Adjusting Back to the East Coast

It's been a hard and long week of trying to adjust back to my regular life. Seems everything about my life right now is challenging. I blame my neck nerves for all my pain. I blame jet lag for the fact that I'm constantly exhausted. I blame my father for my constant downer mood. Uuuugh. I need to snap out of this.

To switch to a brighter note, my last day in Seattle was a non-working day. At first I was fuming at the fact that Delta airlines was going to charge me over $750 in addition to the original $600 plane ticket to switch my flight to a day earlier. That was just highway robbery and it really ticked me off. Our work plans changed so that we were no longer needed on Saturday and I desperately wanted to come home a day early. But with that high price tag, my manager (Ben) and I decided to suck up and and make the best out of being stuck in Seattle.


The day turned out to be gorgeous and sunny and we headed into downtown. After listening to some very good advice from the locals, we decided to take the train from SeaTac to downtown. I was so impressed with how clean, easy, and pleasant the whole experience was. We got off right in the heart of the action and our first stop was Pikes Market (the very famous open market that you see in lots of movies). As usual the place was packed and we only spent a little while browsing the very unusual 'hippie' shops. I call them that, not only because they sell many hippie things, but they all smell like patchouli - yuck. Since this was my third visit to the market I was less captivated than Ben and luckily his desire for food was greater than his desire for strange memorabilia.

We headed outside and found the first nice restaurant that had seating. The place was neat and directly across the street from the market. We had views of the ocean, as well as the bustling street below.


After much deliberations Ben and I decided that we each should pick the one cool Seattle thing that we wanted to do and we both agreed to do whatever the other picked. Neither of us was happy when I wanted to go on a DUCK tour and he wanted to go to the Science Fiction Museum, but we made a deal.

So off to the Science Fiction Museum we went. I figured I would endure it and try not to be too embarrassed to be labeled a 'geek.' Well who knew I would like it more than Ben? There was an Avatar exhibit that had me on cloud 9. From the second I sat in the movie theater to see the film I've been dying to know how it was made. From a computer graphics standpoint it was the end all be all. I was in Heaven.


Next it was my turn to torture Ben. I was so excited about the DUCK tour I was giddy. And it didn't disappoint. It was GREAT. 90 minutes of fun as we drove through the streets of Seattle, learning about some history in the most humorous way.


Then it was time for the DUCK to take a dip in Lake Union (which was beautiful). We went for a little cruise as the tour guide pointed out the house where Sleepless in Seattle was filmed and all sorts of other amazing places and stories.


I didn't want the tour to end and I can not wait to do this again in Boston. As it turned out both Ben and I truly enjoyed every minute of both activities. The day was just perfect and in the end I was happy that we didn't switch our flights.