leonel-raid

So Leonel was in town for Memorial Day weekend a.k.a. his birthday! We did everything! Drinking and dancing occurred on Thursday, Friday and Sunday with a little Squatch on Saturday and some hiking on Monday.

Thursday: meet for drinks at Neighbours, I think, then ended up dancing at R Place and it was all a little weird being at a gay club without Jesse and Josue (odd that I had never been to a gay club until I moved here). Everyone attempted to force drinks on me, but I limited myself, which was good because I had to work the next day and I was still and am still sick, Highlight of the night was guy in black speedo and animal print suspenders and then all of us dancing on the stage to 80's music. The Brazilian loves to dance as much as I do, how beautiful.

Friday: Melinda got food poisoning from some deli so she stayed in and I met Leonel and Nick over at Manray. Then Kevin and Warren joined us for a couple of drinks before we parted ways. It's weird being in all architect groups again. Leonel, Nick and I then headed down to the Last Supper Club in Pioneer Square to see some DJ from Austin. It was quite amusing to laugh at all the raver kids dancing, there could be 12 different beats playing and it wouldn't matter their dancing would always be the same: slow movements creating arcs of nothingness and then breaking into some madly bouncing jumping scenario of sorts.

Saturday: SQUATCH! Emma, Chuck, Melinda, Leonel and I set off for the Sasquatch festival sometime around 9 a.m. I made breakfast tacos, Chuck drove and then we were there; 2.5 hours later. We saw some local rappers at first and they were pretty good until this skinny little white or asian girl exploded into a rap and it was just hilarious and great all at the same time. Then we waited for the blow to come on and I was so excited about it, then she came on and it was just her chatting with the crowd and dancing very oddly. I get the sense that it would have been good if there were only 30 people there, but the group went to go listen to someone else and since I'm a follower off I went to the two gallants show. They were alright and then we went to Viva Voce and the infamous Squatch was born, squatchety squatch squatch. They were great and you could just tell that they were so happy to be performing that it made everyone else happy. The day was starting to get long but it was time for ghostland observatory and they rocked just like everyone said they would. But since this was a large outdoor festival, the sound died halfway through and took about 5 minute to fix, but they started playing again and everyone else started dancing again. Alright, it was now time for Manu Chao, we made our way down to the pit and got ready, the old guys on stage started playing and we started gyrating. It was great, I've never danced that much in my entire life. I was sweaty and happy and couldn't stop dancing. We went and grabbed some dinner during the M.I.A. replacements and then watched arcade fire from the blanket in the grass where some spooning occurred. Everyone else went down to Bjork, but I stayed back with Emma and Chuck because I was just too darn tired. Her show was awesome though, complete with laser lights (pow) and teletubbies (aww). She was wearing some yellow flying squirrel/court jester outfit and was dancing around like crazy, it was great. Then home we went so we could get to bed at 4:30 a.m.

Sunday: Tourist day with Leonel, went Alki on the water taxi, walked around the market and had a great dinner at the Pink Door complete with a trapeze act. Went over to Nick's for wine on the roof deck and headed out to Chapel to meet up with Rob and Ben. A little while later we're leaving a crappy bar called Havana, Ben was so embarassed he even suggested it, bad night i guess. Then we ended up at a pretty empty R Place, but made the best of it by dancing in long, disturbing chains. Then everyone drank more wine at our place and we took measurements of each other. Melinda has the biggest head at 23.5 inches. Oh, why did we stay up so late.

Monday: 'We're seriously going to hike Mt. Si all hung over like we are.' That was all I could keep thinking that entire morning. So we met Leonel and Nick at Whole Foods to get some rations and drove out to Mt. Si. 4 miles to go up 3,500 feet to reach an elevation of 4,100 feet and then we get to go back down. Started out at Nick pace which would have killed me if we kept it, but then started slowing down for Melinda a bit, until we got bored with that, and then I got in front and we went at a decent pace until we got halfway up to wait for Melinda and Leonel (he was keeping Mindy) company. They made it to halfway, we ate for a bit, and by this point Nick and I are freezing, so we let Melinda rest before she heads back down and Nick, Leonel and I make our way up the rest of the trail. It's really steep and I'm hung over, so I feel this is a good intro. to Seattle outdoorsiness. We make it up to the top and climb the craggy bit at the top to get as high as we can and then sit and eat, take some pictures and race back down in order to go to the bathrooms, they might have been gross, but they're bathrooms. Back to Seattle for showers and then to Umi for Leonel's last dinner. That place was cool, but I was sad to see Leonel go.