As I mentioned previously, my friend Jenny came to visit in May. Jenny is one of my oldest friends. I realized recently that she and I have been friends for 20 years this summer. Somehow we've managed to stay friends through some pretty rough times and over great distances (she lives in Tennessee). She flew in on a Wednesday night (which quickly turned into Thursday morning) and stayed until Monday morning. I took both Thursday and Friday off and did my best to give her a nice overview of Seattle while she was here. We did a number of fun and touristy things, some of which I had not done before.
On the first day, we slept in a bit and then had lunch at
Two Tartes because I had a Living Social deal there. We both had sandwiches and split a pastry, all of which was quite tasty. Then we made our way to Fremont for the
Theo Chocolate factory tour. For those of you who do not know, Theo Chocolate makes some of the best chocolate on the planet. And their factory tour is quite educational and opened my eyes to the variety of flavors that can be found in chocolate the first time I took it. You also get to eat quite a bit of chocolate while you're there, which is an added bonus. After the factory tour, we met Margo and another of our high school friends, Cate, for dinner at
Tutta Bella in Columbia City. It was fun to see Cate and eat delicious pizza. Here's a picture of the three of us together in front of Tutta Bella.
That's Cate in the middle and Jenny on the right. After dinner, we also hit Saltwater State Park and did a little birdwatching. Mostly we saw Surf Scoters and Buffleheads while I talked excitedly about birds to Jenny. I do a lot of excited talking about birds these days. Here's an action shot of me talking about birds while Jenny listens patiently:
On to day two. On day two, we started out at Pike Place Market. I took Jenny to
Piroshky Piroshky for lunch. This is always one of my favorite places for lunch or a snack. We also went to the original Starbucks store (Jenny has a friend who is obsessed with Starbucks) and got a monster cookie at Cinnamon Works. Here is a picture of the special official golden column in the Starbucks store that tells you that it is, in fact, the first Starbucks store.
We had to wait in line a ridiculously long time to get into the darned Starbucks store. I don't really understand the attraction myself, but I try to accommodate. Then it was on to the Space Needle, which I have not visited before. That also required a lot of waiting in line, as well as a number of terrible attempts at self-portraits on the way there, this being the worst:
The Space Needle was kind of cool, but really expensive. I don't know that I would do it again, unless I had an out-of-town guest that felt really strongly about going. It was almost 20 bucks. Luckily we went on a really clear day (one of depressingly few that we've had this year), and the views were pretty incredible:
After the Space Needle, we met Margo for an early dinner and drinks at
Lunchbox Laboratory. It was pretty delicious, and they serve mixed drinks with Tang as an ingredient. Then it was home to recover from the day.
On day 3, we met another high school friend, Morgan, and his girlfriend Ryan for the
Underground Tour, which I had always wanted to do. It was pretty awesome, and a great lesson in Seattle history to boot.
The tour guide was fun, and I always love hanging out with Morgan. Here's a picture of our little party in front of the totem pole and the pergola in Pioneer Square (minus Margo, who is behind the camera):
After the Underground Tour and lunch at Tat's, we rode the lightrail back to Tukwila and then went to
Kubota Garden. Kubota is one of my favorite places in Seattle, and it was fun to show it off to Jenny. One of the best things about it is that it's free. It also has so many little nooks and crannies and bridges and ponds. Here's a picture of Jenny and Margo on one of my favorite bridges there:
That was pretty much the end of the third day. On day four, we took the ferry over the Bainbridge Island to have lunch with another friend from high school, Brandi. Neither of us had seen Brandi in 16 years, which is a long time. It was really lovely to see her and catch up. She's just as sweet as she ever was. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures from that day, which was Jenny's last day. Then we headed home and lazed in the living room and watched The Invention of Lying. Jenny left the next morning and life went back to it's usual routine.
It was fun to see Jenny and to be able to do some fun things that I had been wanting to do for a while. It was also fun to have the impetus to see the other folks from high school that live in the area. I didn't even know Brandi lived in the area until Jenny was getting ready for the trip.
Just today, I got the sweetest thank you gift in the mail from Jenny. It was a beautiful picture book from Shutterfly with pictures of her trip and narration about the trip. It's fun to have such a tangible reminder of the trip, and to be able to look back at it and be reminded of all of the fun things we did. Thanks, Jenny!
