Woke up at 7:12am and showered. Went downstairs to eat breakfast, had part of a waffle and an English Muffin. We rushed out the door after writing down Nina's directions and managed to catch our bus by running down half a block, watching it stop in front of our hotel, and proceed to the stop we were standing at. I bought an all day ticket thing then played a little bit of Harvest Moon while we went back downtown. We managed to get off at the right stop but we thought Pioneer Square (where we were meeting Nina) was this park thing so it took us a while to actually find the right Starbucks. But it was okay because she was running late too, for a sad reason though, nosebleed. ): She missed two trains, got there to meet us at like 9:30am or so, said "hi" to Alex's parents then we walked off to find the bus we wanted to take to the Rose Garden.
We got there pretty easily but the wait was a while so we taught her how to play Mao. Then we got there and wandered around for a while and got some shaved ice which was pretty good, except I kept dropping it all over me. Then we went to the Japanese garden which was alright but cost like five dollars to get in. We tried to take this special zoo-train into the zoo but it wasn't running for a few hours so we went by the boring bus. While waiting, we played cards and picked grass and then threw the grass at each other. Once there we got some cash out of the ATM and then I had a delicious quesadilla at this cafe. In the restaurant we mapped out with a pen where in the zoo we would go.
Once inside the actual zoo, we walked around pretty much on the track I set. We saw a bunch of cool animals, but some of them were lame and sleeping because it was rather hot out. We did this one simulator ride that was completely not zoo-related and took us on a ride around to all of the planets. At some point Nina got an orange soda float, which was bad, but in washing up the stickiness we found a nest of baby birds with was adorable. Near when the zoo was closing we went into this butterfly room place. It was supposed to cost a few dollars but we all got in free because the cashier wasn't working and the person liked Alex's threadless t-shirt. We spent like thirty minutes trying to get butterflies to land on us but we all fail'd.
So after like four hours in the zoo we get on the Max which is like half-subway, half-train, and spend like forty minutes or so going out to this other nearby city, Hillsboro. Because we needed to go to Sonic. It's like nearly 8 by the time we get there, and we spend twenty minutes or so teaching Nina how to play Pusoy and catch a bus that should run nearby Sonic. We're all trying to look for the street we need, Butler, but Alex is the one paying the most attention. Ten minutes into the trip his dad calls so he's on the phone and not paying attention and we unknowingly pass our stop. After five more minutes of driving we ask the bus driver if we'd passed Butler and he denied having any knowledge of the existence of the stop but told us Sonic was at this DIFFERENT street, one we passed a while back.
So we got off and decide we might as well just walk if he said we passed it. We walk for a bit and we're all exhausted already because we walked all over the zoo too. Finally we get the GPS working, and it says Butler is a few streets down from where we were. And it happened to be the one street that none of us read the name of, the one we were joking was probably our stop cause we missed reading it. Annoyed, but HEY SONIC! so we walked down a bit and had some good juice and onion rings and mozerella sticks. It's like, almost ten by now and we have to be back downtown by 11:30 to catch the last bus back up to our hotel.
The bus that drove us earlier was the 48; however the driver said it was his last run so we knew we couldn't get back on it, so we wandered a bit trying to find a stop on a nearby street for some other bus but ended up failing to find anything. We went into a nearby Hilton hotel and asked for directions back to the Max station or a recommendation for a bus and they gave us some weird and incorrect sounding directions and said it was only a 15-20 minute walk. Heartened by the estimate, we start off down Cornell, the street that the 48 went down and the one that crosses Butler.
Words cannot properly express the pain and monotony of spending the next hour and a half walking in as brisk a pace as we could manage down to the Max station. Early on I had to pee from drinking my Sonic juice, and I eventually actually went behind this one sign on this one pretty dark road with Nina and Alex standing by. It was pretty hilarious and definitely hardcore. We stopped at a Chipotle to ask for directions to the Max station and they told us what we pretty much knew: take Cornell to 185th. Cornell took FOREVER, then we got to start on 185th.
We actually had no idea how to get to the Max station from 185th, a thing we noticed after we were already so far down it there were no open stores or anything around us. Alex tried to buy a soda once, but like as soon as he got to the door the light went off and he was closed, it was kinda funny and a happy moment because Nina and I got to temporarily collapse on the grass. Then it was back up, and onward. We found a few bus stops and tried calling to find out what time they were coming, but none of them were actually still running.
At around 11:20 or so we started freaking out a little because we had been walking down 185th a LONG time and things weren't looking familiar, partly because we failed to pay attention at all on the beginning of the bus ride out towards Sonic. Finally we got to what looked like train tracks and start wondering if we had crossed them or not. One thing that was definitely frightening was the fact that when we turned onto 185th on foot we chose to go right even though we weren't 100% sure that was the way the bus had come from, so we started questioning that turn. We couldn't find the train station on the GPS, either, so it wasn't really able to help us at that point.
We decide to push on a little furthur, JUST IN CASE. So we get to the train tracks and see the little gate to cross and like a couple steps onto the track the lights start flashing and the things on the road lower so cars can't drive by. We hurry across and it comes quite a bit closer to us than any of us were comfortable with. Watching it pass by, we notice that large letters painted upon it declare it to be "The Max Blue Line." In turning around we also notice a sign that indicates the Max runs by - a good thing, because we turn right on the next street and then go down a little alley / sidewalk thing and end up AT THE STATION YAY OMG.
So it's like 11:35 now, which happens to be the time we had to be back downtown. Alex's mom calls and starts freaking out a bit at him because she doesn't know where Hillsboro is and didn't know he was going so far. She gives us the numbers for a couple taxi cabs, and we wait for the subway to come. Nina calls the trimet phone thing to find out when the next Max is coming but it says it's going to be 3:30am, which seems ridiculous but is not exactly the best thing to hear. Nina calls Emily, the friend she's staying with, and Emily says if she can get a hold of a car she'll see what she can do to help.
A little while later a Max shows up and we are all ecstatic and get on. Except, like, at literally the NEXT stop the Max announces that it is terminating and everyone has to get off. We're all upset and angry at it, and we're doing so loudly, so another person who gets off comforts us by saying another Max should show up in 10-15 minutes or so. Slightly heartened, we sit there just enjoying the action of sitting after walking FOREVER. My feet, thighs, and calves are all throbbing in pain by this point. After a bit the Max does actually come again, then we take it back downtown which takes another 30 minutes at least.
We hang out for a few minutes near the stop and discover from Nina that these odd water statue things are actually drinking fountains. Then Emily is able to pick us up and she's super nice and gives Alex and I a ride back to the hotel. We give her the rest of the fudge we bought at the zoo in thanks for her kindness, and she comments on the shirt I was wearing because it was one she designed and Nina had sent to me. She drives slightly how I imagine Sami does, and her boyfriend, William, who is also in the car, has to remind her once or twice about red lights and such. Then we lied to Alex's mom and say we took a taxi home because she doesn't like him driving with strangers.
We're finally home around 1am and then eventually we fall asleep, I put off writing this so long I forgot what else actually happened in the next few hours. :D. I probably tried to write some of this, talked to Nina, ate some veggie meat, while Alex complained about light and stuff. Sounds likely to me, at least.
