This post may only be 95% travel-related, but it’s 100% bulleted.
– We’re back from Seattle! We had a great time there, and got to hang out with Colleen, Steve, Very, and a giant cat named Charlie. Very made friends with Bally, too.
– We got to go up and walk around on the Alaskan Way Viaduct Saturday morning, while they were in the process of knocking it down. It was pretty great, and we all got to take home a piece of it. Seriously, a bulldozer drove over from where they were using a three-story jackhammer, dumped a pile of highway chunks on the ground, and people cheered and scrambled to get the best piece (that being one with rebar in it). It was awesome.
– Our suitcase contained the aforementioned piece of the viaduct, two 4-packs of Maui Brewing Coconut Porter, and about 30 balls of yarn Colleen gave me. I really hope the TSA had to inspect it.
– I thought our Atlanta layover on the way back from Philly was dumb, but this one was the true winner: we flew through St Louis on the way to Seattle. That added a couple extra hours to the flight, but it ended up being worth it because it gained me elite status on Delta. I have already taken advantage of it by moving us to exit row seats on our Vegas flight. I also politely asked Delta for 25% of my money back on the Economy Comfort seats we bought on our flight to Paris, and THEY GAVE IT TO ME. No way. (The main thing I like about medallion status is the 25% mileage bonus. We’ve been taking advantage of the free tickets lately.)
– We booked a hotel room in Rome, which means it finally sunk in that we’re going to Rome. We’re going to fly in from Paris Thursday afternoon, take the train to the central station in Rome, stay nearby and wander around seeing antiquities, eating pasta, and gesticulating wildly, then go back to the train station the next afternoon and ride to Civitavecchia, where our ship will sail off into the Mediterranean that evening.
– We’ll be flying EasyJet between Paris and Rome. They’re known to significantly overbook and also charge substantial baggage fees, but we’re used to that: we live in a Delta hub. (Also, flying in Europe is SO much cheaper than taking the train. That’s confusing.)
– We have a weekend off from traveling, which is very convenient since we also have our annual Halloween party this weekend. I’m very excited for all of that, especially my costume that involves a $9 t-shirt from Hot Topic. Oh yes.
– And here’s the 5% that’s not about travel: I prepared the garden for winter last night, and we dug up the second of our potato bins. Check out how many of them we got!! I’m so proud of my neglected urban farm.