My baby is here! ...oh yeah, and some trip pics too.

It's here! It's really here! *dances around in a fit of joy and happiness* My new MacBook Pro arrived this afternoon, and.... I. Adore. It. I've only been playing with it for a couple hours and already I'm impressed. It's so pretty. And fast. And smart. And has a nice big screen. I haven't actually seen what my blog layout really looks like in months (i.e. April), and I forgot how much I liked it! lol. I'm beyond excited to see what sorts of fun and exciting things I can do with new baby. I still have to get used to it a bit, but I think it's going to be an easy transition. I'm actually kinda stoked that I have a webcam again, because maybe I can do a vlog every once and a while now too. :) And wouldn't that be fun?

But to christen my laptop, I'm going to do post about our first day in Seattle. Cause you know, that's kinda the most exciting thing I've done lately.

So... just to give you guys some background. My friend (Moe) and her hubby (Dennis) needed to go to the Russian consulate to renew Dennis' passport. Dennis' Grandma is visiting from Russia, and doesn't speak much English, but decides she would like to come with us. I would like to just say that this seemed really weird to me at first, since she was basically just along for the ride, but truth be told I had a fabulous time with her. We are both masters of mimesis, lol, which was our means of communication, and would have little silent conversations while friend and hubby were wandering. My car is also not a large car, so we were cozy, but not too cramped. And I managed to fit all of our luggage in the trunk, which I feel was a feat in itself. We had a long day of driving, leaving home around 2 and getting in to Seattle at our hotel around 11 local time. Seeing as how the consulate is only open from 9 to 12 in the mornings, we all went to bed so we could get up early and get stuff done.

We all got up, got ourselves together, and left the hotel around 8:30, making it to the consulate (after driving around and finding a place to park) at 9:15. I had brought a book with me, thinking I was going to be in for a long wait, but as it turns out they got up there, got the papers filled out right away, and were done with the whole purpose of our trip in about 20 minutes. Sweet. So we basically have 4 days to do whatever we want now...woot! Well, we were hungry, so the first thing we did was look up food near where we were. Luckily, Moe has a GPS, which probably made our trip possible, since the roads of Seattle are a hot mess. (A note: I adore Seattle. I do. It's one of my favorite places. HOWEVER, the roadways really are a hot mess. Sorry dudes.) We wound up at the Hurricane Cafe. Which looked like this:

And actually, we almost reconsidered our choice, just cause it looked a little less than respectable at first. But, we stuck it out, and they actually had a really great staff and the food was excellent. Your standard diner fare, but it was done well.

After that adventure, we went down to Pike Place Market (of course). I love the market. If I lived in Seattle I would shop there all the time. The folks are great, the produce is SO fresh, and it's just FUN. I went hunting out this amazing comic book store that my friends showed me the last time I was there, and after running past it approximately a mil

lion times, I found it and was in geek heaven. In my adventure to find it again, I wound up in the Brewpub (of course) to ask for directions, beer selections, and a bathroom. I was greeted by a lovely man who was more than helpful, and had a great conversation about all the comic book goodies and how that was definitely so nerdy that neither of us would certainly never go there. ;)

After tooling around the market for a while, we went out toward the piers, and I suggested we go to the aquarium. Good. Choice. I heart the aquarium. I was most excited because they have a touch pool, where a spent a good bit of my time poking starfish and amusing a fellow named Mike who was such a great sport to put up with all of my never-ending questions.

I literally took hundreds of photos, but these were some that I liked. And I think I'm done with day one stories today. And just because, I'm going to leave you with this little gem:



You're welcome.

Stay tuned for Day Two: The Space Needle! (aka Lots of Pictures of Buildings in the Day and Night!)