It’s been a while since I blogged as my dad pointed out to me this morning. “I’ve been pretty busy,” I said. “But wouldn’t you rather be writing about cool stuff than doing it?” It was a joke, but it is a subtle tension I guess. Sometimes no matter how good a time I’m having, I wish I had time to reflect and noodle. I haven’t written a song in months. But enough of that, on to the good times…

I flew out to Seattle for Rich’s wedding and drove up to Vancouver for a couple of days. The trip was a lot of fun.

Seattle had more character than I expected. Great Thai food. Distinct, fun neighborhoods with an artsy feel. Pike Place Market is a phenomenal food and craft market that makes my local favorite Union Square Greenmarket seem like a lemonade stand by comparison. We stayed with a college friend of Jeanhee’s, who works as a game developer and has lived happily in Seattle for almost ten years now. We checked out the Experience Music Project, which is the most expensive museum I’ve ever been to (twenty bucks a head) but also the coolest. The Guitar Gallery is a phenomenal tour of the history of the guitar and the use of technology in the museum is excellent. Everybody wants to know, did it rain while I was there? Of course it rained. It’s Seattle.

I loved what I saw of Vancouver. I found it to be clean, cosmopolitan, diverse, a great sense of urban style, and distinctly Canadian. Our meal at Tojo’s was delicious. We ended up having the omakase, where the chef sends out whatever he feels like making. With a seafood-centered menu, that means you get incredible creations made from the freshest local fish and critters of the day. We saw plenty of kite- and wind-surfers out on the bay, and enough cool parts of the city (Stanley Park, Yaletown, Gastown) to make me look forward eagerly to my next trip there.

Rich’s wedding was the core purpose of the trip and the highlight, too. It was the first Quaker wedding I’d ever attended, and had a heavy emphasis on community, on all the friends and family being a part of the ceremony. Various people spoke as they were moved to do so, and we all signed a copy of Rich and Christy’s vows as witnesses. Rich and Christy delivered their vows to directly to each other, rather than repeating the words of a priest back to him. The wedding had a common-sense, healthy, practical feel that made a nice impression on me and made me even happier for the starring couple. And the myriad homemade pies present were pretty damn good, too.

After the wedding, we hosted an afterparty in our hotel room and had a rip-roaring time of it. We consumed quite a bit of leftover wedding beverages while we jumped around, played games, told secrets, and watched Rich’s brother’s dog pee on the carpet. We went to sleep at two, just enough time to get into REM before our 4 a.m. wake up call. As you might guess, the flight was among the worst in my life.

But the trip was great. I’ll have a new feeling inside when I call it the “Great Northwest.”