Such tips as: “don’t hand out cash to dinner guests” reveal what foreign tourists findsurprising about coming to America.
Sarah and I just got back home from a Eric and Jane's wedding / Sarah and Dave's vacation trip to the Bahamas (note the lack of activity for the past twelve days on my website). I've got plenty of photos and things to post but for now I'll just relate this humorous anecdote during the rehearsal dinner. I had said something about photos to Jim, Eric's brother and he gave me a crazy look. "Oh, I thought you meant like pho-tos" he said. It took me a moment to realize he misunderstood what I said as "faux toes". I laughed until I cried a little. Also works with digital faux toes.
Sarah and I had Thanksgiving dinner at our house the Sunday before.
Sarah's parents and siblings came as well as my parents who came up for the a handful of days. It was our first time hosting Thanksgiving so I was a little nervous, but my parents helped us setup
and get ready so of course it went well! I cheated a bit: I ordered a turkey online from Whole Foods where you can just tell them when you want to pick it up, they have it cooked and ready
including garnish and you just need to warm it up. When we moved in together Sarah and I each had slightly different small dining room tables. Thankfully they're roughly the same height and width
and we could put them together end to end and seat everybody with no room to spare. On actual Thanksgiving day we went over to Rachel & Anson's lovely new place for Thanksgiving and the annual
game of Trivial Pursuit.
My parents visited this past weekend, met Sarah's parents, saw our house, and met our bunny. On Friday we went to BluWater in Kirkland which was pretty busy and the service was slower and slightly worse than we usually find. Saturday my parents helped us with our yard quite a bit and for dinner we went to the Icon Grill with Sarah's parents. I had forgotten how much I enjoy the food at the Icon Grill - I had the very tasty meat loaf. Dinner went well and afterward we stopped at the Three Lions pub in Redmond. On all previous occasions I had tried to go in there the place was packed for a soccer game. This night however there was a man with a guitar, singing and it wasn't nearly as packed. I also found that near the bathrooms on the wall is what looks to be James Bond's jetpack.
On Sunday we went out to see Jeannie and Carl and see the renovations to Jeannie's place. We met up with them at the Fremont Market to which I hadn't been previously, and had a look around there before going back to Jeannie's to see the lovely work they'd done to her place. For dinner my parents took us out to the Melting Pot for my approaching birthday. It was fun having my parents up and I look forward to the next time they're here.
Over the previous weekend Sarah and I got engaged. I had a limo pick us up and take us to a park that has a beautiful view of the Seattle
skyline where I proposed, then out for dinner and drinks including a bottle of wine for the ride back. What's the point of a limo ride if you don't drink while being driven around? It was a nice
night and only had a hint of rain when we came home. We don't yet have a date set.
Sarah and I are back from Munich, Germany as of Thursday and I've just about recovered. The trip there via Air France we watched many movies and
it was much better than the trip back in which the entertainment system failed and I had a cold. When we arrived, Jon met us at the airport, helped us with the subway system, we played Guitar Hero,
ate at a Bavarian pub, and then later at an Australian bar.
The following day we met up with Jon and three of his friends, one of
whom was visiting from England and we all took a train to Neuschwanstein Castle. Apparently its the 'Disney' castle in that Disney's castle's are based upon it. The castle is filled with images and
statues of swans in homage to the Swan Knight. We ate in the town at a cafe with traditional Bavarian food before taking the train back and getting all you can eat fajitas for dinner.
Last Thursday I saw a bunch of college friends that I hadn't seen in a while, despite all of us working at Microsoft, and Saul and Ciera who were visiting. We had dinner at Typhoon! which I haven't been to in quite a while. Daniil and Val brought their cute child. I got to see Charlie and Matt who I'm not sure I've seen since my 25th birthday. There was much nerdiness. I need to remember to organize such a night myself sometime in near future so I don't have to wait another year to see them.
On the weekend Sarah and I went out to dinner at Carnegie's, a former
public library in Ballard, Seattle that's now a restaurant. I saw the restaurant's website in Matt's delicious links and thought it looked interesting. The exterior and entryway look like a public
library, but just inside its redone as a sort of modern version of french classical with a bar and two dining rooms. No pictures since my replacement camera only arrived today, but there are
photos available. They serve french cuisine which was good and
not as expensive as I would have expected. An interesting place, although its a bit of a drive and I'm not sure if we'll be going back soon.
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