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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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