This weekend = whirlwind tour of Seattle, during which I took pictures of approximately nothing but the library.

Friday night we went to St. Dame's, a veg and vegan restaurant conveniently located off the light rail line I'd caught from the airport. John and I both had excellent takeoffs on the French 75, featuring fresh kiwi and crunchy seeds, before switching to stout and IPA. For appetizers, we ate beet and goat cheese bruschetta and winter squash quesadillas; for main courses John and his dad had vegan meatloaf and mac and cheese, while I had non-vegan butternut gnocchi with mushrooms, hazelnuts, and blue cheese. We'd been warned that "they really like kale," which was definitely true, as a huge pile of excellent tamari kale came with each. I actually think the kale was the best part. In conclusion, I clearly need to cook and eat more kale at home.

We stayed at the Ace Hotel in Belltown: nice. The ambiance seemed designed to attract urban youth, or "hipsters" as they are currently titled, but the guests we came across looked to be a little older. Seattle appears to enforce a "shut up after 10pm" rule, so even though we were staying right next to/over an obviously popular bar and restaurant combination, we had the opportunity for relatively uninterrupted sleep. In the morning, the common room featured Stumptown coffee of the Hair Bender variety and make-it-yourself waffles. Yay! Waffles have definitely been a theme lately. We didn't eat any right then, though, since we were planning on having full breakfast.

On Saturday we met John's dad at Pike Place Market. All the vendors were still hauling out their massive flats of fish and crab, so we bought some dried tart cherries and headed downtown for breakfast at Planet Java Diner, where we ate many omelets and hash browns and several cups of coffee apiece. Diners! California, where are your diners? They're definitely not in Silicon Valley. So sad.

After a tour of the Klondike state park visitor center, the exciting yet vertiginous library, and various International District markets, we had lunch at Phnom Penh Noodle House. We ordered way, way too much food. It was great food, however! This was my favorite meal of the trip. We ate piles and piles of rice noodles and broccoli and fried tofu and fishcakes. The best dish was John's dad's chicken sour soup, which was this massive red curry-mushroom-pineapple-coconut-kaffir lime creation. It was huge, even though he ordered the smaller portion. One noodle soup plus a single appetizer would be a totally filling lunch for two. I would eat that so hard.

For dinner, we went out to Mount Baker for various wood-fired business at Mioposto. The front of the restaurant was completely awash in small children when we walked in. Babies! That didn't stop us from ordering an array of exciting beer, though. For actual dinner, John had a margherita pizza, while his dad and I both got calzones. Since I got the veg calzone, with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, and red pepper, my entire plate was pretty well filed with vegetables. We also got to choose off the regular salad menu for our side salads, which was fortuitous, because beet salad = great. We seem to have eaten a pretty large proportion of beets on this trip, actually. This probably means I should do something with the bunch of golden beets currently sequestered in the back of my vegetable drawer.

On Sunday morning, our trip was over. We got up, ate waffles, drank coffee, and went to the airport. Super Bowl Sunday is a great day to fly in the US, FYI. If you want to stretch out over some empty seats, that's the way to do it. Yes.

Conclusions?
- Seattle seems good, although such a short trip is not enough to form a real opinion. The food was definitely good. Would eat again.
- Apparently, it takes less than 48 hours out of state to completely throw off my tolerance of CA heat.
- I would really appreciate it if the new federal high-speed rail plan began by constructing a line all the way up the west coast, please. Seattle by electric train! Yes!