Ok let's see if I can give a comprehensive but brief overview of my time in Seattle.
Wednesday: long time traveling. got to the airport to discover my luggage didn't make it. I was not happy. Met up with Chris and we went to his condo in Ballard where I've been staying. Got a call from the airline saying they had my luggage and would deliver it sometime that night. Around 3 am the luggage arrived.
Thursday: Chris had to work so I spent the morning in a coffeeshop drinking coffee and eating a cupcake. Met Chris for lunch, then wandered around the city all afternoon. Stopped by Elliott Bay Book Co, which is about the best book store in the world. Bought the 33 1/3 book of Achtung Baby cause I'm a nerd. Went to Pike Place Market, bought coffee at the original Starbucks (I had a gift card) Found Chris, had dinner, watched the Illini lose and break my heart for about the 5000th time, then went to see U23D, which was fantastic. All the money and time spent on developing 3d movies is finally worth it.
Friday: Chris took the day off, so we were gonna go to the mountains, but they were all getting snow so we couldn't drive there. We went to a waterfall (can't remember the name), then came back to Ballard, ate at Smokin Pete's BBQ (really good), then went to the theater in Ballard to see Juno. I had seen it (and am a big fan) but Chris had not. After that we went to Conor Byrne's for bluegrass night, which ended up being very enjoyable.
Saturday: Woke up late, watched some college basketball and hockey (Chris is a fan) then went to Easy Street Records for an in-store performance by Kimya Dawson, better known as the singer in the Moldy Peaches, the group responsible for most of the Juno soundtrack. It's a really cool record store with a great history of in-store shows (Pearl Jam recently did one there). Kimya was pretty cool. She played basically a full set. It was wierd though cause there were families and little kids there who were expecting the Juno soundtrack and she sang a lot of stuff that wasn't family appropriate. After that we went and picked up Chris's fiancee Melissa and went to Assimba ethiopian restaurant to meet up with Kerry, Ryan and Rachel who I'm going to Africa with, and afterwards hung out at the Red Door in Freemont. It was a great night. We all had a lot of fun getting to know each other. I think we we're all anxious to talk to each other cause we've known each other through facebook for so long but hadn't met face to face. We had a lot of good conversation about the next two years and it was really encouraging in a lot of ways.
Sunday: Chris and I went to the Ballard Sunday market. It's a small market with a strong focus on organic food. There was a lot of good stuff that I couldn't afford but we sampled. After that my friend Luke who is doing grad school in Bellingham came into town. We went to the original REI downtown which is massive. I bought a couple of water bottles on clearance. From there we headed to the Ballard campus of the Mars Hill Seattle Church for their 4:30 service. It was really good. Mark Driscoll is an excellent preacher. Then we went to dinner at Market Street grill where I had an excellent ribeye. We came back to Chris's and watched the DVD of the new Sigur Ros documentary Heima, which is absolutely beautiful.
Tomorrow morning I fly out. This has been such a good week. It's been a nice change of pace from working and from the last 5 months where I barely left Central Illinois. I definitely feel like I didn't waste time. I saw a lot and got to see a lot of people as well. It's been really good to hang out with Chris and to get to know his fiancee a little better since I'll miss their wedding in Sept. But now I have to go home cause I have work to do.