"They made up their minds, and they started packing. They left before the sun came up that daaay."
Well, the sun had been up for about five hours when Christopher and I picked up Jon at his apartment. After two stops we headed west to the land of good friends, adorable babies, and cool cities having good food, better architecture and crazy traffic.... and adorable babies.
We listened to Tom Lehrer and Jonathan Coulton on the drive west, and when we got close enough to Seattle we tuned into KEXP, which happened to be playing Michael Frante live at Sonic Boom Records.
I'd brought along yarn and a crochet hook, intending to make a gift for the world's most adorable baby. I made a hat with little ear flaps and pestered Jon and Christopher from the back seat to tell me if they thought it would fit her or not.
We hurried through rush hour traffic hoping against hope that we'd make the Utilikilts store in time...and we did....but it had moved. This was disappointing, but we salved our souls with some really good Greek food in Pioneer Square. I'd never had babaganoush before. (They also mispelled spanakopita as "spanapikota" on one of their menus)
We pressed onward to Vancouver. It was strange going from freeway on the US side to what appeared to be a back alley in a residential area on the Canadian side. We passed a really cool-looking Buddhist temple shining in the darkness, decorated with what looked like Christmas lights. We had no problem finding my cousin's apartment in Kerrisdale. Inside Jon commented on the strangeness of old ornate mirrors and shelves paired with modern looking light fixtures. Her husband was out and the world's most adorable baby was already asleep in her crib. We enjoyed tea and sat and chatted until quite late.
The next morning we went on a walking tour of Kerrisdale. Annika (aka the world's most adorable child) wore the little hat I'd made and a dignified English lady in the elevator even commented on Annika and her cute little hat.
We went to a really neat little thrift store and a Please Mum store. Then we went back, ate delicious leftovers and took a driving tour of downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park and drove past Vancouver's version of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. We went to Ikea and then we were off again to Bellingham. On the way through the border the border patrol officer checked our ID's, asked our business in Canada and when we said we'd been visiting a friend he said "And how is it you came to have a friend in Canada?"
Right. So I guess Americans and Canadians don't mingle. It must be the vast language barrier between us.
In Bellingham we met Tiffany at Boundary Bay brewing company and had wonderful food and terrific beer. I've wanted to go to Boundary Bay ever since my first trip to Bellingham, when I couldn't go because I was only 20. After supper we went to our hostess's new digs where we dropped off our stuff and then went out for gelato. We pondered why on earth they don't serve the gelato in earth friendly cups made of corn plastic or paper. The cups they use are adorable, but aren't recycleable in Bellingham. We went to see where Tiffany works, a really really cool organic market and natural foods store. Much better than Huckleberry's even. Later we went to Nimbus for drinks.
We crashed at her place, and went out for bagels and coffee the next morning. The lines at Old Town where we intended to go, were too long. Then we hoofed it (hmm..."wheeled it?") back to Seattle where we saw the Dead Sea Scrolls, wandered a bit in the Pacific Science center and took many photos around Seattle Center. We were mistaken for bums while lying on the ground photographing the opera house.
Then we went to the pier, saw the preserved man and Mexican jumping beans at Ye Olde Curiousity Shoppe, ate at Ivars, and went back to Spokane.
I'll post the rest later, but for now you can also read of our adventures here.