Robert Archey

I just got back from an awesome 3-day trip to Seattle, Washington with Thao, Elvis, KimChi, John, Cindy, and Thanh.  I wasn’t sure really what to expect, but I was pretty content by the end.  You always hear about how much rain Seattle gets and about how it just falls for weeks.  We didn’t have to let that dampen our spirits because the weather was a perfect 75° F.

Day 1 – Saturday

Normally we fly Southwest because they are relatively cheap and very efficient (please see the end of this blog for the opposite of what Southwest is).  We had a couple bags to check in, not thinking there would be a line on a Saturday at the airport. We were wrong, the line was about 30 parties long, luckily it moved pretty quickly because it was about 45 minutes until our flight departs.

Getting picked up from the airport by Thanh after he visits his family store.

Saigon Palms

The Westin Seattle

Seattle Ghost Tours

Shorty’s

Amber

After bar hopping Elvis, Thanh, and I got hungry. We found a hot dog cart with only 3 “Big Boys” left. Lucky us! As we stood around eating them, Elvis noticed rats running around. It was funny, we called him Ratatouille (okay maybe funnier when buzzed).  Then we look to the left and notice the damn rat invited some friends to run circles around that drunk guy you see on the ground.  Feeling sorry for the guy, we went over and woke him up. We don’t think he really knew he was knocked out because right after we tapped on him, he sat up, said “I felt that” and began scrolling through his phone like he had someone to call.  If you look carefully, you can see the phone in his hand.  He then stumbled his way home.

Day 2 – Sunday

Macrina Bakery

After Pike Place Market everyone decided to go back to the hotel to get ready to head to the Seattle Center. We failed. Everyone (except me) fell asleep for like 3 hours.  Before we knew it, we had to get ready for Crush.

Hanging out at some place that Elvis calls “some bar with ESPN.”

Day 3 – Monday

Serious Pie

Seattle Space Needle

Alki Beach Park

Duke’s Chowder House had the best clam chowder EVER!

We managed to get on the jumbotron as the Mariners were introducing their #2 draft pick Dustin Ackley who happened to be sitting right in front of us.

UMI Sake House

Off to bed, we had to be up by 4:30am to catch our flight the next morning.  Seattle was amazing, you really think about all the great places our nation has to offer.  This was a place with history, tradition, and some pretty likable things.

Flight Home

Now for the beef we have with Virgin America. Our flight was meant to have 2 legs, the first being from Seattle to San Francisco w/ about an hour layover before flying to Orange County.  The first leg was delayed about 1/2 an hour, this immediately has us worried because this gives us less time to board our connecting flight.  The pilot announces that he will try to speed up the flight and it should be no more than 1:40.  Well anyone with a clock and a 2nd grade education will tell you that the actual time was 2 hours and 20 flippin minutes.  Looks like our pilot somehow got a license without knowing how to tell time. Well we land run our ass over to Gate 6 only to see the plane taxiing away from the terminal.  The clock right next to the counter says 9:50am, but my ticket says 9:55am.  This is some fuzzy logic, because at this point I am not understanding how this works.  The unapologetic Virgin CSR explains to us that it is their policy to taxi out 10 minutes early before every flight.  I think someone dropped the ball and forgot to tell the captain that there were 6 people from a connecting flight that was delayed and needed to board.  Waiting a couple of minutes should have been fine.

The next flight to Orange County is 12:30pm, that’s almost 3 hours from this point.  After sitting around for a few minutes, the CSR calls us to the counter and “does us a favor” because “they don’t normally do this.”  He was able to get us a flight to LAX instead. Here’s the kicker, we would be responsible for picking up our luggage from John Wayne. DUMB!

Some pictures borrowed from: Elvis Nguyen, Thanh Dang, Thao Vu, and Tony Nguyen.