Last week in Seattle
Jul. 9th, 2010 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ximenI've spent the past few days packing up and preparing to move. I've been eating at all my favorite restaurants, eating lots of Rainier cherries, and trying to see various friends before I go. I've also been hanging out in the @Cafe, where I've moved from being a customer to being a regular to being something between "employee" and "family." I gave the owner, Grace, baking lessons so she can make cookies and lemon bars for the cafe, and as a thank-you she now gives me free drinks and lets me hang out as long as I want, using the internet and chatting with her and her mom. Her mom and I practice our Mandarin (it's not a first language for either of us, but it's our only common language) and now when she brings lunch for Grace she makes a bowl for me, too. And when there aren't any customers, Grace brings down her kitten Bibi and we play with him. It's really the perfect place, and I'll miss the cafe, Grace, her mom, and Bibi a ton, along with all the other Seattle things.
Today my dad came up from Atlanta to help me take my boxes to the post office and to have one last visit to the Northwest while he still has an excuse. After the post office trip, we went to Tamarind Tree, which is a serious contender for best Vietnamese food I've ever had (the other two being the place near Chris and the place in Chicago I went for graduation). Ben was around helping me pack, so he came too. We had papaya salad, prawn satay, grilled pork salad rolls, steamed coconut milk rice cake with prawns, beef spareribs, and catfish with turmeric. Other than the prawn satay, which was only okay, everything was amazingly good. The ribs were super-tender, the fish was incredibly flavorful, and the salad rolls combined perfectly grilled pork with fresh lettuce and little crispy bits of fried spring roll skin. But my personal favorite was the steamed rice cake, which was warm and soft and very slightly sweet and full of coconut milk flavor. My dad seemed suitably impressed.
Tomorrow we're going to Mt. Rainier for some hiking. I'll be back on Wednesday to finish the packing and shipping, give away everything I'm not shipping, and say one last farewell to everyone before leaving Thursday afternoon. I'm not ready to go!
(I'll never be ready to go)
Today my dad came up from Atlanta to help me take my boxes to the post office and to have one last visit to the Northwest while he still has an excuse. After the post office trip, we went to Tamarind Tree, which is a serious contender for best Vietnamese food I've ever had (the other two being the place near Chris and the place in Chicago I went for graduation). Ben was around helping me pack, so he came too. We had papaya salad, prawn satay, grilled pork salad rolls, steamed coconut milk rice cake with prawns, beef spareribs, and catfish with turmeric. Other than the prawn satay, which was only okay, everything was amazingly good. The ribs were super-tender, the fish was incredibly flavorful, and the salad rolls combined perfectly grilled pork with fresh lettuce and little crispy bits of fried spring roll skin. But my personal favorite was the steamed rice cake, which was warm and soft and very slightly sweet and full of coconut milk flavor. My dad seemed suitably impressed.
Tomorrow we're going to Mt. Rainier for some hiking. I'll be back on Wednesday to finish the packing and shipping, give away everything I'm not shipping, and say one last farewell to everyone before leaving Thursday afternoon. I'm not ready to go!
(I'll never be ready to go)