I-5 and us
August 10th, 2006 by Miss604 | 3 Comments »
3 more hours to go and I’m fading fast. Yesterday (after working since 7am) I hopped on the skytrain in the afternoon and headed toward Surrey. It took a little longer than expected since 4 of 6 ticket machines were down at Waterfront station and I was not the first person to get there. If tourists don’t know how to use the machines they should just turn around and ask someone, perhaps the impatient girl standing behind them who has somewhere to be (right Laura?)
Once en-route I gave Jen a quick call to confirm the meet-up locale. 45 minutes later I was in Surrey and headed south with my sister and brother. I can’t tell you the last time that *just* the three of us did something together.
At the border we had to wait in a 20 minute line up, but it really wasn’t too horrible. The Pacific Truck Crossing is always your best bet, regardless. I directed my sister in to one of the right hand lanes and as we were approaching the customs booth she turned to me and said: “Oh great Becky, you put us in the only line up with the chick.” My sister and I find that we have a much ‘easier’ time at crossing the border when there is a gentleman customs agent manning the booth (and tossing out cheesy pick up lines).
Jen had no reason to worry, we were waved through and on our way. 2.5 hours of bumper to bumper traffic later and we were approaching Seattle. I always forget what the city looks like since it’s one I rarely visit. I snapped a few shots of downtown and we lumbered our way through the busy downtown streets trying desperately to find parking (while we could hear the game in progress, with crowds cheering, it was a lil stressful).
I almost went ballistic when a man scooped up a spot we were line for (and that was assigned to us by the attendant) but about 5 minutes later we came across a lot and parked the car. Although it was $35 to park there a) it was close b) we were going insane c) missing the game would have eventually cost us more than $35.
Beckham was on the pitch during the first half although by the chants of “U-S-A” in the crowds I quickly found out who the realcrowd fave was. The game was SUPER slow going, uneventful (except for a few corner kicks and penalty kicks OOOH) and we spent more time in line ups and mosh-pit-like seas of people to get in and out of the stadium than we did actually watching the game.
Over all, the game wasn’t the best but the experience was fantastic, despite all the traffic problems and throngs of people - since really, that’s to be expected. I can’t wait to make a run down there to catch a baseball game with John. Qwest field, sitting right next to Safeco Field, where the Mariners play, is darn impressive and I’d love to explore downtown Seattle a little more.
Jen and James dropped me off at home and by 2am I was crawling into bed with John.
Tonight I’m working until 8:30pm. I’m super-mega tired and will start work at 7am again tomorrow. I have pics of the trip up on my flickr (TAG:DCUnitedRealMadrid) and I also took a couple videos. John will either extract the audio for a podcast or I’ll YouTube them up here soon. What a week.
