W
hat do you do when you are faced with having to do something that is absolutely necessary, and potentially…really kind of a pain? You find some way to make it fun.
You may have picked up that there is a lot of red tape involved in the fact that Amras is from the states and he’s in the process of moving to Canada. Immigration is…not the most fun process. It’s not necessarily complicated but not fun. The last thing we had to do in this whole process was two medical exams…which had to be done on the American side of the border. There’s only one option for that – and that’s Seattle.
Now, in the winter, the Clipper ferry only runs twice a day – so no matter what you do, if you want to go to Seattle in December, you’re staying overnight.
Thankfully, we were able to book both appointments in the early morning/late afternoon. And that left most of the afternoon to do what we wanted (though granted, it was a business trip, so we were still on a schedule). Well, Amras and I are old hands and fitting in a lot into a few hours! First on the list? Jimmi Hendrix’s footprints on the walk of fame outside of Nordstrom’s. Originally we really wanted to do a lot more Hendrix stops, but they’re far flung and the weather was not exactly in our favour. So instead, it was a lot window of shopping (okay, for me the giant bookstore ended up being a little bit more than window shopping), and a wet evening stroll through Pike Place Market. There is something about Pike Place Market that always feels…even more out of town.
Amras has a gift for finding the perfect resteraunt, I have no idea how he does it, he just does. All he does is ask me what kind of food I want, and then a few hours later we are sitting somewhere…perfect. This time it was Italian (okay, whenever I get to choose the menu it’s always Italian…it’s a weakness); and the place he found? The tables were old library tables! And the food was amazing. It was still pouring rain out, but that only made the whole thing more cozy. Especially since for the first little while we were the only ones there.
Then there was the Christmas gift from my parents: tickets to Mrs Doubtfire : The Musical. I know, it’s an odd thing to make a full-blown show of. But it worked. Moments of tears, moments of hilarity, moments of “ouch, I can kind of relate to that”…and the joy of introducing Amras to the theatre where I saw my very very first life show a very long time ago (much longer ago than I care to admit). Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever.
There was just one small hitch…when we had headed to the theatre it had been raining but not too hard. When we left the theatre? Full blown west coast deluge. It was like something out of a movie, you almost couldn’t see your hand in front of your face! Sometimes I forget just how much it rains on the west coast in December! Welcome to a west coast Christmas!
So, in the end, all the business got done (with great success), and we got a whirlwind vacation which I think we needed a little bit more than we realized…
Not a bad way to spend a few days…