I hadn't planned on going to Seattle for another week or so, but my good friend (and fellow traveler) Kyla was flying to Japan on Monday, and I went to go see her. My car was still in the shop so I got a ride from my parents, who were going to town for a concert. I hadn't got a ride to Seattle from my parents since high school. It was a strange feeling.

Kyla met me downtown, and we wandered over to the Pike Place Market - the Seattle landmark where tons of artists and vendors gather each day to sell their goods. This is where the fresh-caught seafood is brought in the morning, and where you may have seen video of people tossing giant salmon over everybody's heads.

We went to Lowell's - a seafood restaurant that turns into a bar at night - to grab a drink and watch the sun set over the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. It was really nice.

Then we took the bus back to Kyla's place in Ballard to hang out over there. It was a 20 minute ride that turned into a 25 minute ride when the bus driver found a taxi cab parked in the bus lane outside a crowded bar. The bus driver told the cabby to move. The cabby yelled back some obscenity. The bus driver yelled back another obscenity. Then there were a lot of obscenities and it was hard to tell which ones came from who. Then the bus driver said he was going to call the police, and he edged his bus up a little bit and trapped the cab against the curb. He called the police and after 5 minutes of trapping the cab, the sherriff came. It was funny because half the bus passengers were on the bus driver's side but the other half wanted to go home. Kyla and I just thought it was funny. We were lucky the sherriff came so quickly or it could have got really interesting.

We made it back to Kyla's place in Ballard. She had an extra bike so we biked to the Ballard beach. It wasn't too far and it was a nice ride in the cool night. We got there and crowds of people were huddled around bonfires as far as we could see up the beach. We walked along the beach and at one bonfire there were around 100 people in a big huddled circling mass. We got closer and saw there was a fight in the middle. This little skinny kid was getting beat up by several big guys. They finally got off him and he staggered backwards towards us. The circle opened and then another kid ran up behind him and socked him in the ear. He fell over and all the big guys from before rushed over again and swarmed towards us and we were nearly run over. After that the fight was pretty much over. We found ourselves at the next bonfire, warming up and making fun of the fight for awhile until it was time to go back.

It was a fun night.