Shiny Things

So, I'm back then

Well, here I am again. I feel like I've been away for months not 1 week. Would have been nice to stay in Seattle for 2 weeks - I was just getting used to the place and had met some people.

Went to a Pumkin party on the Saturday night before I left - it was great. We went to a pumpkin patch and chose pumpkins and then went back and carved them - I don't have many pics cos my treacherous camera battery died again. I'll put up what I do have later.

After the carving we sat round a bonfire drinking and eating smores. There was all manner of drink - some nice beer and warm cider with rum but I can't say that any of it went with the smores.

Smores are a sandwich made from marshmallows toasted over the bonfire and then sandwiched between gram crackers (sort of like a crunchy, dark digestive - ooh or a Hovis biscuit) with a chunk of Hershey's chocolate in the centre. They were good apart from the chocolate. Hershey's chocolate tastes bitter and ashey and is seriously horrid. The pig and I had to have tea to wash them down - how British of us.

Also, for the 1st time I tried pumpkin pie, milk duds, Reece's peanut cups, Cool whip, Reece's pieces and 2 other chocolate bars I can't remember the names of; a coconut one and a peanut-brittle one.

The pumpkin pie was good - unusual - I thought it would be quite savoury but it wasn't. It came with Cool Whip - like a marshmallow crossed with Dream Topping - was referred to as whipped cream. It was OK, edible but incredibly sweet and had never even been within miles of a farm, let alone a cow. Milk duds were not that good - the chocolate was awful but the caramel was ok. The peanut cup was SO SWEET! The chocolate was horrid and the peanutty stuff was salty-sweet, it was not good. The pieces were nice - like nutty smarties. The peanut brittle bar whose name I've forgotten was not good, salty-sweet-peanutty again - over sweet, but nice texture, possibly an acquired taste. The coconut bar though takes the prize as being the worst of the lot. It was HORRID! I had to spit it out. I have a sweet tooth and can normally manage most crap sweets but this was just awful. I can't compare it to anything I've ever tasted before. It was like a bounty but between the coconut and the chocolate there's some kind of liquid which made it awfully soggy. It certainly didn't taste of coconut. The party guests were astounded that I hadn't tried any of these things before and were very entertained by my reactions to them!

Warm, spiced cider with rum was really nice... I could drink that again and I don't like cider.

We told tales round the bonfire of dreadful situtations we'd been in which were also funny - not all of them involved being drunk! There were some howlers - I won't share as they aren't my tales to tell so I'll probably get them wrong! You'll just have to imagine...

The party was at a friend's/work colleague's of the Pig and his pale colleague on Bainbridge Island which we had to take a ferry to. Liked the ferry ride, the sun was on the way down and it was crisp, bright and fresh. And when we were on the way back Seattle was really pretty all lit up.

The journey back to the UK was long and tiring and not anywhere near as pretty as the way out. It was dark when I left, for a start so I didn't get any pics of us flying past Mt. Rainier or over Hudson Bay, or Greenland but I did get some shots of clouds and coming into land in London.

I had 2 hours to kill before my coach so I found an Internet cafe - paid 50p for 5 minutes and lost a good part of it helping the guy on the machine next to me who was trying to use foregin currency in the slot for the PC. I gave him some money and when it was finally accepted the bloody thing didn't work!

I looked back at my screen and I now had less than 3 minutes left! I ended up having to pay more to check my mail... only now I had no change apart from £1 coins after giving my other change to the guy whose machine had eaten it!

Anyway, I thought I'd better stand outside and wait for my coach early, just in case, plus I was starting to feel very sleepy. It was an hour late due to accidents on the M1, M23 and M25! Then it had to take the back way out of London and took over 3 hours to get home. I felt OK when I got back because I slept most of the way. Unfortunately I fell asleep after waking up this morning and didn't wake up for about 4 hours! So, I'm not tired.

Work, tomorrow, is going to be interesting!

posted by bugexplorer @ 1:13 AM