Although my sleep patterns and wrist watch are apparently still stuck in Seattle time (and my heart at Pike Place…sigh), Matt and I arrived back on the East Coast in the wee hours on Tuesday morning last week! (we are now on a family vacation in Kiawah, SC – I know, what a life!)

In short, Seattle was absolutely awesome, just as I expected it to be since my last trip out there in 2010. The weather was more than pleasant (only rained a bit), the city was a buzz with festivities and Dave’s apartment, friends and general lifestyle are unreal. And oh yea, the run was pretty amazing, too. :)

In long, here are some details of the trip. Well, a lot of details…so much so that for everyone’s sake, I will break it up into three posts! Pre-run, run and post-run. I could also do a series on pre-Pike Place, Pike Place and post-Pike Place, but I’ll try to keep the few readers that I’ve accumulated so far.

Okay, here goes: I arrived on Wednesday, a couple days ahead of Matt because he had to stay for work. Although I had been to Seattle before, it was cold and “misty” – not rainy – pretty much the entire time during that first trip. This time, Seattle greeted me with warm sunshine and a refreshing breeze. Dave scooped me up from the airport and gave me a quick tour of his new ‘hood, as he lived in a different neighborhood before. He now lives in South Lake Union, which is very, very cool. He is just a mile away from the Space Needle, a mile away from the lake and a mile away from one of my favorite places on earth – Pike Place Market! I was itching to get down there as soon as I stepped off of the plane, but allowed Dave and his friend/roommate Giancarlo to take me out to the lake for dinner and drinks on Wednesday night.

On Thursday, Dave took me to Alki Beach, which is a beach…in the middle of Seattle! It was so funny – one minute we’re driving through hills of lush trees and the next we’re cruising through a beach town, complete with sand, waves, tiki bars…and fake gangster rappers shooting a rap video on the sidewalk. Plus, a view of the mountains on the horizon. It was awesome!

The day turned even awesomer (yep that is a word) when we sat down to lunch and riiiiight when Dave was about to order, a bird pooped on his back. Like literally, the waitress asked, “And anything to eat for you sir?” and Dave looked up and declared, “I think a bird just shit on me!” I was laughing so hard it sounded like I was sobbing. (I must note that this was Dave’s third – count it- THIRD time being pooped on by a bird! We keep telling him it is good luck…I don’t think he is buying it anymore.)

After Dave changed clothes in his car and after we ate lunch and I stopped laughing/sobbing, we went back to his apartment to get ready for his softball game in Greenlake park. I got to meet a bunch of his friends and bond with the girlfriends/friends on the bench over JTT and 90s boy bands. After the game, we celebrated the team’s 5th straight loss (and us girls’ ability to name all actors of Tool Time without Wikipedia. Okay, we needed help with Brad. But seriously – Zachary Ty Bryant?) at a Mexican restaurant down the street from the park. Two days before the race – carb-o-load time, baby!

On Friday morning Dave had to go into work for a bit, so I got up, got dressed and raced out the front door to spend some quality time with Pike Place. It was a rainy morning, but nothing could come between me and that farmers market. Plus, it needed to rain to make me fully aware that I was in Seattle, walking to Pike Place. I may or may not have pretended that it was my real life all morning. (Sorry Ma…it could be a possibility some day!)

Within two minutes of being at the market, I spent 15 dollars. I am the vendor’s dream girl…starry eyed, gleeful and a tad bit emotional over rows and rows of fresh fruit, vegetables, honey, pasta, gorgeous peonies and endless samples of olive oil, smoked almonds and chocolate covered cherries. I want to bring a sleeping bag and stay there forever. No joke.

I was so enamored that I barely took any pictures. I wanted to fully enjoy my time there and, well, I needed both hands for samples.

However, on this particular Friday I couldn’t stay forever (only two hours…bah!) because Matt was flying in at 11 a.m. So after walking up and down and up and down and…wait, once more time up and down the market corridors, I bid the market farewell with one b-e-a-utiful peony (my favorite) and then headed to the original Starbucks for a cup o’ joe. (Where, as you can see, they had a bit of a bought time spelling “Anne Marie.” The girl told me she hadn’t had her coffee yet that day. Little ironic!)

Once we picked Matt up from the airport, we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to the Rock n Roll Expo to pick up our race packets and grab every free sample in sight.

We didn’t do too much on Friday, as the big race was the next day and we wanted to save the energy – and beer drinking – until after the race. Instead, we went to the grocery store to prepare for the post-race par-tay…which was to include crafty jell-o shots!  Dave and I made two trays of “watermelon” and “pink lemonade” jell-o slices (more on those in a later post) and I almost had to go to the hospital with a watermelon-jell-o-shot-cutting stab wound.

And with that, I’ll end this post. (No need to explain the fact that I am clumsy and shouldn’t be gutting limes with a J.A. Henckels knife at 10 p.m. Matt asked me if I wanted to go play with fire next, after I was done with the knives.)

 

Next post: da run!