So…I was wrong.

My apologies to Kate, when I first met her, for tarring the whole US with the one-size-fits-all-America brush. Again. I can’t believe how awful I was when I met her, but thankfully she, being a very generous person actually allowed a second chance and eventually I learned to stop being mean about the US…

So I just spent 3 weeks in Washington state (Olympia, mostly; but also a little in Seattle and Bellingham, and one day in Vancouver B.C. :) ), meeting Kathryn’s friends and family, celebrating our commitment to each other, getting dresses…well, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Shall we start at the beginning? Yes, we shall…

So, the original purpose of our trip to the States, when it was first booked, was to go to Jessie and Justin’s wedding. Jessie and Justin being friends of Kathryn’s. Because we were going, and many of Kathryn’s friends / family can’t make it to the UK celebration we decided to have a commitment ceremony in the US as well (because the stress of one wedding just wasn’t enough for us :) ). Since this was to be at the end of the first week, and also because we had various things we wanted to get for the UK ceremony (dresses, rings…) which needed as much of the 3 weeks as possible, then we spent much of the first week running around like maniacs. We picked out colours, we picked out candles, we attempted to fold napkins… In between all of this, as we went around Olympia, Kathryn pointed out bits of her history…

I finally got to meet Kathryn’s Dad and his partner, who were really really lovely. It can’t be easy meeting the woman your daughter’s going to marry commit to, after they’ve chosen to commit to each other. Even more so when that person is from another country, and your daughter is intending to stay there for another year… It was faintly terrifying, but seemed to go very well, and actually I enjoyed the meeting.

Kathryn’s mom (and Terry, and family as a whole, and friends) were generally awesome, essentially doing everything for the celebration short of writing our vows. We made paper cranes, we helped set up the marquee and the lighting, but the pot-luck, the centre-pieces, the whole event really came together because of everything they did. Jan, our officiant, did the most beautiful job. It was, to be honest, just wonderful…

Of course, being as it was our celebration, apart from me poking around with the video camera now and then (which Terry and Stephanie took over, thankfully); we didn’t take any photos; so we’re waiting on them being sent to us by other people! We’ve got the video and despite it being shot on my ancient Hi8 camera the sounds not awful (you can hear what we’re saying) and the quality’s about Hi8’s usual adequateness.

Kathryn’s mom gave us the gift of 2 nights in a Guesthouse (Fertile Ground), so we were taken there after the ceremony and then headed into Olympia, the next day. Olympia is an interesting city, it’s pretty and appears to be terribly lefty-liberal in that way that I most definately like.

Lots of interesting shops lurk in the city’s down-town area, including orca books – a dangerously large new and used bookstore. Between there, the excellent restaurants, the record store (5 CDs) it would have been easy to spend a vast amount of money. We also spent a chunk of Saturday looking at Sand in the City (Olympia’s sand sculpture contest)…

Sunday we had brunch with Sherry (Kathryn’s mom), Terry and Terry’s mom. I think it was also this day that we headed out to see some friends of the family, for dinner (Salmon, grilled, mmmm). Sadly, during the trip out I got slightly car-sick. Not actually physically sick, but I just felt ‘off’ for the whole rest of the day. I was somewhat quieter than normal (even by my meeting-new-people standards), which was somewhat of a shame :(

The next week we spend some of just resting and relaxing; we headed up to Tumwater falls and Kathryn pointed out the abandoned brewery (sadly, due to not knowing WA’s trespass laws as well as the UKs we weren’t going to trespass to take photos of this terribly interesting building), we went up to Seattle to meet Rob, and to spend money in the Elliott Bay Book company. I finally got around to buying Little Brother – which it turns out is an *excellent* book. Mostly I ended up getting this because it was in hardback for $17, and because as I picked it up the shop-assistant-bloke said “it’s awesome”, and then we had a chat about the frustration of not being likely to see Cory Doctorow, despite living just near London. I spent the next 3 days avidly consuming the book in every spare moment. It is, in fact, excellent. Go read.

We also headed back to Tumwater falls (to a different park) to see if was possible to get near the abandoned brewery to take photos (without trespassing; the answer is no). Had the old railway bridge been intact (it’s completely removed) or the park have extended around to have a bridge over the river, then yes, it probably would have been possible. But as it is, without walking directly past No Trespassing signs, and clambering over a gate it’s not. Distressing as it is, we weren’t up for being arrested in the USA – it would have cut into our holiday time ;)

(look at it! Doesn’t it call out for a bit of urbexing?)

I find myself slightly struggling to organise exactly when things happened, but we went to Harbour Days (Oly’s harbour festival) – and spent a morning meandering around the arts/crafts stalls (of which there were many), and poking around a boat built in 1908.

I think that that was Saturday, and that Sunday we headed to the beach. I’m not normally one for laying on the beach doing sod-all (‘cept reading); but it was just a gorgeous day, not too hot, nor too cold, and so laying there reading (I as done with Little Brother, so was reading a Shape-shifter/werewolf/vampire detective/thriller novel for Young Adults. It was light and fluffy, but also absorbing enough to keep me very enterained (Moon called, by Patricia Briggs). Whilst I certainly should have been working on my ATNC course it’s sometimes nice to get away :)

The next week we headed back up to Seattle, via Ikea (a tourist attraction, alledgedly) spending the Ikea gift voucher given to us by one of the incredibly generous people who came to our ceremony… We spent more money in Easy Street records – and could have spent a lot more than that (it’s quite distressing really, how easy it would be to buy so much music), and then met up with Jessie and Co for her Hen night. One excellent Thai meal later and we went back to Jessie and Justin’s to sleep the night, before heading further up to Vancouver B.C.

By sheer freak of luck we arrived the second day of the Vancouver Fringe Festival and thus spent a very touristy day looking around Granville island (oh! the food!), yaletown (easy to get to by water-taxi), going to a show (Afterlife), picking up property papers (what?!) and eating all you can eat Sushi (oh, so good!).

Then we headed back down to Bellingham, spending a morning relaxing before Jessie and Justin’s wedding rehersal, and the next day, their wedding. Finally we made it back to Sea-Tac for our flight the next day…

…getting a quick chance to meet up with Sherry and Terry (who very kindly brought my Vibram FiveFinger KSO’s with them, allowing me to bring them back to the UK (“ooh, the world’s all textured”, more on that later)). So much happened that it’s impossible to remember it all. The really nice flight attendent on the way there giving us Champagne because we’re getting wed. People just being really friendly and generally exceptionally nice to us. Eating dinner with Sarah and Eric (Eric’s an awesome cook, Sarah’s great fun). I’ve missed out so much, just to keep it a reasonable length… and because it pops into my head in a random stream-of-conciousness way. So, yes.

Awesome time. Fantastic Holiday. Lovely people. :)