Trip Recap #2: A wedding? I love weddings!

Drinks all around!

We were initially lured to Seattle by the prospect of attending my dear friend KW's wedding. Since we were already buying the plane tickets, I figured we might as well make it into a vacation, so we did.

KW and I "met" on a small internet message board that was born as a spinoff of a spinoff from a HUGE internet forum site. There are about 25 of us, and we've grown really close over the past 2 years or so that we've been talking. Besides the lovely bride and me, five other board members attended the wedding. It was great to finally meet my friends in person. Even though most of us had never met face-to-face before, things were awkward or weird at all. We had a great time at the reception, a great time at dinner a few hours after the reception, and at a get-together brunch the next day. I've always been especially fond of gatherings and dinners where there is constant conversation and chatter and lots of laughter, and all three events fit the bill perfectly. If I could, I'd have those girls and all the others over for dinner like once a month. Too bad we're spread all over the continent and beyond...

Before I got to know the girls on my message board, I always thought "meeting on the internet" was a weird concept. Now I understand that talking online can just be another way to make great friends. Of course, you've gotta be careful. We didn't know each other's real names or addresses or phone numbers or any of that for six months to a year after we started chatting, and we only got that close because our message board is private and we don't have unknown people coming and going and reading our personal information.

While I can totally see how easy it would be to let internet-based activities and communication completely replace real-life person-to-person communication, I also feel like the internet has opened a lot of doors. Communities are being born on the internet that would be completely impossible in a "real world" setting. Of course, that also means that internet communication can be as nasty and petty as real-world communication, but it seems that's just human nature. I know I could survive if the internet suddenly went away forever, but I'm glad for the friends and the vast amounts of information and the convenience that the internet provides.


Anyhow, to stop digressing, the wedding was absolutely lovely. The bride was radiant, the groom was ecstatic, the pastor was hilarious, and everyone seemed to have a really good time.

MB and I and a few of the other "internet people" (as the groom called us before meeting us) stayed at a hotel near the wedding venue. It was a pretty cool hotel--kind of funky and posh all at once. The wallpaper in the hallway outside of our rooms, however, was downright naughty:


Go on, you can admit that you know what that looks like. Everyone else is thinking it, too.


The view from our room was pretty basic city (tall buildings, shops, sidewalks, traffic) and pretty basic Seattle (overcast and misty at least half the day). But there was one exception. Any time the clouds cleared off, we could see this:



Just in case you don't see what you're supposed to, here's a closeup:



It's Mount Rainier, which is about 100 miles away from the hotel. That is a damn big mountain.


On Sunday--our last night in Seattle until the following weekend--we found a great Thai place on University Way, which made MB very happy. I'd never had Thai food before, so I tried the Pad Thai. It was okay, but the texture of the noodles was kind of freaky-slimy. The chicken satay skewers, however, were DELICIOUS. If you're ever in the University of Washington neighborhood, go to the Thai-ger Room and have some.



Reading: Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Playing: a mix of songs by the Seatbelts, from Cowboy Bebop