Meeting the Robbins in Seattle

For our Alaskan cruise vacation, Tom and I decided to arrive in Seattle a bit earlier than the cruise actual departure day. One is to ensure that we do not miss the cruise departure time with any possible flight delay (unlikely since it is only a 2.5 hour flight from LAX with frequent services). Second is to allow a brief visit with Tom’s sister (Nilenka) and her family in Seattle.

We decided to meet up for lunch on Saturday; that would give us a few more hours to catch up than a dinner. The Robbins picked us up from the W Seattle around noon. Nilenka made brunch reservation at Cafe Campagne down at the Pike Place Market. We had a fabulous time, delicious meals, yummy mimosa, great company and conversation. All of us were tempting Ian to try a mimosa, but his will was strong! I forgot to dig out the camera for pictures of the brunch. I had the Omelette Choisy, French-style rolled omelette flavored with herbs and filled with escarole and chèvre served with chicken and pork sausage. Yummy!

After lunch, we drove to the nearby Green Lake to walk off the lunch. The lake is near one of the previous homes the Robbins lived in; and also to avoid the weekend crowd at the Pike Place Market. We made the loop around the lake. At the beginning, I asked Alan how long is this walk. He told me it is about ~1 mile. Twenty minutes later, we hadn’t even gotten through half way. Even though I am out of shape these days, I knew it couldn’t be THAT out of shape!!! But conversation was good and I really needed the exercise anyway. So I learned a bit about Cloud Computing from Alan while Tom and Nilenka were chatting away a few pace behind us.

At the end of the walk, we were rewarded with ice cream, very much up Tom’s alley, especially when it is a Ben & Jerry! I chose to skip as I wanted dinner that evening. By then it was like 3-4 pmish. More laughs and conversations later, the Robbins delivered us back to the hotel. The visit was short and sweet. Hopefully, we would do that again in the near future.