​Last weekend was t3chnomag3’s wedding, so we spent it in Seattle. Here’s how it went:


Friday
I went into work early so I could get home early, and got home even earlier than that. We had plenty of time to pack, eat a dinner of leftovers, take out the trash, turn off the aircon—it was 32°C in Chicago when we left—and get a ride to the airport. We went through security without incident, and the only remarkable thing about the flight was that twelve people with tickets never showed. The entire row across from us was empty, though our row was full, and someone quickly moved into the empty space. I spent the flight playing Final Fantasy on my iPad, and then we landed and got on the train into Seattle.

My satchel broke right as we arrived at the hotel.

nytesenvy was already there in the room and not asleep, but since it was almost midnight, we didn’t chat for long before we all went to sleep.

Saturday
We woke up early, still on East Coast and Midwestern time, and while nytesenvy went to go get the rental car and schoolpsychnerd went to the hotel gym to exercise, I took a shower. After we all returned and dressed, we went outside to go get breakfast and coffee somewhere. Just outside the hotel, I took a picture of the rising sun:


We eventually found Citizen Cafe and Bar and sat down for breakfast food, finishing about the time that everyone else decided to go out for brunch,and walked past the line as we left. After a brief stop in a QFC to find a spring clip to fix my bag—there wasn’t one, so I bought twine instead and tied the broken strap back on to the metal ring—we stopped off in the hotel room and then piled into the rental car to go to t3chnomag3’s out-of-town friends-and-family lunch in Puyallup. The car was a Mercedes, and we had to spend a few minutes figuring out how to set up the GPS, adjust the seats, and turn off the radio. When we did get it working the GPS got us there in good time, though we were slowed significantly by an accident up ahead, and also the GPS kept saying the speed limit was 95. Perhaps these two things are related?

t3chnomag3’s parents’ house is on a small road, set back among a bunch of pine trees in the way of the Pacific Northwest. I really liked the way that the pines stood out against the sky:


There were a lot of people there that I had first met while at Penn and hadn’t seen since then, plus people like spacialk and Damionw that I haven’t seen in a while. And t3chnomag3’s fiancé, who we hadn’t met until today. We chatted for a while and ate a lunch helpfully catered by Costco, including some delicious almond and chocolate biscotti. The maid of honor noticed the twine on my satchel and gave me a spring clip from her keychain that she wasn’t using for anything. Also, I took this picture of schoolpsychnerd:



We left around four for the hour-long drive into Seattle, and on the way I messaged meadowyravine, who we’ve known for years from our old WoW guild but have never met in person. She and her husband deathfromafar had free time on Sunday for breakfast, and she said she would try to remember one of the good places they went while they lived nearby. Meanwhile, schoolpsychnerd messaged melishus_b and made plans for drinks later, so after a stop off at the hotel and with our schedule full, we walked toward the ocean looking for dinner. My original idea was to find a sushi restaurant, since after three years in Japan and now living in Chicago, I’m extremely dubious of almost all the sushi that’s available to me. The restaurant I had picked had people standing outside and as we walked up, a couple exited and told us that the wait was ha hour and a half. nytesenvy noticed another restaurant two doors over and suggested that we go there instead. And I’m glad that we did:


The restaurant was called Karaage Setsuna, Hawai’ian Japanese food. We heard some of the staff speaking Japanese to each other, and the food was amazing. In addition to that poké bowl I ate, we got a large plate of shichimi tōgarashi kara-age and split it, and it was exactly what I needed then. The salmon in my poké bowl was seafood, from the ocean that we could see from the corner near the restaurant.

Full and happy, we walked back to the hotel and sat down for a moment, then went to a nearby bar to meet with melishus_b and her boyfriend. We didn’t have much time since we had to wake up early again tomorrow, but it was nice to see them again so soon after the last time. It’s like when we were living in Japan!

Also, I got a blister from walking in new shoes.

Sunday
We woke up early on a cold morning (10°C, cold compared to the 25°C mornings we left behind in Chicago) and after nytesenvy and schoolpsychnerd grabbed coffee from the hotel lobby, we set out on the walk. nytesenvy split off early to find somewhere to sit down and we kept walking west until we were blocked by I-99 and needed to find a way over. That way led to a series of stairways up Queen Anne Hill:


At the top of all the stairways was our destination, a restaurant named 5-Spot, where we put in our names and waited for meadowyravine and deathfromafar to arrive.

The restaurant served their water in mason jars.

The food was really good! And so was the company, though meadowyravine and deathfromafar had to spend a portion of the meal wrangling their (extremely cute) children. One of them spilled milk and almost ended up crying over it, but was skillfully distracted in the end. deathfromafar’s mother was also there, so we all talked about hilly country vs flat country, growing up on farms, childhood development, and Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus.

It was really nice to finally meet in person after eleven years of knowing each other! After the meal, they were going to a brewery event event elsewhere and we had to walk back down the hill, so we said our goodbyes, told them to look us up if they were ever in Chicago, and started the long walk back down all the stairways to our hotel.

I did not get any pictures of us at breakfast, but I did take this picture of a burning bush plant:


After getting fancied up for the wedding, we drove out to Black Diamond Gardens to the southeast of Seattle, closer to Mount Rainier, and we actually got a good view of the mountain on the way there due to the absence of the usual cloud cover. The couple requested no photography at their ceremony, so I don’t have any pictures from it. I do have this picture of the happy couple, though.



I also got this picture of the two of us!


The ceremony was done of the longer ones I’ve been to, though customized by t3chnomag3 and her fiancé. The bridal party entered to a string quartet version of "Still Alive," and t3chnomag3 herself came to "Storybook Story." Then the officiant shared a few stories that they had sent to him about each other, they exchanged customized vows and rings, kissed, and fled the stage pursued by a six-foot "boulder" formed out of a spray-painted inflatable ball. True love.

We sat across from another couple from Chicago that t3chnomag3 knew from her lawyering, and got food from the buffet shortly before it ran out—the apple and walnut salad was particularly delicious. The tables were themed around various places in the world, presumably places where t3chnomag3 and her fiancé had been, because we were seated at the Japan table. We were probably the reason a Japan table existed at all, in fact,, since t3chnomag3 came to visit us in Hiroshima right after she graduated from law school.

The reception was more conventional, though no less lovely for it. We drank, we danced, we cheered the newlyweds, nytesenvy caught the bouquet, and then around 8:30 everything wrapped up, we said our goodbyes, and made the drive back to our hotel where we promptly packed up and then went to sleep.

Monday
Everyone was up before 7 a.m. since we had gone to sleep so early, so we were showered, packed up, and down in the hotel lobby before eight. We ate breakfast in the hotel lobby, and schoolpsychnerd took the opportunity to buy $12 avocado toast:



She said it was good, but not worth $12.

nytesenvy walked with us south out of the hotel toward the streetcar, but we walked up to the stop just as the streetcar pulled up and didn’t manage to pay for tickets before it left, so we walked to the train station and nytesenvy split off about halfway along the way to go visit the Space Needle before her significantly-later flight. We wandered around lost for a bit until we found the entrance to the Westlake train station, got on the train, and made it to the airport with plenty of time despite TSA pulling me aside for typically-inscrutable reasons.

We bought postcards and chocolate in the airport, eating the Baby Bigfoot’s Huckleberry Chocolate immediately--it was milk chocolate, so not suitable for Darker than Black--and then getting on the plane. Other than a bit of turbulence, the flight was uneventful, and we landed, took a Lyft back to our apartment, and here I am.

It was great to see everyone! I only wish that we could have spent a bit more time there, and had more time to talk to some of the people that I haven't seen in years. But for now, I'm about ready to go drink some tea and collapse.