Let's go back to Thursday

Ok, so on Thursday I had a work event all day. Every year Century 21 corporate has a sales rally for our area, and this year the event was a different venue. The rally is basically speeches, lunch, and a motivational speaker in the afternoon. This new venue sucked hardcore. The whole place needed an overhaul out of the 80s. I feel for anyone who may have actually stayed at the hotel. The conference room was freezing and the bathroom was disgusting. The lunch was nasty (grisly roast beef and what looked like boiled chicken). You can fill out a review of the rally, so I really hope they got enough feedback to go back to the old venue.

I was not going to go downtown to see Steepwater (if you like music you should check out their website), but then I found out that our friend Chris was going to be there. We don't get to see him too often as he lives in Bloomington (Indiana). I was exhausted, but I went to the show. It was great to see Chris and the band was great, but I didn't get home until after midnight.

I got to the airport with no trouble and arrived in Seattle at 11. Duane met me at the gate. He had checked a bag and we ended up gettting a tour of the airport while trying to find it. The NWA WorldClub agent had told Duane it would be in lost and found (which I hope you never lose anything at the Seattle airport because the lost and found is in timbuktu). Lost and Found had no clue what we were talking about and it turned out the bag was in the NWA baggage office down in the baggage claim area (which makes much more sense). We got our rental car with little trouble (the guy printed the receipt to a different printer and then spent 10 minutes trying to fix the printer he thought he sent it to) and headed to the hotel.

It was a clear day, so we saw Mt. Rainier on the way to the hotel. Our hotel was decent, and we got a good priceline rate. Parking was $30/day though! My only hotel complaint is that the bed was extra extra firm. It was like sleeping on a piece of plywood. I also thought it was creepy that the window opened outwards (it was on a hinge) and we were on the 19th floor. With a little modification you could have opened that window far enough to jump out of it.

We went to lunch (I am going to do a separate post for food/beer) and walked around downtown Seattle. We were both exhausted, so we went back to the hotel and slept for a few hours. I ended up with a stupid migraine (overtired and dehydrated duh). It hadn't been that bad in the afternoon, but I didn't take anything (couldn't find the ibuprofen). Duane went out an picked up a pizza for dinner, but forgot the ibuprofen. He got some from the (rip you off) gift shop. We watched Friday night tv and the headache eventually went away.

On Saturday we got up and went down to Pike's Market. It wasn't what I had visualized in my mind, but it was still neat. We got lucky and saw them throwing fish right when we got there. We checked out all the neat shops and walked quite a bit. After that we jumped on the monorail (it only goes between the downtown and the space needle), and went to the Seattle Center. We didn't go up in the Space Needle (because we are cheap $16/person). We went back to the hotel and figured out where we were going to dinner. We took a cab to dinner, but then walked home. Seattle is very hilly, if you didn't know (I didn't), and walking can sometimes be a challenge. On the way back from dinner, we saw a bowling alley. We like to bowl, so we stopped in. It was small and very hipster looking. The guy gave us shoes, and then asked what group we were with. We weren't with a group (a 2-2.5 hour wait) and the guy took back the shoes. I guess he figured we didn't want to wait!

Sunday was the day of the show. We went and checked out the Fremont neighborhood (the center of the Universe so they say). We had a nice breakfast and did some antique shopping. We went back to the hotel because we had decided to take a cab to the dinner and concert.

More later.....I have to give blood this afternoon and this post is super long already.