This past weekend I attended Justin's wedding in Seattle! I was also honored to be invited as a groomsman. I hadn't seen Justin since I visited him and Chris in Kansas City (Justin was living in Wichita at the time), so it had certainly been a while. But like all great, long-lasting friendships, even time is not enough to separate the bond!
I arrived in Seattle on a direct flight from Tucson (thank goodness for Alaska Air!) on Thursday night, getting in around 6pm. Justin picked me up at the airport and dropped me off at the Quality Inn near downtown Seattle, a good location in my opinion if you want to walk to restaurants and bars at night or do some jogging around the city and waterfront. Hilariously, I was the only one to take advantage of his wedding rate at the hotel. Apparently everyone else that was attending the wedding had friends or family in Seattle that they were staying with.
On Thursday night, I ventured alone into Belltown, a popular area for Seattle nightlife. One of the perks of traveling alone is that you get to be super picky with the restaurants you want to eat at and don't have to worry if anyone else would enjoy them as much as you would. So on Thursday night, I felt like treating myself to a legit meal. I ended up eating at The Grill at Impanema, which featured all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbecue. If you've never had, the servers bring up huge pieces of meat and carve it onto your plate and you just keep eating until you don't want anymore. :) After dinner, Chris (who lives in Seattle now), Justin, and Justin's fiancé Mary joined me for drinks at the Rabbit Hole. This was my first time meeting Mary and she was very cool, complimenting Justin's personality very well!
At the end of the night, I had to get me a Seattle Dog. This was my third time visiting Seattle, so I am no stranger to the area. I LOVE the Seattle Dog and will actually put cream cheese on my hot dogs when I'm home in Tucson. I was making sure to get the authentic thing as much as possible while I was in Seattle and got 3 Seattle Dogs while I was there! :)
On Friday, Chris picked me up and took me to Paseo for lunch to grab a famous Caribbean Roast sandwich. It's a pork sandwich that he feels you can't really get anywhere else in the world (and Chris travels more than I do!). It was quite delicious and very messy. I joked that Chris was courting me, taking the sandwiches to go and eating them at a park along the beach. How romantic...until I threw a quarter in the sand hoping the old guy with the metal detector would find it LOL. However, the old guy ended up stopping to break for lunch and I didn't feel like waiting for him to finish to see if he'd find my gift for him.
After lunch, Chris took me to the 2nd most touristy place in Seattle: the harbor Locks. This is where they keep the freshwater from mixing with the seawater. There was also a fish ladder where you can see a bunch of salmon swimming. Apparently they do a lot of mating here.
The Locks were really close to "The Canal" where Justin and Mary's wedding would be held and the rehearsal was that afternoon. It only took us 40 minutes to practice our roles and afterwards we all met up for dinner at the Italian restaurant Pasta Freska. For dinner they ran out plates to you every so often, so you were literally wined and dined by just sitting there. And now for the sole embarrassing part of this weekend... A girl that worked there would also sing Italian opera to all the tables. She had an amazing voice and the bride and groom requested "A Whole New World" from Disney's Aladdin, but she would not do it solo since there is both a male and female part in the duet. No one wanted to step up and sing Aladdin's part, but here I was all drunk and joking, how hard could it be, shouting out the beginning "I can show you the world..." They all volunteered me to do it and after much hesitation, I complied, seeing as it was for the bride and groom. Obviously I'm not a great singer but I think I hit the keys alright, and then the girl blew everyone away during Jasmine's part. It was fun singing the duet and I got a lot of props for having the balls to do it.
Saturday was a lonely day for me. I really only knew Justin and Chris at this wedding and they were both busy doing their own thing that day. I started my day off by having lunch at Green Leaf in Belltown, a Vietnamese restaurant with a tasty Spicy Beef Noodles Soup bowl. I grabbed some hyped up Top Not doughnuts and while they are huge and good quality, I didn't go crazy over them. I had gotten 6 and only ate 4 on the weekend. In the afternoon I went jogging around Seattle, figuring it would be my only chance on this 4-day weekend to get some exercise in. I jogged through downtown and into Olympic Sculpture park, then along the waterfront and into Myrtle Edwards park. Eventually I found myself in the Seattle Center, the top tourist location in Seattle where the Space Needle is. There was a beerfest going on at the time and I thought about venturing inside, but going to a beerfest alone is not that fun. I toured the area a little more and eventually headed back to the hotel to shower. The next plan was to have some seafood at Taylor Shellfish Farms, but I felt this place was overrated; good but not at all filling. I ended up in Capitol Hill that night, which is a pretty happening area for nightlife. I barhopped a little, getting beers at a few different bars, but drinking at a bar alone is very boring. I found a Buckhunter game at the last place I stopped, had two Seattle Dogs since dinner wasn't filling, and then left around 11pm. And hence why friendseeing will always be superior to sightseeing in my opinion! What good are all these experiences if you have no one to share them with?
The wedding was on Sunday, so while Saturday had left me wanting to leave Seattle, the best part of the trip was still to come! I met up with Chris for lunch at Lunchbox Laboratory, where Justin had mentioned the Dork sandwich (Duck + Pork = Dork). It sounded good, but I didn't really like the real thing. It's just duck meat and pork meat ground up together into a burger patty. It was kind of disappointing, but maybe we can just blame it on the hype.
The wedding was at 5pm, but Chris and I got to The Canal at 2:30pm to take pictures around the railroad tracks and gardens with the rest of the wedding party. The ceremony was short and concise, lasting only 10 minutes and followed by cocktail hour, dinner, and dancing!
And so concluded my trip to Seattle for Justin and Mary's wedding! I'm really honored that Justin invited me to be a groomsman for his wedding and it was great to see both him and Chris, friends from college that I have not seen in so long but have shared so many memories with. 'Til next time, although hopefully I am done traveling to Seattle for a while!
