New Year!

Happy New Year, kids!

It's been a pretty fun week. Amy U is back in town for her friend E's wedding on Saturday. She's the maid of honor and she's been running around crazy for about a year now, and poor girl is starving herself to get into her (white!) bridesmaid's dress. She also took the time to plan a bachelorette party for Miss E this week, with all the bridesmaids in town. Quick note, E and I aren't really close, but we're in the same program at school. Her friends were all super nice, but also classically trained American Ballet Academy (or some suchness) dancers (as is E) so they were tall and gorgeous. Also along were Jen and Laurel, who are also in my grad program. It was quite a group. I normally wouldn't go into the details but it was really fun, so here's the run-down:

• We all met up at the marina on Lake Union. Oh, everyone in Seattle has a boat, or can drive a boat, or lives on a boat. Amy rented this super cute party boat for us, which she drove, and we cruised around the lake and ate crackers and cheese, a penis-shaped cake, and drank champagne. We got to see all the GORGEOUS houseboats (re: mansions) decorated for xmas. It was so pretty, and only a little freezing!

Inside the boat:

Amy driving!

• Next, Amy pulled up to a dock near some restaurants and dropped us all off, while she returned the boat (and drove her car over). We surprised E with a visit to....Hooters! Apparently, it's ranked No. 2 as a bachelorette party stop in Seattle. [SIDEBAR: I could write an entire volume about our Hooters stop, but I'll spare you here for the sake of the rest of the blog. None of the other girls had ever been to a Hooters before (except Amy, but she went back to return the boat), and when they would out that I had, I was asked about the "protocol" for ordering there....I think they were all fully expecting to be forced to dance on tables, or show their boobs, or something. I have never been to Hooters with a more uptight group of people...it sort of took the fun out of it, especially when a guy sent a drink over to E and she was like, disgusted/weirded out by it. You probably have to know more about E, but that's pretty typical....We were awesome at trivia though, and if there had been more alcohol, it could have had more promise. But thankfully, we didn't stay long.] I made everyone try the fried pickles (omg.yum)

• From there, we took the SLUT downtown. The SLUT is the South Lake Union Trolley that the city built last year, and it goes from the business in South Lake Union to downtown, and is super nice but just has a very unfortunate name. Shortly after its grand opening (ha) the city changed its official name to the South Lake Union Streetcar, but no one calls it that. We stopped at Pacific Place, the really nice shopping center downtown that was supposed to be decorated for xmas. Unfortunately, it was closing up as we got there, so we just headed to our next place. Super unfortunately, it was also starting to rain, and it was freezing, and we had 4 blocks to go. The rain and xmas lights made downtown look kind of amazing, though..

Macy's had a huge silver tree and this amazing huge silver star. I couldn't get a good picture because it was freezing.

Awesome starbucks dowtown, totally xmas-ed out. The sign says "Do something good every day"

• But, we made it to the bar in one piece. Amy had called ahead and found out it was 80s night, but because of the weather, none of us was really 80s-up'd. This turned out to be a good thing, because the club was actually a VAMPIRE BAR and so 80s night meant like, The Cure and Depeche Mode. Oh, and also Madonna, who transcends all decades and social groups. Vampires love Madonna, I'm pretty sure.

• After a few drinks, we took cabs back to our cars. Amy did an awesome job with the whole thing, and even though it was a weird mix of people, I think we all had fun. Except the Hooters part, which was awkward, but at least it makes a good story...

Anyhoos, last night was New Year's Eve. Seth got off around 4pm, picked me up, and we made a much-needed Target run. On the way back, we got a ton of fast food, came home, pigged out, and watched the LSU game. Then we watched nip/tuck Season 5 (Part One) on DVD and, well, spent time together. It's been a very low-key holiday season. This morning, we got Chinese food and then saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. (it was pretty fantastic) Our couples new year resolution (gross, I know, sorry) is to see one movie a week in theatres (basically, 52 this year), which sounds expensive but there are some neat small theatres near our house that are a little cheaper, and keep track of them all. You'll probably read about them here later...

This got crazy-long. Happy New Year!

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