[twenty ninth]

I spent the weekend with one of my best buddies, K, in SoCal.  K is wonderful -- she's so funny, bubbly, lovely, and all-around great.  Although we've lived in different states for nearly five years, time hardly feels like it's past during our reunions.  We still laugh about the same memories we've told for years and never fail to make more hilarious ones when together. 

We spent most of the first day in Long Beach -- pigged out on a great Indian buffet, toured the Queen Mary, marveled at the sealife at the Aquarium of the Pacific, and accidentally took an hour long bus ride through the city at night (there was a really smelly woman in the seat in front of us).

The Queen Mary was fun.  Our admission included the Ghosts & Legends Tour where we followed a guide through a theatrical tour of the most haunted parts of the ship.  Mysterious fog billowed up in the closed pool and water droplets splashed our faces in the boiler room.

After, we went to the Aquarium.  K was a little photo-obsessive about the jellyfish and seahorses, but I must admit, they are pretty fascinating.  The scariest part for me of the whole day wasn't the bus ride - it was touching a tiger shark in one of the petting pools.  K did it no problem but freaky shark kept fidgeting around when I stuck my hand in the water.  I didn't feel like returning to the PNW sans my right hand, but I eventually touched him and he felt like soggy sandpaper.

This picture is from my favorite tank: The Clownfish! It was like a party in there, full of Nemos and Dorys :)

It was dark on our drive home but I could see the trees and hills so prominently.  I thought it was light pollution or me just being used to the darkness of Washington nights, but I guess it was one of the brightest moonlights of the year (aka The Wolf Moon).  For real.

We reached K's place and sat down to watch Taking Woodstock.  K baked up a homemade apple pie she'd had frozen since last year and we noshed on that.  The culmination of dessert, being up since 4 am, walking all over the Aquarium and, well, a pretty boring movie made me pass out on the couch.  We decided to head to bed and looked forward to another day.

Written 2/5/10