the emerald city

one of my favorite people followed suit with so many others in my life ... and moved to seattle. i like to think that they are all just making the exodus with the intent to prepare that promised land for me. i'll end up there someday, mind you: just you wait. just you wait, henry higgins. (sorry, that sentence was just asking for it.)

in celebration of his outset to a new life and to to help him make the transition, i joined a team of 2 others in taking on the task of picking up matt's whole life and transplanting it to the emerald city.

aside from the almost unbearable, all-in-one-day, 18-hour car-ride, it was a fabulous trip to my previously-declared favorite-city-in-the-whole-world-that-i-have-never-lived-in. (think that's a long title? just imagine having to fit that on an 8½-x-11 ivory certificate. not an easy thing to do, my friends.) (oh, and please note that the car-ride is herein described as "almost unbearable" simply for its length: sitting in a car for that long should be legally, ethically, morally, and chocolately wrong. the adventure and the company was quite pleasant otherwise.)

(i don't think i have ever used so many hyphenates in one post before. nor so many parentheses. this is quite a monumental post!)

after dragging the dregs of matt's stuff to the cars, we scooted out of santa monica at the butt crack of dawn on friday morning, august 29. being so early in the morning, this meant, of course ... no makeup for me:

mattso didn't wear any, either.

the road trip was filled with adventures and sights such as these:

now, i'd imagine that there aren't a few of you guys out there who are feeling a bit left out at this point, but don't worry: it wasn't anything you can't recreate. all you need is a vw golf crammed full of stuff, a location that is 18 hours away, and a dave. gotta have a dave.

we got to seattle around 2 am and crashed (on our beds).

saturday started too early. but saturday started with a bang. dave showed me the most amazing stuff: debacterol. it's awesome. it cures canker sores. all you do is put the sulfuric acid on your tongue (or wherever the canker sore is) for 10 seconds, it burns like a race horse, and then your canker sore is just a bit of dead skin you wait to fall off. (kinda gross, i know. sorry.) as you can see from the picture, it wasn't as bad as it sounds.

after such excitement so early in the morning, i suppose you wouldn't expect much else in the day ... but ... then we rounded up the troops and headed to ... bumbershoot!! oh, my heavens, what an amazing time was had. after waiting in a 4,000-mile-long line, we got into the gates around 11, i think. my old friend brad met up with us for most of the day (hi, brad!). we walked all over the place seeing everything that was there and making plans for what we just had to see before the day was through. after some discussion, we decided on a game plan of (1) eat bratwurst and french fries, (2) wander around for a couple hours, (3) watch modern dancers in the water fountain, (4) watch part of lucinda williams, (5) watch band of horses, (6) get high from second-hand smoke while waiting to watch beck, (7) watch beck, and (8) tucker out and go home.

sunday was a day of rest. as it should be. kinda. church started at 9, where we met many cool people! then we went on a beautiful drive and a bit of a hike up near (in?) issaquah. the weather was a bit damp, of course, which makes everything so green and beautiful so it's okay. here's the group in front of lake sammamish ("yeah, i'd say that lake is pretty sammamish."):

while there, matt taught us about the life cycle of salmon. we learned a lot, and, having been thus educated, we were ready to go to the university. and so we did. we drove out to university of washington to walk around a bit. last year when i was there, the cherry trees were in bloom and it was just absolutely gorgeous. this year, the ducks were in bloom -- this meant more poop than cherry blossoms. not quite *as* gorgeous, but not bad, no. i was able to do about 17 cartwheels in the quad and didn't get any duck poop on my hands.

from the university, we went to a ward-member's house and had all kinds of yummy desserts at a "dessert potluck" in which the hostess prepared all the desserts, (don't really think that qualifies as a "potluck", at least where i'm from, but ... it's seattle -- who knows?), after which we headed to st. mark's cathedral to hear the episcopaleon monks perform gregorian chanting. that was an *amazing* experience.

monday was officially dubbed "moving day": early in the morning, we drove matt's stuffed car to his new place to unload ... 2,374 armloads from car to apartment later ... all of his earthly belongings were safely stashed in his new seattle station.

from there, we had to officially re-seattle-ize mattso with the purchase of ... dun, dun, dun ... a northface fleece from rei! oh, behold the re-seattle-ization (okay, now say that quickly 4 times and note the excitement on mattso's face.):

being now appropriately equipped, we headed out on an even greater adventure! after a deep fried seafood lunch at ivar's, we drove down to the water and to take a ferry over to [ insert name of island here ] island. we didn't have to wait too long before the ferry arrived and we boarded. i love ferries. i love being on the water. i love standing at the front of the boat and getting almost blown away and then standing at the back of the boat and feeling the calm ... ... love it. i think they should put more in l.a. -- ferries, that is -- not fairies. heh.

after arriving on the island, we started driving. and we drove and drove and drove. it was *bea-u-tiful*! we drove up to deception pass and had to take a hike: it was sunset and it was awesome.

after hiking down to the water and back up again. we drove to the top of [ insert name of island here ] island and to another ferry pier to wait for the next ferry. i love ferries. i think they should put more in l.a. -- oh, wait -- we already did that joke ...

umm, tuesday morning found us atop of the space needle. well ... tuesday mid-morning found us there: we were on vacation, afterall. but it was lovely. the city is beautiful from up there. and it's just so cool to be 605 feet up! cell phone reception was surprisingly really good at that height.

after returning to sea level, we checked out some other tourist staples in this fair sea city. such as ...

i love this waterfall tunnel.	there's a pig in pike place market!	look who we found.

we capped off the day with yummy pizza with new friends. pretty good day, i'd say ...

wednesday morning we went to japan:

and then china:

and then we had lunch in seattle's international district (aka, "chinatown") at the uwajimaya village. that was not bad chinese. (while in china, i also found a chinese grocery store that had colored tapioca. little pink, green, and yellow tapioca balls. so cool! and even more fun to eat than the boring white stuff!)

our fearsome foursome split ways shortly after lunch. dave and nastia got back in the golf and started south. mattso and i had a couple more small adventures in seattle before i flew to utah the next morning: we went to gas works park and spent some time in the sunshine, then we went home furnishings shopping at target ... which was sorely needed for his otherwise barren abode.

farewell, seattle! i'll miss you dearly! --

err, uhh --

i mean ...

farewell, mattso! i'll miss you dearly!