

Dakota modeling one of our free XXL skyteam t-shirts, compliments of Delta Airlines.

The next morning.. we wake up at 8. The flight leaves at 8:30. We are fucked. We missed our second flight. We make it to the airport around 9 and manage to get standby tickets (we only make it onto the flight if people don’t show up) for an 11:00 flight. If we don’t make it onto this flight, we have to wait for another one at 9:50 that night. We wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and finally, as the plane was getting ready to take off, they call our names. We haul ourselves onto that plane and finally arrive in Seattle at 1:22 this afternoon.

This has been a good, somewhat uneventful day in Seattle. Me and D checked into the hostel, and immediately set out to find sustenance in the fish market. We immediately made friends with a guy at a fruit stand, who talked us into buying six pieces of fruit and then offered to take us out to dinner. We told him we were eating pasta at the hostel and that we’d see him soon. We then made friends with Mario the fish guy, who let us sample the best smoked salmon we’ve EVER had. We bought half a pound. We then went to the bakery and bought some baguettes, passed by the first Starbucks ever, then explored a small grocery for the perfect beer. We ended up buying juice instead. We sat at one of the high-top tables at the grocery store that overlooked the bay, making salmon sandwiches and eating our fruit (at this time Dakota informed me that she was actually allergic to fruit, despite the fact that she bought three pieces), and talking to the store clerk about beer and North Carolina. He gave us his number and told us to contact him if we wanted to go experience good Seattle breweries. We might just do it.

Logan isn’t here yet, but he should be eventually. Now we are going to eat a free pasta dinner, compliments of the Green Tortoise. Tonight should be a new adventure, weather permitting (so far, it is). I’ll keep you posted.

Bellingham has been great. It’s absolutely beautiful here. Perhaps I
have already mentioned that, but I feel that you should be reminded. Did I mention that this is the most Norwegian place ever? Julian lives in the Norsemen apartments, for christ’s sake. My air mattress in his living room has been surprisingly comfortable. It’s been a nice break from my four days of extreme city life.

So tomorrow we leave the west coast. I am not ready to come home. We fly out of Seattle around 1pm western time, stop in St. Louis for a bit, then arrive back on the east side late tomorrow (Sunday) night. Back to reality.. actually checking to see if I had any assignments to do over break, then frantically finishing all of my scholarly crap before I get myself into some real trouble. Ah.. home. I’m sorry that you guys can’t live vicariously through me anymore, but at least you can see my face and experience my fabulous life in person again. I hope you can live with that. Love, hp

END!