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October 31, 2005

Recap Of Brotherly Visit

Yesterday I dropped my brother Matt off at the airport after his week-long visit to Seattle. My entire division had been given the week off for releasing the .NET Framework 2.0 (shameless plug), so I invited him to come hang with his big brother. This was his second visit to Seattle, so we forwent much of the tourist fare and just hung out.

I decided to rent a car for the week (for those of you who don't know, T and I have been living car-less for two months now. Seattle's bus system is good enough that we can get by without one, or use Flexcar for short trips), so we had mobility. I used to laugh at the people with tickets under their car's windshield wiper, parked directly under a No Parking sign. Well, Monday night I was one of those people. I had barely had the car for 3 hours when I got a ticket for parking in a zoned area without a permit.

Tuesday Matt and I walked downtown and checked out Pike Place Market. For a snack, I treated him to a Piroshky before we headed over to Queen Anne for Korean BBQ with friends. After eating more beef in one sitting than I had eaten all month, we stopped off at the Stumbling Monk for some good Belgian beer with friends.

Wednesday Matt and I jumped in the car and drove down to Portland, Oregon for a two-night stay at the fabulous Days Inn. Portland has a great downtown, and it's small enough to explore in a day. This surprised Matt who described it as fitting into one of the neighbourhoods of downtown Toronto. We grabbed drinks at Saucebox before crashing for the night.

Thursday we hit downtown again, grabbing a Greek lunch at the restaurant with the inflatable purple octopus on the roof. Our waiter also donned an octopus on his bald head, which we decided deserved a tip, regardless of the service (which, incidentally, was very good). We shopped at Powell's Veritable City Of Books (an entire city block of bookstore) and I picked up a winter coat for myself (to match my new hat... more on that in a future blog entry), taking full advantage of the lack of Oregonian sales tax. We shot some pool, grabbed some beers, and got soaked in the rain. All in all, a good Pacific Northwest night.

Friday we headed back home, making excellent time in our little Kia Rio (the Cadillac of rental cars). For those of you looking to rent a car in the near future, be warned that the Economy class car really lives up to its name. No power locks or windows. I even think this particular car was missing shocks, since we felt every pebble we ran over. I pulled over at one point, convinced we had blown a tire, only to realize it was only the crappily paved I-5 highway (ASIDE: for all you Washington voters, yet another reason to vote No on I-912!). That night the three of us had dinner at the Kingfish Cafe for some Southern soul food (Matt had their famous fried chicken, T had the pork chop and I had the catfish). We made a half-assed attempt at the dessert, which was an enormous piece of cake, the likes of which ye have never seen. We finished off the night with drinks at Cyclops in Belltown.

Saturday we got up late (big surprise). Matt and I walked to the International District for some sushi, but were disappointed that none of my favourite places were open for lunch, so we settled on dim sum. I showed Matt Pioneer Square and the harborfront before joining up with T. We caught a bus to the 74th St Alehouse before going to a Halloween party. We were the lame ones without costumes (having an out-of-town guest is a great excuse). It was a relatively early night, since Matt had an AM flight on Sunday.

I had a great time with Matt. Only in writing this blog post do I realize how much we saw and did (and ate). It was a great time and I look forward to more visits from family and friends.

23:27 | Misc Rambling , | Seattle

Comments

Posted by: hal at November 1, 2005 11:33 AM

Posted by: dav at November 2, 2005 6:23 AM