lex | Full review of Seattle trip, including beads, robots, videos and trucks

Day one: travel to Seattle.

This involved a ride from Dad, a bus, two planes, and a ride from Nat, taking from noon EST to 1am the next day PST. You do the conversions, they baffle me. Anyway, the plane rides were awesome. On the first plane I got to film the takeoff, and on the second one... Well, they gave me free booze. ♥ Seriously, I was surrounded by small children and asked for a Jack Daniels (50ml for $7 whyyyy) and the wonderful attendant was just like "here you go, don't worry about it." JD knocks me out like nothing else, so I slept through a good part of that flight - when I woke up, I looked out the window and saw the Northern Lights dancing green on the horizon. I dozed off and on, watching the lights, and it was just utterly magical. Then I got picked up by Nat, who is badass and awesome, and then I met Ally for the first time. We clicked right off. :D We vowed to sleep but instead spent a few hours giggling and talking like we'd known each other for years OH WAIT WE HAVE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR YEARS.

The rest of the trip, I will be honest, is a blur of awesome. We went everywhere, saw everything, and we ate and drank and were merry. I was determined to be beloved by all the animals in the house and I think I succeeded. Gunny is a good dog but very young and excitable, so it was two days before I could actually interact with him - but shortly after that, I was using him as a pillow on Ally's bed and going with them for walks. He'd see me on the couch every morning on his way out the door and get super excited - person! Nice person! Person who likes me! LET ME LOVE THIS PERSON WITH MY FACE. I am told that the morning I left, he went to the couch and just drooped. Oh, Gunny. ilu. ;_; The cats were weird about me - handsome Stuka was all for snuggles and pettings, but the other two would not permit my mundane hands to touch their exquisite fur. They did sleep on me, though. And apparently I slept through a turf war on my body? XD Cats can do anything around me while I sleep. I don't kick them either, a cat anywhere on the foot of the bed will have me pinned down and motionless, except for when I carefully tuck my feet up and roll over. In my sleep. Oh, cats.

Oh yeah, and playing with Gunny in the backyard! He knows some hand signals but apparently he gets too excited with new people and forgets them all, so we worked on getting him to obey me and that worked out wonderfully. I had him sit and lie down before I'd throw the ball. And then one of Ally's housemates would spin him. And then their other housemate apparently got jealous and demonstrated cat-spinning.

We went to the aquarium and the zoo and lots of stores and I had bubble tea for the first time! That was... unexpectedly exciting though. Due to the lady who held the door for us. With poop dried on her hands. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

seriously ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The bubble tea was good though. I don't think I'd get a flavor next time, just plain black or green tea - the powder kept falling out of solution and that was kinda gross. The tapioca kept going between REALLY FUN and REALLY GAG-A-RIFFIC. But I kinda liked it anyway.

Oh, we went to Pike's Place! We didn't get too many weird looks with the robots, actually. We got a free bead though - there's a little bead store, and I only wanted one bead, and Ally went to buy it for me (sugar mama~) and the guy was like "nah, you can just have it." So nice. :D Later we went to a fancy bead store so I could look for Shockwave beads, but I got Ladena!Blurr beads instead. Oh wait, I did get Shockwave's eye! Yessss. His will be the best necklace ever. I still need to make the cube!Blurr necklace. ANYWAY. Beads were bought.

We did so many things! One of the things that will stick with me is the Underground Tour, though. Seattle is a city on top of a city! You can go down into the lower city! No srsly it's amazing.

BUT BAD NEWS. Ally forgot to bring Blurr. Sunstreaker was so broken-hearted! (I imagine him as a Victorian lady in distress in this picture for some reason, weeping behind a raised arm, ready to faint at any moment.)

And what was keeping Blurr, you might ask?

OMG BLURR KEEP IT IN YOUR METAL PANTS.

Day nine:

This journey began at 5am and ended at 1am the next day. On the trip back, I got a taxi, two planes, and then had no plan - I ended up getting a shuttle and a ride from Dad, then (ahaha) talking to Ally for hours over the Internet! XD The best part: my luggage was searched. But only the top layer. I can tell exactly when they stopped searching. They stopped when they reached Scorponok.

I am going to sit here and imagine the expression of the security person for a minute.

Mind you, I had a canister containing two powerful magnets! They did not search deep enough to reach those! I had various charging cables and plugs, but they did not search deep enough to reach those! They lifted the top layer of clothes, saw Scorponok, and put it all back with a little slip of paper saying HEY WE SEARCHED YOUR LUGGAGE. I may laugh myself to death over this.

And so that was my trip. I'm sure more happened, like delicious foods (SO DELICIOUS, WE ARE GOOD COOKS) and giggling over G1 and watching the '86 movie (verdict: it's a long episode of G1 with a budget, but the budget did not improve their ability to write the most baffling, fast-paced plot ever) and playing with pets and action figures and reading comics and SO MANY THINGS. I felt like I fit in right away. My darling twin is just as much my twin in person as she is online, and it's a huge relief to know that.