Regrets

Neither of us set an alarm but Maria and I are both early risers thanks to waking up early for jobs. We were both awake at 7 and ready to leave the hotel at 8. Breakfast was in the hotel again. Today I ate an entire bagel and some yogurt and cottage cheese.

We sat in the lobby for a little bit, trying to decide what to do. A lot of places don't open until 10 or 11. What's up with that. I don't know!

We had a list of things we wanted to do so we started with the thing that opened first: the aquarium.

We had to walk for 10 or 15 minutes. The aquarium was near Pike Place Market. We walked by a new Amazon Go store that seemed neat so we checked that out. Maria had the app and we jut scanned her phone, grabbed a few drinks, and walked out. They even gave me a free amazon go bag that I can use for grocery shopping when I get back to Montana.

Wake me up before you (Amazon) go-go!

We went back through the Pike Place Market and over to a park, not totally sure how to get to the street level to the aquarium. I found a big ol' piggie though.

Twins

We got outside and looked at the view for a hot minute. It's pretty. I love the water.

Anyways we found the aquarium at Puget Sound (which I think is a location? It's called Puget Sound, I'm not sure) at 9:45. Maria didn't really want to go to the aquarium. It wasn't that she didn't want to go. I think she didn't care either way and it was out of her price range. I bought her ticket for her and called it an early birthday present. I think it was $30 a person.

I love aquariums! They're better than zoos. Some of the employees latched onto Maria and I and talked our ears off. I think they were just happy to have an adult visiting, and not a child or an adult with children. We spent a lot of time at the interactive part where you can stick your hands in the water and poke lil sea critters.

I wanna hold your hand!

There were two octopus there as well named Vincent and Umbrella. There lived in separate tanks because one of them ripped off an arm from the other. I didn't know octopus could be so hardcore.

Stone cold.

There were a lot more exhibits for fish. Maria really liked it and that made me happy. This is her first time at an aquarium and I really wanted her to like it!

Outside they had exhibits for mammals. I saw my buddies the harbor seals. There were 3 of them and they were swimming around, doing seal stuff and being good boys. I remember when Cam, dad, and I were in Oregon and saw the seals and they splashed water on my Camin and made it look like he peed his pants. God damn that was funny.

We saw northern fur seals too! They were also busy doing seal stuff.

We went below deck and there were aquariums above us. It was neat.

They had a lot of salmon too. Mostly babies. I guess they release the salmon back into the wild when they're old enough.

There were sea otters to watch too. I love sea otters! They had cute names like Mishka (which means "little bear" in Russian). They swam around and played under a blanket. I tried to get a good video of them but I couldn't even get a good picture. Oh well!

We went through the giftshop and I found a cute starfish magnet for myself. Then I found some octopus shaped ice cube makers so I bought one for Ian. I spent about $15 total.

Maria and I went back inside to take our picture together.

Besties

By now it's 11:00. Everything should be open! Since we were right next to the ferris wheel (and we forgot to do it last night like I wanted, oops) we went there. It cost $14 a person and Maria bought out tickets. We weren't guaranteed a private compartment and we had to wait in line with 6 other people but I was prepared to offer money to the guy running the place so we could get our own compartment area. Luckily he was a bro and gave us our own place to sit so we didn't have to share!

It was great! Very peaceful and not scary (okay it was a little scary the first rotation but by the second and third time it wasn't).

After that we tried to find some lunch. There's a lot of restaurants on the pier and we both wanted seafood. We decided to try a place called The Crab Pot. I got a bowl of clam chowder and 6 oysters for $18 and Maria got fish and chips. My bowl of soup was huge, I should have gotten a cup.

I made Maria try an oyster and she had to try really hard not to gag. That's okay, more for me. I happily ate the other five!

The food wasn't as good as Moes but it was still pretty good. I left very full.

It's been raining constantly since yesterday. I accidentally stepped in a puddle once we left the restaurant so my left foot was cold and wet.

Next on the agenda was the Chihuly Gardens. This was something Maria really wanted to do and I love plants and gardens so I was game for this. It sounded really pretty!

On our way to the gardens we passed through the market again. I wanted to see the gum wall up close and personal so we looked around for it for a bit before finding it in some random alley.

Barf City

oh my god it's even uglier up close

The alley smelled sweet, isn't that gross!?

It took us about half an hour to get to the Chihuly Gardens. We walked by the Space Needle to see if it was open and set the record straight. It was closed.

Bastards

That sucks, I really wanted to see this from the top. Oh well! I was excited for the gardens.

Big surprise for me, the gardens aren't actually a plant garden. It's a glass art exhibit. I feel so stupid, haha. There was some foreshadowing I should have caught (like the fact that's it's actual name is Chihuly Garden and Glass. And that Maria's artsy sister said she loved the artist who created the place. And that Maria said she was excited to see the glass sculptures). I don't know why I thought it was a plant garden. Dammit!

Tickets cost $24 a person. I bought one and then went to the giftshop and looked around. They had some neat stuff. I got Camin 2 bars of chocolate. One was milk chocolate with caramel and the other was super weird, it was edamame chocolate with sea salt. I hope he likes them! They cost $12 total.

The museum started indoors. There were several different huge rooms to showcase the sculptures. It was quite pretty, although it did give me MoMA flashbacks which I do not care to remember.

It was all glass too. My brain couldn't really comprehend that and kept thinking "aye, maybe it's plastic". There were some other forms of art like photographer and blankets and posters.

I don't know how to smile

But it was mostly glass.

None of the pictures really do the place justice. It was so vibrant with color, the photos dull in comparison. And everything was huge. Even the smallest glass sculptures were bigger than me.

We went outside and it was more glass. I liked indoors better because it doesn't rain indoors and the glass outside didn't look as impressive next to plant life. I prefer it on its own.

There was two woman who were doing a glass blowing exhibit. Maria and I stayed to watch them for a while as the created a terrarium. I learned that if you were to let the glass cool on its own it would explode so when they finished creating the bowl they had to put it back in the heat to cool off slowly.

We walked back to the hotel after that. I didn't love the gardens and as we were leaving I felt like I had been pretending to be happy all day. I don't know if I was actually happy at all. There's this awful emotion I have that's hard to describe but it's been there all day in the pit of my stomach and in my chest and in my throat. I'm trying to ignore it. I thought I would fail the polygraph and I did. It doesn't make sense for me to feel sad about it but I do.

Back at the hotel, I got caught up on blogging. I have a love/hate relationship with this blog. It's all love until I have to update it. Then it's hate. As soon as I'm done typing it's back to love. So I was in full hate mode for an hour or two. Maria and I went back to the hot tub to soak our feet.

I was hungry at 5. Maria went with me to find food. I led the way to a little sandwich shop and got something simple, a turkey and cheese on whole wheat called The Washington Wrecker (not to sound dramatic, but it seemed a fitting name after yesterday). I also got a big bag of salt and vinegar chips. It cost $12 and then I led the way to a bubble tea shop. Maria paid for my tea. I got an earl grey with tapioca balls and jelly. It was really good!

I haven't had bubble tea in a long time. We drank our tea on the way back to the hotel. It rained a lot and we got lost but I didn't mind.

It was around 6:30 when we got back. I ate my sandwich (it was a bit spicy! my mouth was watering like a mofo). I did more stupid and awful blog stuff and Maria and I listened to music and hung out.

Finally I got the Seattle blog posts done. Right now it's almost midnight. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning at noon so this will be the last post. I am ready to go home.


REFLECTION!

I don't believe in regrets. It's a silly thing to have. You make the best decisions you can at the time. Part of me wants to say I regret coming to Seattle or I regret applying for CBP, but I don't. I made the best decisions I could at the time and they led me to here. Things didn't work out but I don't regret any past actions. Even the ones that led me to failing the polygraph. I lived. I don't regret that.

This was still a fun trip. I got to spend time with my best friend Maria and we got to have another adventure. I love the North Pacific and no trip here can ever go wrong. I don't see myself coming back to Seattle any time soon but I never thought I'd be here a month ago so I don't know. It was a good trip and I'm glad I got to experience every bit of it!

Don't cry for me Seattle

The polygraph

By 5 am I gave up on sleeping and decided to stop trying. I stayed in bed for another hour and daydreamed before getting up. I was ready to go at 6:30.

Maria and I had breakfast in the hotel. I knew I wouldn't feel like eating but I managed to consume half a bagel and half a banana. Then we killed time, went back to the room, hung out in the lobby. My polygraph appointment wasn't until 8:15 and my map app said it was a 6 minute drive away.

At 7:30 I requested an Uber for 7:45. A driver accepted my request, then he got lost and drove by the hotel twice. It was 7:55 when he picked me up. Then traffic was kinda bad. I was stressed out but there was nothing I could do about it. So that made me less stressed, in a weird way. Like if your plane is gonna crash and you're at peace with it because you're not the pilot.

I was about 5 minutes late anyways. The uber cost like $10. I went through security and was escorted to the CBP floor by a security guard. Then I met with my polygrapher guy! I liked him immediately, he was professional and kind. He asked if I got enough sleep last night (not really), if I had eaten enough breakfast (nope), and if anything traumatic happened to me recently (yeah my fucking hamsters died last week). Stuff to see if I was mentally/emotionally unprepared. I was honest and he didn't find my hamsters deaths a concern so we went on.

I don't want to go into the details of the polygraph. I didn't sign anything saying it was confidential, I just don't want to talk about it. I was there from 8:30 am until 2:20 pm. I was hooked up to the poly and asked questions for maybe 15 or 20 minutes total. We mostly talked. It was very stressful and I had anxiety the entire time but he said that was totally normal and he never tried to stress me out more. He calmed me down a lot actually. Going into this I thought I would fail. The statistics I had read were against me. Then my examiner gave me the correct stats and it was worse than I thought. Less than 15% pass.

Anyways I failed. I got flagged on two questions: drug use and contact with terrorists. One I admitted to prior to starting the test but I kept getting flagged anyways, and the other one I denied. I'll let you guess which is which.

As much as I don't believe in the science behind polygraphs, I do believe I was treated fairly by my examiner. I gave a statement afterward about the one offense I admitted to. He suggested I apply again in a year or two as well and that I have a good chance of getting it then.

And that was it. I called an Uber and drove back to the hotel in the rain.

I called/texted my parents to let them know their daughter is a drugged out, friend of Al-Qaeda failure and they were both surprised. Maria was really surprised too.

I thought I would fail and I'm still disappointed. I don't know why. It even hurts my heart to type this now and it's been over 24 hours.

Maria and I left the hotel soon after I got back. Being a failure wasn't gonna stop me from exploring the city. We decided to go to Pike Place Market to drop some fat stacks.

There were a lot of stalls with arts and crafts, flowers, food, all kinds of fun shit. I bought my dad a tiny jar of honey that I could take in my carry on.

Then I passed a cherry stall and got some red wine chocolate covered cherries for my stepmom. God I love shopping for other people.

There were some fish markets too that had the fish out on display in piles of ice. It smelled like... fish.

"Monk fish" more like "fucking nightmare fish"

Someone bought a fish and the people working the stall threw it up in the air and another guy far away caught it in paper to wrap it up in. I guess it was entertaining because a crowd gathered to watch them throw stinky fish. One of the guys carrying ice for the stall pretended to slip in front of us and nearly spilled ice on Maria. I think he was flirting with her, oh ho ho!

We also saw the infamous gum wall from one of the windows. It looked colorful and disgusting!

Free gum

The market place had 3 levels. The top was the best and the bottom ones were O.K. I guess. Lots of unique shops. There was a magic store but I didn't get anything.

I wanted to go on the ferris wheel and Maria wanted to drink. I figured we could do both so we went to a cool bar near the pier called The Pike. The bartender was super hot so I was glad we choose the drinking route first. I had a beer that was light and crisp, I think it was called Naughty Nellie or something. It cost like $5.

Neither of us had had lunch and it was like almost 4 by now. Feeling buzzed, we left (without the bartender. Sad!) and went to go get food. I made us take a deour to one of my favorite shops in the world.

LUSH.

And I smelled every bathbomb.

I haven't been to a Lush store since I was in Vegas. I fricken love Lush man. I got a lemongrass bubble bar and bought Maria one too and called it a belated Christmas gift to her. Then I got my mom a bubble bar too because it really reminded me of her. It's called Karma and smells like patchouli so I think she will like it!

Here you go mama!

At this point Maria and I are hungry. We decided weeks ago that tonight we would be eating at Cheesecake Factory because I have never been and wanted to go and she really liked the place. Apparently they don't just serve cheesecake. It's an actual restaurant too.

I ordered a pasta dish that sounded weird but good. It was a lot of vegetables like roasted and sun dried tomato, eggplant, broccoli, pine nuts, zucchini...

It was like $15 or whatever. Way overpriced for a meatless dish but it was a big portion and I liked it a lot. There was a fair amount leftover to take back to the hotel.

Then we got cheesecake to go. I got a cookie dough one. I ate a lot of cookie dough after my hamsters died last week (RIP Wolfgang and Knoxy) and now I'm eating it after failing the polygraph. Cookie dough is one of my top 3 favorite foods but if I'm not careful I'm going to associate it with sadness.

Maria and I walked back to the hotel. It rained all day today. We've passed by the same cool looking building a few times now since coming to Seattle. It's this big glass ball looking place with plants inside.

I think it's still being built and not open to the public. There was a lot of construction going on. I liked looking at it.

Once we were back at the hotel we changed into swimsuits and went down to the lobby to soak in the hot tub. It was relaxing. Maria and I hung out and laughed.

It was an early night for us. We went back to the room for good around 7. I took a shower to get the chlorine off. Once I got out of the shower I thought about taking another one. I thought about crying too. I had been holding back tears all day and now was the time to do it. I decided against both and hung out with Maria instead.

We finished off the bottle of wine from yesterday and played games the rest of the night.

Sleepless

The backstory to how this trip started is a long one and I'm really not interested in telling it all. Basically I had a job opportunity with Customs and Border Patrol and this was part of the hiring process. After jumping through hoops, I had the opportunity to take a polygraph test in Seattle. I was about 80% sure I would fail the test but it was still worth the risk. I would get a mini vacation in Seattle and I would be able to say I'd taken a polygraph test. Win or lose, it would still be a cool experience!

My lovely friend Maria agreed to come with me and I am sooo thankful. It would have been fecking miserable going to a new city by myself. My plane ticket cost $220 and buying it was the last thing I did in 2017. Seemed like an appropriate way to end the year.

We would fly out on Monday the 22nd and fly home on Thursday the 25th. Maria arranged our hotel situation and she found a decent place downtown for only $80 a night, which is a good deal. I had the 23rd booked (polygraph day) but we had the 24th to explore so we found some fun things we wanted to do and see.

Then there was some drama with the government shutting down. I got an email saying my polygrah might be postponed unless the government reopened. My flight was nonrefundable so no matter what happened we were still going to Seattle.

Okay that's a brief enough explanation. Anyways our flight left around 3:45 from Helena. I goofed off all day and finally packed some shit around 12:30.

Hello old friend.

and Maria picked me up at 1. We hung out at her apartment for about an hour before her boss gave us a ride to the airport.

We waited at the airport for maybe 30 mins before boarding at 3:15. Maria took the window seat (I wanted it specifically for the way back) and we played hangman and drank complimentary wine to pass the time flying.

Hangman, Seattle themed

It was a solid 6/10 on the fun scale.

The flight was almost 2 hours and we landed around, I don't know, 4 or 5. It was still light outside so we didn't get to fly into the city at night which is a tragedy. We took the light rail to downtown. It would get us about 8 blocks from our hotel. The tickets cost $3 a piece and I bought both of ours. It was pretty boring. It reminded me of the London Underground. The ride lasted maybe an hour until we got off at Westlake. By then it was dark outside.

Welcome to Seattle!

It was a little confusing getting to the hotel, but that's only because we're not that good with directions. We found where we're staying and Maria got us checked in. It's called the Loyal Inn. It looked a little dingy on the outside but was fine inside and the staff was nice.

We dumped our luggage in the room and left to go find food. The guy at front desk suggested this place called The 5 Point Cafe which is pretty popular and has been featured on travel and food shows. We walked a few blocks to get to it.

The 5 Point Cafe is a dark little pub type place with the slogan "Alcoholics Serving Alcoholics Since 1929" and seemed like my kinda restaurant.

I liked it.

I ordered a philly cheesesteak and fries. It was really good!

I ate nearly the entire sandwich and took the fries in a to go box. I think it was like $20 with tax and tip. I'm so used to living in Montana, I forgot the rest of the world has a sales tax. It's some bullshit!

We walked back to the hotel and it was a nice walk. We're staying very close to the Space Needle. I'm hoping it will be open. So far we have found contradicting information on whether or not the place is being renovated. Their website says it's closed through the 22-25, but the sign on the Needle says "We're Open!". They are messing with my heart is what they're doing.

Maria wanted to make a quick stop at the liquor store and she bought a bottle of wine to take back to the hotel. We got back around 8, maybe 8:30 (I'm losing concept of time day by day).

We got back to the room and had the hardest time opening the bottle of wine. The bottle opener Maria bought broke, leaving half of it in her hand and the other half stuck in the cork. She had to borrow another opener from front desk and we nearly broke that one too. Instead  we broke the cork in half. It was funny, my sweet Catholic Maria swearing like a trucker as she struggled to open the bottle. As soon as the cork was out she was chugging the wine.

The government reopened that night, god bless. My polygraph examiner called me to see if I was ready to go, or if I wanted to reschedule due to the shutdown. I was like , "nah bro I'm finna pass this bitch" (but like, in a more professional way you know).

We went to bed around 9 or 10. I had a terrible nights sleep and kept waking up, anxious about tomorrow.