Seattle Weekend (Day 2)

Well, the past couple of days have been quite a blur. I spent the afternoon of Friday the 13th exploring downtown with my brother-in-law, Jack. To begin with we made our way up and down the waterfront looking for someplace to have a late lunch. The place that we settled on a cozy looking fish place. At the window the young man took my order (a cod sandwich and a bowl of chowder) and asked if I would like that smoked or fried. I told him that fried sounded nice, to which he very politely told me that they don't make that there. Which of course begged the question, "then why did you ask?" but I just said that smoked would be fine and moved on. The cashier looked at my tray with my sandwich and bowl of soup and said, "sooooo, just the sandwich?" I said yes, and he charged me for only the sandwich.

After lunch we drove over to Fremont and tried out a few of the local pubs including Brouwer's Cafe, and the George & Dragon Pub. It seemed very fitting to knock back a few brews at a pub before heading to CenturyLink Field to watch the Seattle Sounders FC, play in the biggest soccer match of the MLS season. The Sounders had clawed their way from last place in their conference to second place, and would be playing the conference leading Real Salt Lake for sole possession of first place.

The stadium was abuzz with an electric atmosphere. The 53,000 fans in attendance were singing, and chanting, and excited. And the crowd stayed excited as the Sounders quickly went up in the match with two first half goals, and the contest was never really in doubt as they held Real Salt Lake scoreless, winning 2-0. I had never been to a professional soccer match, and I have to say that like many sports, soccer does not translate as well to television and the game is much more watchable and fun live, especially when one factors in the fan experience.

I had also never been in CenturyLink Field since it's construction. The only times that I had ever seen the Seahawks play was in the old Kingdome. CenturyLink is a a beautiful stadium both to look at and to be in. Getting 50,000+ in and around a venue can be a complex task, and this facility is well designed to do just that. Which brings me to the topic of concessions. While at the game Jack bought some garlic fries, which maybe should have been more accurately labeled as Garlic....(with fries). These things were the genuine article and I will have halitosis for the next month.
After the game, we met up with my friends Eric and Scott who were running late and had to miss the game because they were having their own misadventure on their drive from Idaho to Seattle. It was good to see them again and we spent the rest of the evening bar hopping around downtown.

Seattle Weekend (Day 1)

After all these years of traveling, one would think that I could be a little more well-adjusted when I fly. But I'm not. I remain a grumpy, irritable, fractious flyer. In fact I think I'm getting worse as I get older... no, I take that back, I was much worse when I used to smoke. I was an outright hostile flyer in those days, the same general peevishness mixed with nicotine deprivation was a potent combination.
At any rate, here I am, at Sea/Tac airport in Seattle, gnashing my teeth at everyone that I'm trapped in line behind, or have even a glancing contact with. My expectation of how much control people should have over their children has gone well past reasonable (unless one considers straight jackets and muzzles reasonable parenting devices). Added to my overall ill tempered flying mood is the fact that I'm exhausted from flying a red-eye. I left Anchorage at 1 am and couldn't sleep for anything on the flight, and landed at 4:45 am feeling like I lost a fist-fight.
And yet, as I sit down at Starbucks in Seattle for a coffee while I wait for my sister to pick me up I can feel the cloud starting to lift. I'm waking back up, the flight is over, and I've got a great week-end trip in front of me. I get to see some old friends, and my sister and brother in law and their little girl who is fantastic. And besides all of that, I had just needed to get out and stretch my legs a little. I have spent most of the summer around the Anchorage area, and the need to get out of town for a while was starting to weigh upon me. It feels good to get here and for another adventure to begin.