Seattle and back
April 5, 2008
I feel somewhat guilty that I’m sitting here drinking coffee and writing on my website while Hanne sits a few feet away and slaves over her schoolwork, but what can I say? I didn’t pay an ungodly amount of money to continue my education and instead I can enjoy my weekends. Hanne’s approaching finals, though, so it’s to be expected for the next month and a half that she won’t have time for much outside of schoolwork, work-work, and practice for the Dragon Boat races. Fortunately for me, we’re not in the middle of any TV shows and we finished up all the shows that we’d been watching. I have a feeling once her finals end, we’ll return to some of the classics and begin season 2 of “The Wire” and muddle our way through season 4 of “Nip/Tuck.” I informed her last night that we were going to move into “Doctor Who” territory for our requisite scfi show, and she seemed ameniable to that.
Last weekend was a hell of a lot of fun, involving a train ride, a fair amount of alcohol, and flying salmon. Hanne and I have been talking about going to Seattle for quite some time, and we finally just decided to go ahead and plan it. Originally, I was supposed to go up to Seattle with my boss so we could tour the Seattle office and talk to them about some of their software packages we’re looking at deploying, and then Hanne was going to join us. When that fell through, we went ahead and made the trip anyway, omitting the office stop.
We took the train up on Friday afternoon, and I gotta say, of all the times I’ve been to Seattle, the train is the way to go. I hate driving to Seattle. Once you hit Tacoma, traffic pretty much just…stops. It’s horrible. The train takes a little longer, but I’ll trade that and $30 so that I can move around, use a restroom, and pretty much not have to pay attention. I played my Nintendo DS all the way up, Hanne watched a movie and read, and before we knew it we were pulling into the Seattle station. We’d booked a hotel downtown that wasn’t too far away, so we just hoofed it.
Now, depending on who you ask, the Seattle trip had different goals in mind. Hanne was there for the touristy stuff and wanted to see the Space Needle, the Experience Music Project, and Pike Place Market. I was there because I had beer to seek out. I came up with this big intricate plan for Friday and Saturday, and I think it turned out well. First scheduled stop was Elysian Brewing up on the hill. I’ve had some of their beer in the past (their Avatar Jasmine IPA is particularly interesting), and I like making pilgrimmages to places who’s beer I enjoy. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the pub, though. Service was bad (I sat there with an empty glass for about 15 minutes while our waiter passed us by several times), food was expensive, they were out of a couple of beers on the menu (no Imperial IPA? Blasphemy!), and they didn’t even have any pint glasses in stock to add to my collection. Bollocks. Still, it was worth the hike up Pike.
Next stop was, predictably, a McMenamins. Seattle is home to three, and my goal was to get to all three and surpass my Dad’s McMenamins count. The Six Arms McMenamins on Pike was McMenamins #45 for me, and Hanne and I met a couple of people there for a few drinks and some grub. Service was, as McMenamins go, pretty standard. The whole trip and putting up with McMenamins service was worth it for my standard “Guess where I am?” call to my Dad. I had seen him for a few beers just a couple of days before, and it took all my strength not to tell him and rub it in his face beforehand. The call went something like this.
Me: “Guess where I am?”
Him: “A pub somewhere, I’d imagine.”
Me: “Yes. Guess.”
Him: “I don’t know.”
Me: “I’m at the Six Arms McMenamins.”
Him: “Six Arms? Where’s that?”
Me: “It’s on Pike Street.”
Him: “Pike Street? You’re in…Seattle?”
Me: “Yes.”
Him: “Well, that’s cheating.”
We bailed after a few rounds and headed to our next destination, Pike Brewing Company right in Pike Place Market. I’ve had several of their beers in the past, but my experience with their beer has been…mixed. I had a bottle of their Tandem Double Ale once upon a time and thought it was oh-so-delicious, but two subsequent bottles I purchased had gone bad and turned to vinegar, prompting a call to the place of purchase so they could return the bottles to their distributor. Now, bottles I’ve had since then have been fine, but never quite as good as that first bottle. Maybe it had aged? Regardless, my experience with the pub was similar: expectation based on previous experience clouded my judgement and it was a letdown. Again, don’t get me wrong–the beer was good, but Pike was very sports bar-ish, and that’s not typically the environment I like knocking back a few rounds. Plus, seriously? An $18 Reuben on the menu? Shenanigans. I’ll pay $10 for a good sandwich in an upscale pub, but that was ridiculous.
But yeah, the beer was good.
Saturday morning Hanne and I had a ridiculously expensive breakfast at the restaurant of the hotel next door (blueberry French toast for me, granola for Hanne) and then set out for Seattle Center, where we wandered around underneath the Space Needle and surrounding attractions. It was about 11:15 when we’d crossed the plaza, so we found ourselves migrating towards the Queen Anne McMenamins that’s a block north of Seattle Center. A glass of beer and a call to Portland later, we were on our way to catch a bus up to the Freemont district to visit the third McMenamins.
I thought I had our bus route all planned out, but it turned out that we got off the bus too late and had to trek a half mile or so to the McMenamins. Needless to say, we got some excellent use out of the built-in Google Maps feature of my iPhone last weekend, as well and the web browsing feature to look up bus schedules. The unscheduled detour and late bus disembarking turned out to be unintentionally good fortune, as on our walk to the Dad Watson’s McMenamins we passed the Freemont Troll under the Freemont Bridge, which I’ve seen in pictures and other media before, but never in person. What luck!
And thus ended the great McMenamins voyage of 2008. Well, the first at least–still gotta hit Eugene and Roseburg. My count stands at 47 of the 55 McMenamins visited, which is within just a couple of my Dad’s count, though neither of us are entirely certain in which direction.
The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around Pike Place Market, gorging on food, watching fish be thrown, marveling at the available produce and food, and pretty much killing time until we were picked up by some friends of ours who were also in Seattle that weekend. As it turned out, a bunch of Hanne’s friends from school were all up there, so we had people we knew and a place to crash at our disposal. We didn’t really crash per se, though. The father of one of Hanne’s friends lives right on Lake Washington, so we had a huge house, lots of wine and beer, and a Dungeness crab dinner all set up for us. I’m not a seafood eater in general, and my past experiences with crab in particular have been mixed, but I felt that I probably wasn’t going to encounter a similar dinner at any point in the near future where live crabs are tossed in boiling broth anytime soon, so despite being mostly full from our journey through Pike Place Market, I indulged in a few crab legs and some of the rest of the spread. I didn’t dislike it, so that’s a start. I wasn’t bowled over like some of the other guests were, but as I told the host, not disliking the crab is a big thing for me.
Sunday was a mellow day. Hanne and I went back into Seattle with two of our friends and went through Pike Place market (again, for us), but we thought ahead and picked up stuff for a special dinner. On the menu was four peppercorn pasta from the pasta vendor, fresh cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, pancetta, and olive oil that cost way the hell too much for my cherry tomato pasta sauce. We planned on making all that Sunday night when we got back, but we got back a bit too late for that.
Our last stops in Seattle were the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame that share the same building. I really enjoyed the EMP, but I’d want to go back and spend some time there when it’s not so busy. The SciFi Museum was…underwhelming. I might have been a bit jaded, as I was tired from so much walking and I wanted to go home, but our friends were (rightfully, I might add) taking their sweet time. Hanne and I aren’t really museum people, and we tend to skim exhibits. Fortunately for both of us, our friends drive fast, and we were home in less than two and a half hours, which just might have been a new land speed record.
Our special all-Pike dinner was made on Monday night, and thus ended our trip to Seattle.
I’ve been very tired this week, and I’m not sure why. I took the day off on Thursday I was so tired, plus, my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. A wiser person might think that sounds like a thinly veiled excuse for a hangover, and while it was true I’d had a few beers the night before when I’d been out at Hopworks, I had felt like that the previous night, and so I knew that couldn’t be it.
This weekend got off to an excellent start, and I’m hoping it finishes just as strongly. Last night was a banquet for the Environmental Law Review people at the Portland City Grill, and so I accompanied Hanne as her “plus one.” We knew it was just going to be appetizers, though, so we stopped by Saucebox before we arrived and had a couple of drinks and some snacks. The big surprise of the evening was that of all the people working on Law Review, Hanne was dubbed “Sourcechecker of the Year” by the managing editors. She got a little certificate, a tiara, and a bag of chocolate. That’s my girl.
Today will be made up of a trip to the homebrew shop to buy ingredients for two batches of beer–one today, one tomorrow–then a trip to the liquor store, then brewing a batch of overly hoppy beer (which isn’t something I’d ever do, you know), then a quick climb at the Rock Gym, then we’re headed over to a friend of mine’s house for cocktails, conversation, and video games. There’s a strong chance that last part will be just my friend and I, but Hanne can entertain herself with his wife while they laugh at us making asses of ourselves as we drink and play games. Tomorrow will be another brew and hopefully a nice meal here at home.
Hanne will be studying pretty much the whole time, but I think that’s a nice way to round out a weekend that began with Hanne’s compatriots dubbing her the most diligent person on the staff of Law Review.
Off to plan my brews.
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