Seattle

(This is just a warning, this post will be long...because it is serving as a journal entry too...I won't feel bad if you want to skip it, BUT it will be rewarding should you choose to stick it out, I promise)

Ok, so for those of you who didn't know we went to Seattle last week so Nathan could audition for the Navy. (A lot of you might not have known since I was afraid to say we were leaving for a few days for fear of some blog stalker breaking in to our house while we were gone...paranoid, I know) We flew out Sunday morning and flew back Tuesday late afternoon, so it wasn't too terribly long, but it was great to just get away for a bit and get a little very much needed R&R.

If you haven't read the little blurb about our flight experience, go here to get the laugh first, then come back. After we flew in Sunday we decided to head over to the hotel and check-in, take a shower and a nap and then head back into the city to see some sights. Only when we got to the hotel we were told, by a not-so-friendly front desk lady, that we had to wait until 3 to check in and no, there was NO WAY she could check us in early. It was 12 by this time...most places will let you check in early as long as their is a room ready. So we decided to swing by the commissary and pick up a few food items, check out the Nex and then take a drive up to see the area North of the base.

Here's a shot just off the side of the road. I was just amazed how much water was everywhere...and how green everything was.

Here's our rental car - and my awesome hubby.

Monday we got up and went into Tacoma to go to the zoo. The weather held out for us and we were able to see all the animals and not get soaked...and I got to use my spiffy camera and not be worried that the rain would ruin it. This (or these) is the the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It was weird because you only had to pay a toll one way.

Here is Nathan at the entrance to the zoo. Can you believe this was the first time he's been to the zoo, EVER?

Here's me...gotta watch out for those hippos.

After the zoo we went back to the base to have Nathan's audition. It went ok. Not as good as we had hoped. After Nathan was done playing for the audition he had a 'de-briefing'. The Chief gave him some pointers, and then said he'd score between a 2.8 and 2.9 (on a 4.0 scale). I was DEVASTATED. I remembered hearing that Nathan needed to score better than his outgoing score from the school of music (he scored a 3.0 then...which is really good). He is playing MUCH better horn than he was then, so the score surprised me. We went back to the hotel so Nathan could change out of his nice clothes. We had planned on going into Seattle that night but after the bummer news all I wanted to do was sit and cry. All I could think about what 'what do we do now?'. Nathan talked me into going out, and I'm glad he did. Afterall, we were 'on vacation' and we shouldn't let the audition ruin it for us. (Today is Monday, a week after the audition and we still haven't heard back. Hopefully we'll hear soon. Nathan's brother told us he heard we only had to have a score good enough to graduate from the school, which is 2.75 I believe. BUT the Navy is chuck full of horn players, so it will all depend on how bad they want him as a sound guy...the not knowing is KILLING me!)

We got directions to the ferry from one of the guys in the band and then took the ferry over to Seattle to check out Pike's Place and the Space Needle. Here's a shot of Seattle from the ferry when we were about half way across the Puget Sound.

Here's a shot of us on the Space Needle, I know you can't see anything else...but my arm is only so long.
Here's the funny part of the night, well couple funny parts. So we got into town and the ferry drops you off right downtown. I consulted my handy map and saw that Pike's Place was only 8 blocks or so away so we decided to walk. It was dark and I am a bit of a scardey cat so I started to get weirded out when a couple creepy guys passed us. We got to Pike's Place Market, saw that it was closed and decided to head up to the Needle. We started walking, and thought we would grab a cab along the way. Nathan's brother had been trying to call him for a while, and despite my urgings, Nathan called him back as we were walking. (I had read somewhere online that distracted people, a.k.a. people on cell phones, make better targets for muggings, rapes, etc) I am holding on to his arm with a death grip and he tells his brother "Holly's afraid someone is going to rob us"...just as someone was walking past us. I rip my hand out of his and tell him it isn't funny. He hangs up with his brother and we have a little tiff on the street...then I hail a cab, because Nathan refused to do so...and we rode to the Space Needle. By the time we got to the Needle, our tiff was solved. Nathan has just learned to deal with my paranoia, and I deal with his lack of paranoia. We lucked out because the night was incredibly clear, we could see all of Seattle and most of the Puget Sound from the observation deck.

We had to make it back to the ferry landing in too short of a time to walk (Phew!) so we got another cab. Now, this part of the story is funnier in person when I can do the voices, so if you want to amuse yourself, when the cabbie talks do a voice just like Apu on the Simpsons and it will be like you were there. We get in the cab and he starts to fiddle with his meter and can't get it to start (this should have been our FIRST red Flag). After about 2 minutes he gets it working, he then asks us "Where we you like to go?" We tell him we need to catch the Bainbridge Ferry, at Pier 52. "66?" he asks, no, 52. "I do not know where that is. Can you please show me on a map where you would like to go?". I pull out my handy map and show him where we are and where we need to be. "Well, I do not know where that is. Let me go ask my...my...friend." He gets out of the cab and walks to another cab just behind us. Nathan is getting ticked because the meter is running, and I am thinking 'don't anger the cabby who probably has a gun under his seat'. He comes back, "Ok, my friend told me where to go." Nathan asks him if he's going to charge us for that time. I hold my breath and wait for gun shots. "Yes, um no, I will take off one dollar". We pull out and make our way towards the ferry. "I drive a school bus" he says while taking {{BOTH}} hands off the wheel to fetch his wallet "I only do this part time to earn extra money. My wife is an accountant" he hands me the id. I look at it and show Nathan, who thinks I am crazy for talking with this man. I am just thinking 'be polite and he won't take us to a back parking lot and murder us'. "We move here from Utopia." ..?.. "Do you know where that is? Africa." Hmm. "We move here for our kids. For better education." That's nice, I say, education is important. Meanwhile as we're driving his GPS is telling him to turn other ways than the way we're going, and after every missed turn it says 'recalibrating'. He must sense our discomfort because he reaches across the front seat where the GPS has been thrown uncerimouniously on the passenger seat and holds it up for us to see. "I do not use it. I would get in an accident." Ya, that would be the reason. "I do not know how to work it. I will have my daughter teach me how to use it. She is very smart." He sees Pier 66 above and this sparks something in his memory. "Pier 66, right?" Nope. "Pier 66 nice. Restaurant, bar." Still nope. 52 I tell him, keep going. As I see the familiar landing I encourage him to stop and let us out. We throw a ten over the seat and get out quick. We started laughing and laughed about our cabbie the whole ferry trip back.

The next morning we got up early and headed out to see a few things before our flight. We drove into the city and I, being the fabulous navigator that I am, found the route and parking to get us to Pike's Place and the Space Needle.

Here we are at Pike's Place with one of the fish-thrower dudes.

Here is Nathan enjoying our awesome clam chowder on top of the Space Needle. This day the weather turned yucky...typical Seattle weather. We were lucky to have two days of great weather. I wanted to take a picture of us in the daytime up there, but it was raining and I didn't want to get my camera wet.

After we went to the Space Needle we headed across Seattle Center and went to the Experience Music Project. It is REALLY awesome. They have all these neat exhibits on different musicians and some music history stuff. They even have a sound lab where you can learn to play drums, guitar and keyboard. You can even mess around with a mixing board or sing to a music track. This statue is incredible. It is all guitars, I put the pic of us in to show just how tall it is.

Here's the rest - well, most of the rest. It is about 10 feet higher than what shows up in this frame.

If you want to see more pics, I'll be posting some of the arsty ones on my photo blog later today.