Seattle Adventure (Sorta)

So a week after school closed I quickly called up my relatives in Seattle and got out of Vancouver in a flash. I took the train which is so much nicer and roomier than the bus but no scenery at all...such ugly view of construction and sickly trees. Even though I was in Seattle for about 10 days I haven't seen any of the places I wanted to...for about a week it was raining. And the other times....there was actually no time. I wanted to see the downtown, go up the space needle, visit the zoo and a museum etc. However, even though I spent most of my time vising family...I had a TON OF FUN. I stayed with 2 girls who are close to my age and they freakin rock. I spent a lot of days talking with them from 10 pm to 5 or 7 am. Me - the girl who cannot stay up to 2 am to study for a final exam yakked away all night long into the morning. I never knew there was so much to say!!!

So the most interesting incident happened on the day that I left for home. My two aunts and I started playing a wicked truth or dare game. It was a pretty scary and nerve racking game because we went all out. Now three days before - close to midnight, after a marathon movie session we decided to go on paltalk and have some fun. Through the course of the night we met one particular guy who was very funny and had interesting stories that had us laughing so hard our cheeks hurt...or was that hysterical crazy laughter because we were up for two days with little sleep? Anywho...we asked for the guy's number, called him up and spoke to him for a while [I would have never done this by myself...such a coward...however with numbers comes safety and possibility stupidity].

So the next day I dared one of the girls to call him up for a meeting when we discovered that he lived in the same city. He told that he was 22 years old, light skinned, 6 feet tall, fit with curly hair and said that he'll come alone (which we requested). So we decided to meet him at a Somali restaurant where the real fun begins.

But before I get into that...I had the choice of going to the cheese factory or a Somali restaurant and in a stupid moment opted for the Somali restaurant because I've only eaten at one once in my life and it was years ago so I don't really remember. The men's sections was full to overflowing and we three were the only ones in the women's section which was tiny, closed off from the rest, and looked like it hadn't seen a soul in years. The food was basic and very pricey...so we just ordered a ABSOLUTELY delicious mango shake which was $2 dollars each. The freakin server guy ripped me off. He said it wasn't available since they only offer it in the summer and then came back and said he'd make the guy make it for us. We told him not to bother but he insisted and it took some time to make it. So after paying the $6 drink I left him a $5 dollar tip for his trouble....and then found out that I actually gave him a $9 tip. He didn't give me my change back .

But I digress...back to the story...so we tell him to come into the women's section. He told us what he was wearing and that was that. After about 10 minutes in walks these two guys. We were confused and asked what they wanted. One of them then stepped forward and identified himself as the paltalk guy. We couldn't believe it. He brought a friend. Paltalk guy looked to be 5'8, he was dark skinned with short straight hair, and was definitely not 22. He looked to be over 30. We refused to talk to him...he acted like we were playing a trick on him or something. We couldn't believe that he would think we would give him the time of day considering that he lied through his 30 yr old teeth. We couldn't help laughing and just left.

What a freakin weirdo. My distrust of the Internet has been confirmed. The only reason I had this little adventure was because I was feeling brave and I knew I was going home the next day. However, it really did me think. This is how pedophile lure little girls. All these people pretending to be who they are not. It's scary walahi.

Another interesting thing was that when I went to the Somali shops (I celebrated Eid there so I had alot of shopping to do) they tried to rip me off too. Living in BC practically half my life I'm not familiar with the art of haggling. Every time I wanted to buy something, one of the girls with me would look at me with a shocked look and say to the lady 'we don't want it' and start leaving. Less than 30 seconds later....the lady would call us back and lower the price.

Every. Single. Time.

In one store we were buying a shawl from a family that were Somali (I found out) but that I assumed were Indian. They honestly did not look like they had a drop of Somali blood in them. Anyway...we girls were talking in English the whole time and she probably thought that we couldn't understand her dialect and said to her son 'make the price $25 dollars and if they keep on negotiating the last offer should be $15'. We quickly left the store. I would have been the sucker that would have paid $25 for it.

The final interesting thing that I've seen there...actually it was sad not interesting...at each Somali store there would be a group of Somali teens to 30 something just loitering around. Doing nothing. At one store...I swear there were close to 15 men just hanging around outside the door. And it wasn't one day. It was every day from afternoon to night. How freaking sad is that. Do they not have lives? What could honestly be so fascinating about standing around and staring at people walking around? Don't they have children, wives, jobs? That was puzzling. I wanted to hang out the car during a traffic stop and shout 'get a life' at them but my aunt stopped me saying that they could get violent and throw things at the car. Sigh. I would kick my son's ass if he hung around a group like that.

So that was my little trip.