Washington 07/30/2015 - 08/02/2015
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Washington Yakima/Seattle 7/30/2015 - 8/02/2015
My Check - ins
Ending the night
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Capitol Cider.
Dinner
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at The Rock, Wood Fired Kitchen - Seattle.
Got our tix
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Space Needle.
Getting ready for the night
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Travelodge.
More water activities
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at UW Canoe House.
Time to cool down
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Madison Park Beach.
Seattle was built on top of old Seattle
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Bill Speidel's Underground Tour.
Seedle
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Pike Place Market.
Eating at Berj's Job
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Carousel French Cuisine.
Time to shoot some battle ships
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian at Tactical Supply.
Hiking through the canyon
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian at Cowiche Canyon Trail.
Ssooo many blue berries!
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian at West Valley U-Pick Blueberries, Apples, Pears and more.
Time to win!
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Nobhill Casino.
Trivia
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Bill's Place.
Virgin America, you're doing it right!
Leon Mass was at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac).
7/30/2015 Thursday
I have my backpack and my suitcase ready to visit my friends Berj, and Sara at Yakima Washington. A small town, unlike L.A. but I'm sure it will be very quaint. I check-in on my computer so I don't have to stand in line at the airport. It tells me that only one bag is allowed otherwise it will be $25 for extra luggage. I was going to bring my backpack and my roll carry-on suitcase but since there is only 1 allowed, I decided to pack as much as I could on my roll on case and take only one bag. So I did and off I went to the airport. Before I left the house, my mom stops me and asks if I had any breakfast to eat, I tell her no and she makes me a sandwich with some crackers to bring. She gives me a water bottle and gives everything in a bag for me. I told her that only one carry on is allowed but she insisted that I take it anyway and I can throw away what's left at the airport. This is the first time I'm using Virgin American Airlines, I've heard good things so I am excited. I came into the terminal seamlessly. They didn't ask me to get rid of the bag or anything. I later realized that one carry on would be allowed to fit on the top compartment above you on the plane and I could have brought my backpack to keep between my legs when I'm sitting down! Good call on the bag mom. When I was in line to enter the plane, I was looking out the window, the sun was bright this early morning. A person inside an airplane cockpit outside the window waves his hands to get my attention. I look at him, he smiles. He picks up his hands and gestures at me, he took his left hand flat horizontally and moves it toward his right hand that is still and vertical. He guides his left hand toward the right until his left fingers touch the palm of the right hand and then gives me a thumbs up. I smiled and gave him a thumbs up back even though I have no idea what he was doing. After looking away, I thought about it. It looked like he was making a plane gesture with his left hand and guiding it into the wall!? Or was he telling me to have a safe flight toward my destination? I think he meant the latter, and smiled as the line moved into the plane. It was a nice gesture, even though I'll never meet you Mr. Pilot, I appreciate that you got my attention. Traveling alone, it is nice to have interactions like that. I find my seat, nice roomy, leathery seat with the top of the seat shaped like a pillow. It is definitely the most comfortable airplane seat I have taken. Instead of the boring old "this is what you do in case of an emergency" spiel, they show a video where people rap about it. It was corny but different. The inflight movie's you had to pay for, which I didn't like but I was prepared this time and brought my tablet. Another thing I did like though, was when they were coming by to bring snacks, they would calmly wake people up to see what they wanted so they weren't missed. You did everything right Virgin, except for the in flight ppv movies. I get to SeaTac airport and take the shuttle to get to Yakima where Berj will meet me. Everything is going as planned.
During the shuttle ride, we are traveling around 40-45 mph down the freeway. Seems pretty clear to me. Shuttle driver suddenly says, "No wonder we are in traffic, there is a car accident." I chuckle, never even realizing that we were in traffic. Go down where the 405 meets the 101 Mr. Bus driver, then you'll know the struggle. I get to my destination, and at last, I see my good old friend Berj. We exchange hi's and he takes me to a sandwich place called, Bruchi's, it was good.
Then he shows me his very nice place. It's a 2 story, huge kitchen and living room with 2 bedrooms on top. This place is a
good size house especially for just 2. They use 1 room for an office and the other for their actual bedroom.
Berj is a funny guy:
I feel tired and take a nap on the couch. I wake up and get to say Hi to Sara who came home from work. She works as a speech pathologist at a clinic. They took me to Bill's Place, it's a bar where they host trivia. I meet one of Sara's coworkers and the four of us attempt trivia. We all got a few answers correct which was surprising but lost pretty bad. I am terrible at trivial. Berj, Sara, and I agree that Dan at Pickwick's back in L.A. hosts better trivia. After the epic fail, we head over to Nobhill Casino. This Casino is so cute! It is what I think the worlds smallest Casino adjacent to the bowling alley, it's a size of a living room with maybe 7 tables. Pai-gow poker, three card poker, hold 'em table, and 3 tables of black jack. That's it! I played blackjack and within 20 minutes won $50. We left back home. Before going to bed I decided that I needed to charge my phone and camera and of course, I left it in my backpack at home. Luckily Sara found extra chargers and let me borrow them. Put my things to charge and went to sleep.
7/31 Friday
I woke up early to see Sara getting ready for work. Berj woke up and we decided to go eat breakfast at the White House Bed and Breakfast. It looked like you were in someone's house with tables set up. Very bright place, felt homely and cozy. It was very unique and the food was quite good. This, I thought to myself, this was the "quaint" kind of place I was lookng for.
After breakfast we decided to look for some bike's to rent so we can go mountain biking. There isn't one place that rent's bikes out even though they have many trails suited to go mountain biking at. It was sad, but for any entrepreneurs out there, please make it happen. Berj decided to drive around to see if we can find any shops and gave me a tour around Yakima.
Very beautiful city with lots of green and LOTS of lakes. There were lakes and rivers right off the freeway, bigger than Castaic lake back at home and no one was on them. It was amazing, I wanted to swim in all of the lakes and rivers. I was jealous to see that Washington isn't suffering in drought as much as California is. At that moment I wanted to do white water rafting, I looked where we can do it online, there were a few places, but we were too late because they started earlier that day. Oh well, next time. We then went blueberry picking at West Valley U-Pick Berries. The blueberries were amazing! Only a few people including us were picking, we had big white buckets which we would never fill and so many good berries around to pick at, we didn't even know where to start. We pretty much filled up the bucket where you can't see any of the bottom side of the bucket anymore and decide to cash out. It lasted us for 3 days to eat handfulls of them and we only paid 89 cents. A-mazing!
Even though we couldn't find bikes to rent we still decided to go hiking. Think what you want about Washington, but when I was there, it was hot! No clouds in sight and jeans were not an option. Berj decided to bring super soakers to keep cool. Genius.
The hike was beautiful, it was through the canyon, and the trails guided you right next to a river. They built huge trails with bridges that went across the river. Any shade that we saw, we rested and had water fights as we walked in the hot sun. We got to a point where the water in the super soaker was now hot so we decided to walk back.
We then go shoot Berj's gun at an inside range called the Tactical supply. His real gun this time not the super soakers. We shot at battleships.
I think I did pretty well up to 40 yards away with a 22. As we were shooting, down the lane we hear really loud bangs from another gun. A safety worker comes up to us and asks, "do you hear that? It's our demo for today, did you want to try it, a very powerful gun." They pitched this to us before, it would cost extra and we really didn't feel like doing it so we declined. We hear the shots again, another safety rep comes and asks the same question. "No," we politely decline and keep shooting Berj's gun. They must have asked us 5+ times before they finally inderstood that we did not want to shoot the demo. After we shot many times at the battleships and got tired of reloading, we went back home. On the way I wanted to see some old indian drawings on some rocks, but the locals said that they most likely closed them down because it kept being vandalized. Very sad. We arrived home and Berj went to work. As soon as he left Sara came home from work and we watched a bit of Shark Tank to relax. I don't like that show much but I did learn that girls in sororities start with bland plain clothing in their first year of being in one and then, once they become seniors and the longer they are in there, they then can wear lavish clothing. After Shark Tank we decided to visit Berj at work to eat. He works at Carousel French Cuisine. He seated us and brought us Chef's special soup called Vi Shi Swa. Delicious. Being a French place, I had to try the frog legs, they tasted like chicken, but very bony. I don't like small bones. I'm glad I tasted them but I'll stick to chicken from now on. Also we had sauteed garlic mushrooms, these were the best garlic mushrooms I have ever tasted! While we were eating, Sara and I started talking about her work. She was telling me about a student she had that wouldn't sit still after a while. I told her that Berj is really good with kids did you try asking him for help? She replied that she very well knows that Berj is really great with children but he is great when it comes to physical activiy. So I proceeded to tell her that it's a shame she didn't ask him because he would have replied with some good advice. "Like what?" She asked, I told her that what he would probably say is when the child is starting to lose intereste, completely stop doing what your doing and make her jog or walk around your work, or even some jumping jacks. Afterwards go back to what you were doing and the child should start being more attentive. Sara, put it to the test on her next shift, and made me feel good by telling me that it worked!We stayed at the restaurant until Berj got off work and together we drove home. He made me try a lemon cucumber fruit.
Even though I don't like lemon's by themselves. I have to say this is the best fruit I have ever tasted. It is crunchy and is so good. I now have a favorite fruit.
8/1 Saturday
We all wake up, eat our delicious blueberries and other fruit for breakfast and get prepared to make our way to Seattle. Berj drove, all I could do was look out the window and still be mesmorized by the lakes, rivers, greenery and wild life. Sara warned us to say that we are visiting "Seedle" not "Seattle" because thats how the locals pronounce it there. Ok, good to know. It was a nice 3 hour road trip to "Seedle". Finally we cross a bridge with an even bigger water way leading to the ocean. We made it to Seattle. Now I see many boats in the water. Many people out in the water. We make it to downtown seattle and park in the public garage. First thing I notice was the high buildings, starting to feel a lot like L.A. again. We walk to Pike Place Market. A lot of people in this place, you will bump into people walking. Very cool place to find random things. Not cheap! For a market, this place is really expensive, probably more expensive than malls. We watched the fish workers toss some fish around when they made a sale. Went to some kiosks to eat, I ate a pretty big pig in a blanket. It was big, but not over $8 big not including anything else. The market was blocks and blocks long and had an inside which was 2 stories at some point. We walked around. One of the coolest stores I had found was one where you can find all antique collections of things. Such as old ciggarrette advertisement posters, vinyl records, 1960's playboy magazines with Steve Martin with two models on the cover. Also just outside of the store, there are machines where on the outside they write something like "check out the worlds biggest shoe collection" and you have to put in coins so the drapes spread apart and you can see what it is.
You may not be able to tell by the picture, but it's literally the "biggest" shoe collection. I found this to be hilarious and very much amusing. Another thing we found was a pretty cool see through colored glass that was handcrafted and you can hang it on the window. They also made picture stands, so you can put family photo's in them. I of course also had to get a
Washington apple... In Washington!
We also saw the very first starbucks that was ever built there, nothing special, but lots and lots of people. Right from Pikes Market, we walked to Bill Speidel's Underground Tour. This was Sara's find at the last second before going to Seattle. Good thing she did. It's a tour to go underground and see the old city of Seattle. Not many people I've met knew that Seattle was built over the old city of Seattle. It definitely reminded me of Futurama Old New York. The tour guide we had was really funny, informitive, and very energetic. The tour guide jokingly said, "You are true Seattlites today, while there is sun that is shining out there which never happens, you chose to be underground away from it." The story goes, there were settlers that throught Seattle would be a good place to settle down, it was beautiful land almost surrounded water and on one claimed it. The part they didn't realize that when tides were high the land itself was under sea level. So when they built a small town and the tides came high, the sewage could come up as well. Having a bad sewage problem, which they tried to fix but failed miserably. Then a fire started when the fire marshall was away from vacation, and the interns couldn't contain it. No one got injured during the fire because the people went as high as they could but the fire completely destroyed everything. So they decided to bury the old city and build over it. There are over 70 minutes of fun facts and things to view that is rarely seen in Seattle. I definitely recommend going.
At this point, it was clear to me that no one says "Seedle" there, I think maybe Sara was told this so WE can seem like outsiders saying that. Everyone I've met and heard, calls it "Seattle." Off we went to the beach. This beach was actually really cool. It had grass instead of sand and it was shaded for people who didn't want to swim. For those who do feel like swimming can swim out a little to get to a floating platform with 2 diving boards on it. One higher than the other where you can dive off of.
After diving a couple of times and enjoying the water, off we went canoeing at the University of Washington Canoe House. Why oh why don't we have this at CSUN, USC, or UCLA even? Right at the University you rent an actual canoe and go riding in the ocean water. At the edge at some points they have an animal reserve where they closed it off from boats and you can canoe to. There were so many lilly pads, ducks, and crazy tree's. It was beautiful. At some point while canoing we had the ducks following us in a row. Probably thought we had food, but cute none the less.
After the Canoe we headed to our hotel (Travelodge) we were going to stay at for the night to do a late check-in. We took showers and continued onto the Space Needle. There you have to made a reservation to go onto the top. Works kind of like a movie theatre, pick a time slot and go. Closest time available was 10:00pm so we got our tickets and went to eat nearby. We crossed a park as we walked there right next to the needle and messed around a bit:
Insert Pic
We got the restaurant and ate. Nothing special, just a pizza place. This restaurant was also empty. We went to the space needle. I have to say, after being on Canton Tower, and the Stratosphere, the Space-Needle wasn't anything extraordinary.
I was actually more interested on things that looked cool around the tower, seems like there was a lot of events going on.
We walked around and indeed there were. There is a museum there, parks, and they were also showing "Salem" the movie for people to watch on a grassy field. After the Space Needle, we met up with an old friend of ours, Alan, who moved to Seattle a few months ago. We met up at
the Capitol Cyder. There was a line that we had to wait in until Alan comes out and tells the bouncer that we are just going to the bar. They let us in, some girl gets upset for the bouncer letting us in first but we go in and sit at the bar. Alan explains that the bottom is crowded and thats where everyone is, we will just chill at the bar for a bit then go
down. They order their drinks and I just order a shirley temple because I don't drink alcohol. We play catch up and motion to the bartender to pay our tab. Bertender gives tabs to everyone but me, says the shirley temple is on him. I thank him and leave tip. I remembered reading that in most states, sober drivers get to drink for free. He probably thought I was a
sober driver, or hitting on me. Either way, thank you Mr. Bartender, I never had a free drink before. California should learn from the awesomeness. We head downstairs, people are playing on 2 shuffle board tables and there a huge rectangle table going accross the room. I don't see why people were waiting outside for this but we were down there. A guy puts his arm around me and tells me that he is drunk and asks me my name. I tell him and he tells me his. Asks Sara to take a picture of us. Random, but ok Ill roll with it. He then proceeds to tell me he likes me as I slowly take his arm off of me. Now I'm thinking we are at some sort of gay bar, and I start to laugh at the situation. I checked online, it's actually a family and friends type of bar. I guess people are really friendly there.
Berj starts chatting with the girl and her group that got upset at us for walking in, they actually seemed like cool people.
As we were calling it a night, Sara then points out board games on the shelf of the bar. I was sad we didn't see that earlier and didn't get to play. Oh well, next time? We went back to the hotel where Berj kept talking and didn't let me sleep. Thanks Berj! And thus like the snap of a finger, another journey ends. I took Delta home, they also had leather seats, it wasn't as roomy but as long as you had a tablet, you can connect to the wifi and watch movies free. Good job Delta, you are now my favorite domestic airline as long as all your planes offer the same kind of service, I'll be happy. I want to say thank you to Berj and Sara for letting me visit. You guys made it that much more fun and it is great seeing that you two are happy! I'll see you two soon on our Hot Air Balloon Ride in September.
To view all Washington Pictures click here
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topgun92000- August 15th, 2015
My Check - ins
Ending the night
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Capitol Cider.
Dinner
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at The Rock, Wood Fired Kitchen - Seattle.
Got our tix
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Space Needle.
Getting ready for the night
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Travelodge.
More water activities
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at UW Canoe House.
Time to cool down
— with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Madison Park Beach.
Seattle was built on top of old Seattle
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Bill Speidel's Underground Tour.
Seedle
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Pike Place Market.
Eating at Berj's Job
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Carousel French Cuisine.
Time to shoot some battle ships
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian at Tactical Supply.
Hiking through the canyon
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian at Cowiche Canyon Trail.
Ssooo many blue berries!
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian at West Valley U-Pick Blueberries, Apples, Pears and more.
Time to win!
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Nobhill Casino.
Trivia
- Leon Mass was with Berj K. Bedrosian and Sara Weiss at Bill's Place.
Virgin America, you're doing it right!
Leon Mass was at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac).
7/30/2015 Thursday
I have my backpack and my suitcase ready to visit my friends Berj, and Sara at Yakima Washington. A small town, unlike L.A. but I'm sure it will be very quaint. I check-in on my computer so I don't have to stand in line at the airport. It tells me that only one bag is allowed otherwise it will be $25 for extra luggage. I was going to bring my backpack and my roll carry-on suitcase but since there is only 1 allowed, I decided to pack as much as I could on my roll on case and take only one bag. So I did and off I went to the airport. Before I left the house, my mom stops me and asks if I had any breakfast to eat, I tell her no and she makes me a sandwich with some crackers to bring. She gives me a water bottle and gives everything in a bag for me. I told her that only one carry on is allowed but she insisted that I take it anyway and I can throw away what's left at the airport. This is the first time I'm using Virgin American Airlines, I've heard good things so I am excited. I came into the terminal seamlessly. They didn't ask me to get rid of the bag or anything. I later realized that one carry on would be allowed to fit on the top compartment above you on the plane and I could have brought my backpack to keep between my legs when I'm sitting down! Good call on the bag mom. When I was in line to enter the plane, I was looking out the window, the sun was bright this early morning. A person inside an airplane cockpit outside the window waves his hands to get my attention. I look at him, he smiles. He picks up his hands and gestures at me, he took his left hand flat horizontally and moves it toward his right hand that is still and vertical. He guides his left hand toward the right until his left fingers touch the palm of the right hand and then gives me a thumbs up. I smiled and gave him a thumbs up back even though I have no idea what he was doing. After looking away, I thought about it. It looked like he was making a plane gesture with his left hand and guiding it into the wall!? Or was he telling me to have a safe flight toward my destination? I think he meant the latter, and smiled as the line moved into the plane. It was a nice gesture, even though I'll never meet you Mr. Pilot, I appreciate that you got my attention. Traveling alone, it is nice to have interactions like that. I find my seat, nice roomy, leathery seat with the top of the seat shaped like a pillow. It is definitely the most comfortable airplane seat I have taken. Instead of the boring old "this is what you do in case of an emergency" spiel, they show a video where people rap about it. It was corny but different. The inflight movie's you had to pay for, which I didn't like but I was prepared this time and brought my tablet. Another thing I did like though, was when they were coming by to bring snacks, they would calmly wake people up to see what they wanted so they weren't missed. You did everything right Virgin, except for the in flight ppv movies. I get to SeaTac airport and take the shuttle to get to Yakima where Berj will meet me. Everything is going as planned.
During the shuttle ride, we are traveling around 40-45 mph down the freeway. Seems pretty clear to me. Shuttle driver suddenly says, "No wonder we are in traffic, there is a car accident." I chuckle, never even realizing that we were in traffic. Go down where the 405 meets the 101 Mr. Bus driver, then you'll know the struggle. I get to my destination, and at last, I see my good old friend Berj. We exchange hi's and he takes me to a sandwich place called, Bruchi's, it was good.
Then he shows me his very nice place. It's a 2 story, huge kitchen and living room with 2 bedrooms on top. This place is a
good size house especially for just 2. They use 1 room for an office and the other for their actual bedroom.
Berj is a funny guy:
I feel tired and take a nap on the couch. I wake up and get to say Hi to Sara who came home from work. She works as a speech pathologist at a clinic. They took me to Bill's Place, it's a bar where they host trivia. I meet one of Sara's coworkers and the four of us attempt trivia. We all got a few answers correct which was surprising but lost pretty bad. I am terrible at trivial. Berj, Sara, and I agree that Dan at Pickwick's back in L.A. hosts better trivia. After the epic fail, we head over to Nobhill Casino. This Casino is so cute! It is what I think the worlds smallest Casino adjacent to the bowling alley, it's a size of a living room with maybe 7 tables. Pai-gow poker, three card poker, hold 'em table, and 3 tables of black jack. That's it! I played blackjack and within 20 minutes won $50. We left back home. Before going to bed I decided that I needed to charge my phone and camera and of course, I left it in my backpack at home. Luckily Sara found extra chargers and let me borrow them. Put my things to charge and went to sleep.
7/31 Friday
I woke up early to see Sara getting ready for work. Berj woke up and we decided to go eat breakfast at the White House Bed and Breakfast. It looked like you were in someone's house with tables set up. Very bright place, felt homely and cozy. It was very unique and the food was quite good. This, I thought to myself, this was the "quaint" kind of place I was lookng for.
After breakfast we decided to look for some bike's to rent so we can go mountain biking. There isn't one place that rent's bikes out even though they have many trails suited to go mountain biking at. It was sad, but for any entrepreneurs out there, please make it happen. Berj decided to drive around to see if we can find any shops and gave me a tour around Yakima.
Very beautiful city with lots of green and LOTS of lakes. There were lakes and rivers right off the freeway, bigger than Castaic lake back at home and no one was on them. It was amazing, I wanted to swim in all of the lakes and rivers. I was jealous to see that Washington isn't suffering in drought as much as California is. At that moment I wanted to do white water rafting, I looked where we can do it online, there were a few places, but we were too late because they started earlier that day. Oh well, next time. We then went blueberry picking at West Valley U-Pick Berries. The blueberries were amazing! Only a few people including us were picking, we had big white buckets which we would never fill and so many good berries around to pick at, we didn't even know where to start. We pretty much filled up the bucket where you can't see any of the bottom side of the bucket anymore and decide to cash out. It lasted us for 3 days to eat handfulls of them and we only paid 89 cents. A-mazing!
Even though we couldn't find bikes to rent we still decided to go hiking. Think what you want about Washington, but when I was there, it was hot! No clouds in sight and jeans were not an option. Berj decided to bring super soakers to keep cool. Genius.
The hike was beautiful, it was through the canyon, and the trails guided you right next to a river. They built huge trails with bridges that went across the river. Any shade that we saw, we rested and had water fights as we walked in the hot sun. We got to a point where the water in the super soaker was now hot so we decided to walk back.
We then go shoot Berj's gun at an inside range called the Tactical supply. His real gun this time not the super soakers. We shot at battleships.
I think I did pretty well up to 40 yards away with a 22. As we were shooting, down the lane we hear really loud bangs from another gun. A safety worker comes up to us and asks, "do you hear that? It's our demo for today, did you want to try it, a very powerful gun." They pitched this to us before, it would cost extra and we really didn't feel like doing it so we declined. We hear the shots again, another safety rep comes and asks the same question. "No," we politely decline and keep shooting Berj's gun. They must have asked us 5+ times before they finally inderstood that we did not want to shoot the demo. After we shot many times at the battleships and got tired of reloading, we went back home. On the way I wanted to see some old indian drawings on some rocks, but the locals said that they most likely closed them down because it kept being vandalized. Very sad. We arrived home and Berj went to work. As soon as he left Sara came home from work and we watched a bit of Shark Tank to relax. I don't like that show much but I did learn that girls in sororities start with bland plain clothing in their first year of being in one and then, once they become seniors and the longer they are in there, they then can wear lavish clothing. After Shark Tank we decided to visit Berj at work to eat. He works at Carousel French Cuisine. He seated us and brought us Chef's special soup called Vi Shi Swa. Delicious. Being a French place, I had to try the frog legs, they tasted like chicken, but very bony. I don't like small bones. I'm glad I tasted them but I'll stick to chicken from now on. Also we had sauteed garlic mushrooms, these were the best garlic mushrooms I have ever tasted! While we were eating, Sara and I started talking about her work. She was telling me about a student she had that wouldn't sit still after a while. I told her that Berj is really good with kids did you try asking him for help? She replied that she very well knows that Berj is really great with children but he is great when it comes to physical activiy. So I proceeded to tell her that it's a shame she didn't ask him because he would have replied with some good advice. "Like what?" She asked, I told her that what he would probably say is when the child is starting to lose intereste, completely stop doing what your doing and make her jog or walk around your work, or even some jumping jacks. Afterwards go back to what you were doing and the child should start being more attentive. Sara, put it to the test on her next shift, and made me feel good by telling me that it worked!We stayed at the restaurant until Berj got off work and together we drove home. He made me try a lemon cucumber fruit.
Even though I don't like lemon's by themselves. I have to say this is the best fruit I have ever tasted. It is crunchy and is so good. I now have a favorite fruit.
8/1 Saturday
We all wake up, eat our delicious blueberries and other fruit for breakfast and get prepared to make our way to Seattle. Berj drove, all I could do was look out the window and still be mesmorized by the lakes, rivers, greenery and wild life. Sara warned us to say that we are visiting "Seedle" not "Seattle" because thats how the locals pronounce it there. Ok, good to know. It was a nice 3 hour road trip to "Seedle". Finally we cross a bridge with an even bigger water way leading to the ocean. We made it to Seattle. Now I see many boats in the water. Many people out in the water. We make it to downtown seattle and park in the public garage. First thing I notice was the high buildings, starting to feel a lot like L.A. again. We walk to Pike Place Market. A lot of people in this place, you will bump into people walking. Very cool place to find random things. Not cheap! For a market, this place is really expensive, probably more expensive than malls. We watched the fish workers toss some fish around when they made a sale. Went to some kiosks to eat, I ate a pretty big pig in a blanket. It was big, but not over $8 big not including anything else. The market was blocks and blocks long and had an inside which was 2 stories at some point. We walked around. One of the coolest stores I had found was one where you can find all antique collections of things. Such as old ciggarrette advertisement posters, vinyl records, 1960's playboy magazines with Steve Martin with two models on the cover. Also just outside of the store, there are machines where on the outside they write something like "check out the worlds biggest shoe collection" and you have to put in coins so the drapes spread apart and you can see what it is.
You may not be able to tell by the picture, but it's literally the "biggest" shoe collection. I found this to be hilarious and very much amusing. Another thing we found was a pretty cool see through colored glass that was handcrafted and you can hang it on the window. They also made picture stands, so you can put family photo's in them. I of course also had to get a
Washington apple... In Washington!
We also saw the very first starbucks that was ever built there, nothing special, but lots and lots of people. Right from Pikes Market, we walked to Bill Speidel's Underground Tour. This was Sara's find at the last second before going to Seattle. Good thing she did. It's a tour to go underground and see the old city of Seattle. Not many people I've met knew that Seattle was built over the old city of Seattle. It definitely reminded me of Futurama Old New York. The tour guide we had was really funny, informitive, and very energetic. The tour guide jokingly said, "You are true Seattlites today, while there is sun that is shining out there which never happens, you chose to be underground away from it." The story goes, there were settlers that throught Seattle would be a good place to settle down, it was beautiful land almost surrounded water and on one claimed it. The part they didn't realize that when tides were high the land itself was under sea level. So when they built a small town and the tides came high, the sewage could come up as well. Having a bad sewage problem, which they tried to fix but failed miserably. Then a fire started when the fire marshall was away from vacation, and the interns couldn't contain it. No one got injured during the fire because the people went as high as they could but the fire completely destroyed everything. So they decided to bury the old city and build over it. There are over 70 minutes of fun facts and things to view that is rarely seen in Seattle. I definitely recommend going.
At this point, it was clear to me that no one says "Seedle" there, I think maybe Sara was told this so WE can seem like outsiders saying that. Everyone I've met and heard, calls it "Seattle." Off we went to the beach. This beach was actually really cool. It had grass instead of sand and it was shaded for people who didn't want to swim. For those who do feel like swimming can swim out a little to get to a floating platform with 2 diving boards on it. One higher than the other where you can dive off of.
After diving a couple of times and enjoying the water, off we went canoeing at the University of Washington Canoe House. Why oh why don't we have this at CSUN, USC, or UCLA even? Right at the University you rent an actual canoe and go riding in the ocean water. At the edge at some points they have an animal reserve where they closed it off from boats and you can canoe to. There were so many lilly pads, ducks, and crazy tree's. It was beautiful. At some point while canoing we had the ducks following us in a row. Probably thought we had food, but cute none the less.
After the Canoe we headed to our hotel (Travelodge) we were going to stay at for the night to do a late check-in. We took showers and continued onto the Space Needle. There you have to made a reservation to go onto the top. Works kind of like a movie theatre, pick a time slot and go. Closest time available was 10:00pm so we got our tickets and went to eat nearby. We crossed a park as we walked there right next to the needle and messed around a bit:
Insert Pic
We got the restaurant and ate. Nothing special, just a pizza place. This restaurant was also empty. We went to the space needle. I have to say, after being on Canton Tower, and the Stratosphere, the Space-Needle wasn't anything extraordinary.
I was actually more interested on things that looked cool around the tower, seems like there was a lot of events going on.
We walked around and indeed there were. There is a museum there, parks, and they were also showing "Salem" the movie for people to watch on a grassy field. After the Space Needle, we met up with an old friend of ours, Alan, who moved to Seattle a few months ago. We met up at
the Capitol Cyder. There was a line that we had to wait in until Alan comes out and tells the bouncer that we are just going to the bar. They let us in, some girl gets upset for the bouncer letting us in first but we go in and sit at the bar. Alan explains that the bottom is crowded and thats where everyone is, we will just chill at the bar for a bit then go
down. They order their drinks and I just order a shirley temple because I don't drink alcohol. We play catch up and motion to the bartender to pay our tab. Bertender gives tabs to everyone but me, says the shirley temple is on him. I thank him and leave tip. I remembered reading that in most states, sober drivers get to drink for free. He probably thought I was a
sober driver, or hitting on me. Either way, thank you Mr. Bartender, I never had a free drink before. California should learn from the awesomeness. We head downstairs, people are playing on 2 shuffle board tables and there a huge rectangle table going accross the room. I don't see why people were waiting outside for this but we were down there. A guy puts his arm around me and tells me that he is drunk and asks me my name. I tell him and he tells me his. Asks Sara to take a picture of us. Random, but ok Ill roll with it. He then proceeds to tell me he likes me as I slowly take his arm off of me. Now I'm thinking we are at some sort of gay bar, and I start to laugh at the situation. I checked online, it's actually a family and friends type of bar. I guess people are really friendly there.
Berj starts chatting with the girl and her group that got upset at us for walking in, they actually seemed like cool people.
As we were calling it a night, Sara then points out board games on the shelf of the bar. I was sad we didn't see that earlier and didn't get to play. Oh well, next time? We went back to the hotel where Berj kept talking and didn't let me sleep. Thanks Berj! And thus like the snap of a finger, another journey ends. I took Delta home, they also had leather seats, it wasn't as roomy but as long as you had a tablet, you can connect to the wifi and watch movies free. Good job Delta, you are now my favorite domestic airline as long as all your planes offer the same kind of service, I'll be happy. I want to say thank you to Berj and Sara for letting me visit. You guys made it that much more fun and it is great seeing that you two are happy! I'll see you two soon on our Hot Air Balloon Ride in September.
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