Days 15-17: Seattle - Do you know how to play 20 questions?

It has been requested that we identify who is writing each post since they are getting progressively longer and it's hard to scroll down to the bottom (thanks for the constructive feedback Spiegel **wink**). Emmie here to give you a run down of Seattle. It's really long, so pull up a chair/skim when necessary.

To Seattle

On what should have been a short 2.5 hour drive from Vancouver to Seattle, we got stuck in standstill traffic for an hour and a half waiting in line to cross the border. So began the worst game of 20 questions on record. We started strong:

Emmie: Let's play 20 questions (which I've called another name the whole trip with the initials WIIMMB shout-out to Matt Schaefer and Matt McQueary). I've got one, go!

Parm: Is it a person?

Emmie: Yes

Parm: Is it a man?

Emmie: No

Katie: Is it a woman!?

Emmie (slightly confused): Yes...

Parm: KATIE?! What are you doing? We just lost a question.

Katie: Wait a minute, I'm sorry, I don't know how to play 20 questions. (She was 100% serious, we had to explain it to her).

20 Question answers included: Anna Kournikova, Mozambique, Sarah Ferguson, Lexington, KY, Newt Gingrich, Jimmy Fallon, and Lyle Wilson brother of The Danimal Wilson.

Related arguments that broke out during the course of the game:

1. Lexington KY should not be characterized as approximately 500 miles from Madison. A: Incorrect. According to google maps they are 517 miles apart (Gold star for Emmie)

2. Mozambique is not really in the southeast of Africa and who picks that anyway? A: Yes, it is in the southeast and "I do." (Gold star for Parm)

3. Sara Ferguson is not technically royalty. A: She has kept her duchess of York title but she doesn't have her HRH (her royal highness) title (still not proven, so no gold star)

4. If someone is an "active" politician what does that mean? Would you say Bill Clinton is an active politician? Blood was almost drawn on this one. Agreement was reached that this means they are not serving any active political term in any branch of government. Gold star for Katie for guessing Newt.

5. How would you characterize a "close friend" of Meghan Wons? Agreement was reached that if she would call them up to hang out without reservation (right Meghan?)

That is as far as we got with 20 questions because we were distracted by this man

Ice Cream Man

who was capitalizing on hungry Americans waiting for over an hour to cross the border by walking in between the cars selling ice cream. Knowing that he was taking advantage of our situation and reminding ourselves we were on a budget...we promptly purchased two drumsticks and and Klondike crunch for about 12 bucks. It's good to be home.

We cheered as we crossed the border back into the U.S. because we were home, and because we had service on our IPhones. We celebrated by playing an even more riveting game than 20 Questions entitled "Catholic Trivia."

Cue the "Team America" theme song and sorry about the bug guts

My favorite question was, what do the initials BVM stand for? I knew this one because it's one of my mother's favorite sayings. BVM stands for blessed virgin mary. As in "check out that awesome statue of the BVM." I always thought that was somehow sacrilegious, but apparently it is a pope approved acronym.

Katie would like me to give a shout-out to her parents for enrolling her in Catholic high school and mention that she passed the Catholic trivia questions.
Parm would like me to give a shout out to Grandma Stark and say that her Lutheran Bible knowledge came in handy.
And I would like to give a shout out to my parents for enrolling me in public school because it was pretty awesome, but mention that my years in CCD did not help the cause on this one.

What's that you say? YOU would like to test your Catholic knowledge on your next road trip because it sounds super fun and not lame at all? Well here is the link. http://stillcatholic.com/catholic_teachings.htm

We arrived at Ken's, the boyfriend of Emily's Aunt Renie around 7PM, and Renie and Ken had prepared a delicious dinner of pot roast stew. Ken's house is just beautiful and right on the water. We also met Marteen, a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands Ken is hosting this year, who was cracking us up with stories about a "totally hot girl" who is "stalking" him. So the male ego is an international concept, in case anyone was wondering :) Just kidding, he was very sweet and hospitable and we learned that they put beets in a lot of their food in the Netherlands.

A major shout-out to both Renie and Ken. Thank you so much for letting us stay with you for three days, thank you for the delicious meals (particularly the pie Renie!), the stories about your sailing adventures and the amazing sailboat trip (readers you'll find out about this soon).

Marten, Renie, and Ken

View from Ken's porch...I know right!

Day 1

The next day we got a little bit of a late start, but it was a day of traditional sight-seeing with a slam bang finish. First we went to Pike's Place, which is a famous market in downtown Seattle. Right across the street was the original Starbucks, but honestly, it looks very much like a typical Starbucks.

Chai Latte for Katie

Then we went into the Pike's Place bought some fun souvenirs and visited the Pike's Place Fish Market to watch them heave ginormous (3 feet or so) salmon. We shamelessly cheered and took pictures every time they threw one, and Parm and I discussed how this was just like Real World Seattle and how the cast from that season probably lived on the pier right in front of the market. #lame.

FRESHHHH FISH!

There were some other friendly looking fish in addition to salmon.

I totes won this stand-off

After that we drove over to the space needle. The view was pretty impressive but it was very windy, causing our hair to ruin cute pictures right and left. We couldn't see Mt. Rainer in the distance, which is common we're told, but we could see the majority of the Cascade mountains. Also, we noticed a huge building not far from the space needle and pondered about what it was... ***wait for it, this comes into play later***

The wind-blown look

Snoop visits the space needle

Now for the slam bang finish. From the space needle, we drove straight over to the marina to meet up with Ken so that we could go sailing on his AMAZING sailboat, the Beltane, on the Puget Sound. Ken's son Adrian and four of his friends would serve as the official crew in a sailing race and we were along for the ride. I had never sailed before, let alone been in a sailing race and K&P also had limited sailing experience. It became quickly apparent that we had NO IDEA what anyone was saying.

"Watch the main...ok tacking...let out the jib, ok GRIND GRIND GRIND!"
Translation: Watch the main sail, ok let's turn into the wind so get ready to turn, ok let the front sail loose on one side and tighten the other side...TIGHTEN, TIGHTEN, TIGHTEN! (Ken, how'd I do?!)

Katie resisting the urge to yell "Land ho!" at every opportunity

We helped with some of the smaller tasks like grinding etc (turning a handle) but for the most part we just scrambled to the high side of the boat and made sure we didn't get hit with the jib (a big pole.)

Action shot...GRIND GRIND GRIND!

Our favorite part was how one of the crew members, Crystal, could magically predict wind gusts yelling periodically "gust in 20!" When we asked Adrian how she knows when a gust is coming, he told us it was based on the "dark spots" in the water. Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't the entire ocean one big dark spot? We took to calling her the wind-wisperer. They got second place in their start, their highest finish to date, and we would have won if not for this sketchy blue boat.

The competition...next time blue boat, next time

The crew of the Beltane...plus us.

Then we ate some sandwiches...and it was good.

Day 2
The next morning we woke up and went to visit our friends Karen and Duncan who live in the Queen Anne district of town. When we arrived at their apartment building, we realized it was actually a renovated high school, and it was the building we saw off of the space needle...what the WHAT!? We took a walk around the neighborhood with Karen and their adorable dog Zeke. It's official, I REALLY want a dog. Seriously look at how cute he is?

Zeke and Karen. Karen calls this "the chokey" like from the movie Matilda

For lunch we picked up cupcakes from Pink Bella bakery and ate some pear and gorgonzola pizza picnic style on Karen and Duncan's roof.

Yup, that is seriously the view. Again, rough life. Thanks for hanging Karen!

Best cupcakes I ever had

After leaving Karen's we took a gander around the University of Washington which was very beautiful. But to be honest, in 20 years I won't remember that much. I will remember the HUGE jenga tower that Katie and Parm built in the U district of town at WOW bubble tea. WOW bubble tea (Wonder Of Worship) is a bubble tea shop that blasts Christian rock, has scripture on the walls, and has board games. I think it's meant to be the neighborhood alternative of going to the bars. I left to get a milkshake (not a big bubble tea fan) and when I came back they had created THIS. Look at the concentration on these faces.

The fire of competition shooting out of Parm's eyes. Yeah, I skipped the red-eye reduction on this one.

Little bubble tea, little Christian rock, LOTS of Jenga

After an hour long search for lemongrass (curse you Safeway) we returned to Ken's and cooked a delicious albeit very spicy lemongrass stirfry. Gold star for Katie for championing the effort, and gold star for Parm for her delicious cherry pastry appetizer. It was a grand success. After dinner, we left to meet up with Duncan, Karen and my cousin Chris Calland, now a Seattle native, in downtown Queen Anne.

Me and Cuz Chris...we do look related right? Thanks for coming out Chris!

It was Duncan's birthday and in honor of the occasion, the band randomly selected one of his favorite songs to play by Cracker. One of the band members also cheered him for sitting with so many women by doing this motion which Duncan will reenact for you now:

Yesssssssssssss!

Karen and Duncan dancing...HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUNCAN!

However, our mood was drastically altered when we left the bar around 12:45 AM to find this.

That's glass all over the seat. The passenger side window is smashed.

In the words of Avril Lavigne "What the hell?!" Snoop had been vandalized and Katie's backpack had been stolen which had her camera and prescription sunglasses, among other items. Luckily, we all had our wallets, phones etc. To make matters worse, while the Seattle rain had held off for the majority of the trip, sometime post break in it had begun pouring, so we drove home with a towel over the window to protect the leather seats. Needless to say, we were all pretty bummed. Looks like we'll be chilling in Seattle for one more day...

In the morning Parm took the car to the Subaru dealer. Luckily they had a window in stock and they would be able to get it fixed by the end of the day. Katie would also be able to get some insurance reimbursement for her items. Karen drove Parm back from the dealer (and brought us more cupcakes) and to keep ourselves entertained in the meantime, we played on the beach. Notables:

1. There were GINORMOUS starfish everywhere and they were bright purple and yellow.

Zeke and a starfish

2. We decided it would be a good idea to eat some of the crabs we found for lunch. Little did we know that when we tried to crack them open, there would be yellow guts everywhere. Bad ideas 2011. When I opened the dishwasher later that day, it reeked of crab and I almost "vommed."

Yep we found that sucker on the beach. This is right before Parm sadistically said "scream little crabs, scream!"

It should be noted that after the crabs, we bummed a ride back to the dealership to pick up Snoop by paying one of Marten's seventeen year old friends who had come over to do homework. I'm not kidding, it was hilarious.

It's been real Seattle. Thanks for the memories, and all around good time, but no thanks for the broken window. Next stop is Portland!