Emerald City

This weekend we headed down to Seattle for M's birthday and to catch up with friends we didn't get to see this Xmas.

First up we checked out the Seattle Art Walk. A kool event which takes place the first Thursday of every month. Galleries open their doors, and out come the artists all heading for Pioneer Square district of Seattle. M, Ms Cadiz and I strolled around checking out the good, the bad and the just plain ugly.

After the event we checked out our fave bookstore in Pioneer Squre - Elliot Bay Books. As always I gravitated to the Pacific Northwest books taking a mental note of the books I should buy someday. Next call was the new non-fiction selection ... checking out a book "Get Back In The Box" ... interesting ... the books position was that all the 'thinking outside the box' was hurting companies core competancy ... and they should stop taking risks and stick to what their good at. mmmmm ... I was meditating on this idea when I heard banging on the window and a yelll "Awwwww-yeahhhhhhhh" . It was my mate Chigago Style.... lol

We chatted, exchanged stories and forged plans to meet up on Saturday ... which was nice.

Heading back to West Seattle where Ms Cadiz lives we stopped off for a view of the city. A great view of the city, which I remembered seeing when I first moved there.


We awoke to a lovely winters day and drove around West Seattle checking out some of our fave spots. Great views of the Olympic Mountains and Mount Rainier.

After a brief session downtown we headed of to Snoqualmie (aka Twin Peaks) to meet Ms JoyVille. Somehow we forgot how near the place was and ended up arriving hours before we should have. What to do? We decided to head further along the pass to check out the some of the ski-resorts I used to frequent for old times sake....

... Still too early - we checked out the falls at Snoqualmie ....

.. And checked out some of legendary pie at the 'Twin Peaks' cafe. Damn it was good.

Hours later we hook up with Ms. Joyville for a great night. Being the rock star she was there's all kinds of music gear around her fab house - drum kits, guitars, horns ... keyboards to play with. She made us some yummy food which consisted of about 4 courses. Between plates - we drank, caught up and one at point we headed out into her freezing garden shadowed by Mount Si to sart a fire in hee Chimnia. Fortunately, we got it going - so we stayed outside to check out the massive starscape.

Next day we met Chicago Style and Ms Basque for a fun lunch in the Pike Place market. We met at an old fave - The Athenian. It's a great old bar/restaurant overlooking the Puget Sound. With a large menu, great frosty mug beer list, good crowd - it's the brunch of choice. Once again, we caught up - exchanged stories and laughs. Good times for sure.

In the evening we headed back over to West Seattle to visit Mr G and Ms Sau Paulo. Good times again catching up, checking out their photos from recent trips and chowing down on a delicious meal Ms Sau Paulo put together. Later on we watched Liss Miss Sunshine (!!yeahh!!!) - which comes highly recommended.