Days Inn Bellevue

... time for the border crossing. I had done a little research the evening before on getting our purchases back across the border and determined that we were - ahem- a *little* over on our wine allowance. Well, as good people, we decided to deal with the outcome and traveled to the Peace Arch crossing not knowing what our duty fees would be. When "confronted" at the border, we were asked "what's in the cooler" and "are ...

... the updates will be more frequent since we should be staying in better hotels in the near future. However, even then, for some odd reason, not all photos can be loaded at the same time. If you are most interested in the pictures, keep an eye on updates of the number of photo files. Each post can take me days to upload all the photo files. (I've got a lot going on out here). Please bear with me. Back to the fun stuff ...

... America. It's near the shopping district and next door to Pike St market, again allegedly famous. It's been going for over 100 years and was full of the usual market type stuff, food, flowers and various wares. It's also home to the original Starbucks that has since spawned in to the global nightmare on every corner. There's over 100 in the city and over a ridiculous 400 in the area. It looks like any other one inside, just the sign outside is a little bit old looking. The ...

... the Russian player, and he used to be the Brazilian player! We were both obsessed with these two countries. And since I was a blond hair, blue eye kid, I was sure I was adopted by my parents and was originally from Russia. My brother remained true to his obsession with Brazil, and I betrayed mine and became obsessed with Germany. I think it was the football players in the old team that did it for me! I managed to play a few rounds with Ashley, a friend of Debby who was John's ...

... for us. America has the worst airlines in the world - It may sound strange to Americans but we actually looked forward to flying on this trip. It seemed like each airline was good with tasty food, newspapers and Oscar nominated movies. The highlight was the Singapore Airlines flight on their new, super comfortable 777-300 (yay, Boeing!). The young, size-two flight attendants in these ...

... luggage sitting by the door. Had the family over Sunday, talked to the ones far away, spent the afternoon getting a pedicure, can I get any more relaxed? Housesitter coming, backups ready-when-needed, mail on hold, weather clear and cold, looks like a full moon or nearly. Next time you hear from me I'll be south of the equator. Everything is dang nigh perfect. Oops, Alex T Cat just barfed all over the carpet.