Seattle (This was a visit before Christmas!)
So Rachel, Paul, Mark and I hired a car and Mark (very bravely) drove to Seattle. Brave cos Rachel and I were singing and dancing in the back of the car, which smelled of bananas (which I had to eat before we got to the border - sorry guys!) and it was also pouring with rain.Incidentally the border crossing was one of those times you look back and (nervously) laugh because we had to go through the whole fingerprint/photo/interrogation regime, and, I'm not sure how, but the US customs officer (the scariest breed of people known to man) got it into his head that we were two couples heading for a romantic break in the US. So we just smiled and went along with it, and scurried away as soon as possible.
We stayed in the downtown area which was really handy - visited the Pike Place market (as seen on Sleepless in Seattle) and drank coffee at the original starbucks, then had the local brew (pretty good) and a good meal out.
We also wandered round downtown: it was really well decorated (being only a few weeks before Christmas) and it had a nice bustling feel. I'm sure the others won't mind a bit of honesty here: the four of us were getting to the stage where we were spending a LOT of time together (including irritating each other at times!) but this is one of my fave photos of the three of them. 
Then the boys went off to a gig - i forget which one (deathcab?) and Rachel and I were left to wander the streets of Seattle alone. I'm kidding.
We had a great night out, started off with cocktails in Beltown, a lovely area with lots of classy bars. In fact I enjoyed the best cocktail I've ever had, but unfortunately can't remember the name of the bar, or indeed the waitress who concocted it for me, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Then we went to a club and danced the night away, well for a couple of hours until returning to our hotel. (running cos we were a little bit scared even though it was about 3 blocks!)
Rachel's obsession with taking photos also overtook me, and we spent a several minutes trying to take photos of the space needle.
After breakfast on Sunday morning, we went to the space needle to see the views. It was built in the 60s which i thought was pretty impressive. It was raining a lot by mid morning, and we went our separate ways for lunchtime and I did some sightseeing by myself:
So it was a good little break, despite the rain and it was my first visit to the US of A, which was exciting. When I spoke to work people about it they seemed very surprised that I had to go through such a rigmarole to get into the States - until recently Canadians travelled to the US with only ID, not necessarily a passport. And they have this idea that a British passport means you can go anywhere and do anything just because you're British, so I have tried to get rid of these myths!
posted by Claire @ 1:08 pm
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