Seattle

To backtrack a bit, I had a minor breakdown in Portland. It was all due to my (SECOND) camera somehow getting jammed while turned off and in my pocket as I walked through the Portland Art Museum. What the Hell? Suddenly I was looking at my bank account and the amount of miles between myself and Minneapolis and the week that I still had sit through before more money was deposited into my checking and the fact that I hadn't found anyone at whose place I could crash, even for a night. Anxiety quickly built until I was back to a pretty typical state of wide-eyed, nervous self-ramblings as I paced and fidgeted. Please God let the rest of my trip bring me back into a state of calm rather than one of emergency.

If I were asked to compare and contrast Portland with Seattle, though, it'd be all of the latter, none of the former. I arrived in the city near daybreak, set myself up in a local Starbucks (when in Rome, yeah?), and decided I should immediately look for a place to stay or things to see and do while there outside of the usual ("ZOMG IF YOU GO TO SEATTLE YOU HAVE TO GO SEE THE SPACE NEEDLE, PIKE PLACE MARKET, PUGET SOUND ETCETCETCETC").

Well, who has two thumbs and found a total stranger to hang out with within about a half an hour of being in the city? Yeah, this guy right here =)
I had a couple hours leeway before I was supposed to meet up with this guy for dinner and drinks and so I figured, per usual, I'd wander the city to see what I'd stumble across. I managed to park and walk along the piers just as the sun set over the sound and one of the last boats sailing back from Bainbridge Island came into dock. Now, maybe I'm a melo-dromantic™, but I'm confident Seattle was meant to be experienced in the evening. I can't overstate the dreamy, poetic charm that she naturally exudes once twilight hits.

I met up with Josh, a transplant into the city of barely two weeks, and we wandered around the area, looking for a place to eat. We eventually decided, after gorging on a slice of greasy pizza the size of my torso, that we'd head out the club that night.
Sounds great, yeah? After all, I didn't even give Portland a chance to show me her nightlife in order to sway my opinion of her because of how much of a big, crusty bitch she was during the daylight, and so maybe a night out is what I needed.
The problem? (I realize, by the way, that I'd make a pretty natural Jewish mother, with the amount of bitching and dissatisfaction I can find in every waking moment) Josh is 20 years old, so we'd have to go to pre-21 bars. That didn't seem like much a problem, as I do it semi-regularly in Minneapolis.
The catch? Ain't no motherfucking pre-21 bars before TWO GODDAMN AM (read: 2 in the motherfucking morning) in Seattle because that's when they stop selling liquor. So they open up the bars to the pre-21 crowd from 2am-4am, when this old man is usually already curled up and passed out fully clothed in a Karkov (don't hate) induced stupor near the bathroom door.
Christ...alright. Let's do this. I can pretend I'm 19 again, just once more.

Well, okay. Twice more. Turns out, it was so much goddamn fun dancing until dawn that we decided we needed an encore the next night.
Even better, we decided we needed a whole day to explore the city together as two people who had no idea where to start, in order to successfully mentally pregame this early morning dance-off.
The result? ADVENTUREAPOLIS! No, yeah, crazy fun. We went to the Pike Place Market, found some super cool art to decorate his empty apartment, managed some bomb-ass photos in a photo booth, colored in the park, and definitely had a little piece of heaven via Cupcake Royale, among plenty of other mini adventures that I'm sure I've already forgotten about because the sheer volume that we were able to create.

Take two at the club was just as flawless as the first and the next day we decided to pay a visit to the Fremont Troll and cook dinner, making the third night a little more chill than the first two, followed by day four at the Pacific Science Center where I was the subject of interest for quite a while to one guy in particular:

Alright, yeah. All of this sounded about right after such a depressing time in Portland. I mentioned to Josh that I could see myself coming back to the city even semi-regularly considering how much I felt she had to offer. He warned me, though, that it was a hard city to break into and to expect The Seattle Freeze with the majority of interactions I would find myself in.
Well, fuck you, Seattle. I ain't scurred. Probably about time The Seattle Freeze got oiled up and had a parking lot brawl with Minnesota Passive-Aggressive, anyhow.

This was my last major city of the trip and I'm happy to say it went out with a such a bang. Now, finally, to wind my way back home through the mountains and plains of Montana and the Dakotas.

Here I come, Midwest.