After a long and arduous process at the airport, I am once again in good ole St. Louis. Dan dropped me at the airport on his way to work, where I planned on just hanging out until my 1:00pm flight. The flight was overbooked - and I volunteered to be bumped. The next flight was at (possibly) 5:00pm or for sure at 7:00pm. For my inconvenience I received a first class upgrade, a $10 dinner voucher for that day, and a $300 voucher towards a future ticket. Yeah me!! Free travel!! Little did I know. The 5pm flight was re-routed to Dallas, and I could have been on it, but there was no guarantee of a flight out of Dallas until the next day. The 7pm flight was cancelled. Good grief. After many phone calls to Dan (in case I needed a place to sleep) and Michael (who was picking me up in STL) they finally got us out sometime after 7.
The flight turned out to be awesome. There were a total of 16 stranded passengers, so we got the ENTIRE plane to ourselves. Of course, the airline re-booked us all in first class, so the the whole coach section was empty. A glass of wine before lift-off. Warm nuts and a cocktail, followed by a warm cloth to wipe our faces. Dinner with real dishes, brie, crackers, wine and linen napkins. Warm cookies with milk for dessert, followed by coffee and liquor. At the end of the flight we were offered a champagne flute of M&Ms. And of course, roomy seats with lots of leg room. Craziest flight I've ever been on, but it was AWESOME!!!
I was sad to leave Dan and Seattle, but with my free ticket, hopefully we'll see each other soon. My final days there were a whirlwind of activity. Friday night (after returning from Lacey) we went to a vertical gym to go rock climbing with a friend of Dan's. I loved it - and didn't do to badly either. My stomach was pretty upset for some reason, but I ignored it as best I could in the face of having a safety harness winched around me. After climbing we headed to a cute outdoor cafe for dinner. As we waited for a table, my stomach all out revolted. Standing on the edge of the street in downtown Seattle I completely lost it. I would have been embarrassed if I hadn't felt so crappy. Dan helped clean me up, then drove me to his place to rest. He and his friend went back out for food after they had me settled.
Saturday I still felt a little queasy, so food for the day consisted of hot tea. Kai joined us for breakfast at Dan's favorite cinnamon roll place. Afterwords we headed to an art festival, which was awesome, then the traditional St. Patty's Day dinner of sushi. Don't ask. It was really good sushi though. (Obviously I was feeling much better by this point.)
Sunday Dan and I headed to the mountains. We hiked Mount Si just south of Seattle. It is four miles to the top, with a grade of about 22% all the way. For us flatlanders, that means it is VERY STEEP. We ran into a friend of Dan's en route up the mountain (it's the Seattle equivalent of running into someone at the gym) and she hiked the rest of the way with us. Once at the top any pain of the climb is forgotten as you look out over the amazing views. Of course, then you have to go down. Not as tough, but my legs were shaking by the time we hit the Jeep. I was pretty sure I was going to sleep in the Jeep because I wouldn't be able to move. After a great steak dinner, though, I felt good as new.
Dan and I ended up staying up all night looking at pictures, talking and burning music CDs. I figured I'd sleep on the plane then go to bed early. (See beginning of post to see how that turned out!) I did feel bad that Dan had to go to work on no sleep, but we were having so much fun. Of course, he caught my stomach bug yesterday, but I think he feels better today.
Michael picked me up from the airport at 1:30am, and we talked about my adventures until about 3:30am - I was too keyed up to sleep anyway. Actually, by this point I think I was just overtired and beyond exhaustion. So I'm at work, running on about 3 hours of sleep over the course of the last 48. Ouch.
The flight turned out to be awesome. There were a total of 16 stranded passengers, so we got the ENTIRE plane to ourselves. Of course, the airline re-booked us all in first class, so the the whole coach section was empty. A glass of wine before lift-off. Warm nuts and a cocktail, followed by a warm cloth to wipe our faces. Dinner with real dishes, brie, crackers, wine and linen napkins. Warm cookies with milk for dessert, followed by coffee and liquor. At the end of the flight we were offered a champagne flute of M&Ms. And of course, roomy seats with lots of leg room. Craziest flight I've ever been on, but it was AWESOME!!!
I was sad to leave Dan and Seattle, but with my free ticket, hopefully we'll see each other soon. My final days there were a whirlwind of activity. Friday night (after returning from Lacey) we went to a vertical gym to go rock climbing with a friend of Dan's. I loved it - and didn't do to badly either. My stomach was pretty upset for some reason, but I ignored it as best I could in the face of having a safety harness winched around me. After climbing we headed to a cute outdoor cafe for dinner. As we waited for a table, my stomach all out revolted. Standing on the edge of the street in downtown Seattle I completely lost it. I would have been embarrassed if I hadn't felt so crappy. Dan helped clean me up, then drove me to his place to rest. He and his friend went back out for food after they had me settled.
Saturday I still felt a little queasy, so food for the day consisted of hot tea. Kai joined us for breakfast at Dan's favorite cinnamon roll place. Afterwords we headed to an art festival, which was awesome, then the traditional St. Patty's Day dinner of sushi. Don't ask. It was really good sushi though. (Obviously I was feeling much better by this point.)
Sunday Dan and I headed to the mountains. We hiked Mount Si just south of Seattle. It is four miles to the top, with a grade of about 22% all the way. For us flatlanders, that means it is VERY STEEP. We ran into a friend of Dan's en route up the mountain (it's the Seattle equivalent of running into someone at the gym) and she hiked the rest of the way with us. Once at the top any pain of the climb is forgotten as you look out over the amazing views. Of course, then you have to go down. Not as tough, but my legs were shaking by the time we hit the Jeep. I was pretty sure I was going to sleep in the Jeep because I wouldn't be able to move. After a great steak dinner, though, I felt good as new.
Dan and I ended up staying up all night looking at pictures, talking and burning music CDs. I figured I'd sleep on the plane then go to bed early. (See beginning of post to see how that turned out!) I did feel bad that Dan had to go to work on no sleep, but we were having so much fun. Of course, he caught my stomach bug yesterday, but I think he feels better today.
Michael picked me up from the airport at 1:30am, and we talked about my adventures until about 3:30am - I was too keyed up to sleep anyway. Actually, by this point I think I was just overtired and beyond exhaustion. So I'm at work, running on about 3 hours of sleep over the course of the last 48. Ouch.
1 comment:
re: stomach bug. Gaah! Hopefully no one thought it was an editorial comment on Seattle (or Dan)
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