A trip to Seattle (Part 1)

I was eagerly waiting for this trip. During the last six months I went to two Columbus Crew games, went to a show by John Oliver, went to a concert by Bob Dylan (Yes! That's an experience) and went to Chapel Hill twice to be with the gang. Yet, I needed a break from my mundane daily life. I was missing the gang a lot. So, AB and I planned for a trip to Seattle to visit Sada's place during Christmas holidays. 

We started on the 25th evening. I was travelling from Columbus while AB was travelling from Chapel Hill. For me it was a long six hour plane journey from DC to Seattle which as always turned out to be boring except for a unique incident which was indeed one-of-a-kind. Before even we started from DC one of the passengers got deplaned for disobeying the flight attendant. It turned out that he expressed his feelings of anger to the lady with a few specially chosen well structured slang which brought him to that end.  

Once spotted in the Seattle-Tacoma airport the first thing AB told me that he was hungry. With more interrogations AB finally revealed that he did not have a full lunch before he started from Chapel Hill and neither did he buy any food in between. So we both headed for a Starbucks shop to have something. I was extremely delighted to be among the known faces again.

The best way to reach Sada's place from the airport is to take a metro and Sada already gave us enough information on how to reach his place. Sada's apartment is in downtown Seattle near the China town. So, AB and I boarded a metro from the airport and headed towards the China town. I remember, through out the journey I kept on pointing AB to every Chase outlet. Every time AB had a different verbal response which was not only amusing but made me even more interested. I was explaining him how these outlets work and what do they do on a daily basis and how these outlets can run into misery without our indispensable contribution, to be exact my indispensable contribution. It was a deliberate effort on my part to substantiate the fact that how important I am as a resource for the bank. All the while it was a sarcasm that we both enjoyed.       

It was a cold evening. With hands deep inside our pockets we strolled down the streets of Seattle. It was already pretty late in the evening. Streets were mostly empty with a few people loitering around the corners. We soon spotted a tall building on our way. Later we came to know it is the Columbia Center, the tallest building in Seattle. Sada's apartment is in the topmost floor of a 7 storied apartment building. It is in front of the Columbia Center. As soon as we reached Sada's place I felt the same vibe that we used to have back in Chapel Hill with the gang. I met Aindrik, Arjun, Avik, Sankha and Abhik. Aindrik and Arjun reached a couple of days ahead of us. They drove in from Albuquerque. Abhik flew in from Alpharetta and Sankha flew in from California. It was a delight to meet all of them.

Dinner was delicious. We watched the highlights of an ongoing test match between Australia and India and discussed if India could win one game how it would boost the confidence of the entire team ahead of the WC. The discussion reminded me of the days during the soccer WC, when each evening over dinner Subhamay would analyze every game and finally make predictions for the next games. Although his analyses would very often run on a parallel track with that of Roberto Martinez, his predictions more often than not used to be spot on. 

It is amazing that, even though I have spent five years with Sada and AB there will always be new topics which will come up and one can keep on talking about that for hours without running into a single dull moment. The same sense of healthy banter is always there. All the other folks joined in and we ended up spending almost a sleepless night. At 5 in the morning we dispersed and everyone decided to take a nap for a while. For me it was already 8 EST and I was wide awake. 

I thanked myself for rewarding me with this trip. Spending ten years within a known circle and then suddenly leaving that group is not easy. At least for me it was not at all easy. During this trip we traveled a bit around Seattle and I will continue writing on that later.