Bringing it Back!

We decided to resurrect our dilapidated blog for our adventure in France. I have a number of old posts from Thailand that I never put up, but I'll try to get around to back-posting them. In the meantime, stay tuned!

Pre-Thailand: Los Angeles

In typical Mikey and Sarah style, we did not mail off our visa applications in time to receive them before we had to take off. The closest Thai consulate was in Los Angeles, and we had been thinking of going there to get Patty's anyway. It takes 24 hours to get a visa in person, which is much better than the 10+ days to get it via the mail.

We wanted to spend as much time in Seattle as we could since we had tons of stuff to do around the house. Thus, our schedule looked like

• Fly to Los Angeles very early on Monday morning.
• Rush from LAX to the consulate to get our applications in before the 11:30am deadline.
• Fly back to Seattle and arrive Wednesday evening
• Mad dash to get everything done
• Fly to Bangkok on Thursday afternoon.

I spent an hour or so getting all of the required paperwork ready the night before. For example, the form requires proof of a flight out of Thailand (and not just an itinerary). They also want a recent bank statement to show that you have enough money to be in Thailand. All in all, I thought we'd probably have some issues getting the visa. We get to the consulate around 11am, and as it turns out, they didn't care about any of the paperwork I had brought. We just had to fill out a form and that was that. I wonder if it's that easy when you apply for a visa in the mail.

Afterward, we decided to head to Harvey Mudd to see how things were back there (and, of course, to get Patty's). It was sort of weird to be back at Mudd since the only people I knew were the senior class. But, it was reassuring to see that West hadn't changed too much. Sarah had her first Patty's experience. She liked it a lot, but I think it takes a few times for it to really grow on you. We made sure to get extra burritos to save for lunch the next day. When we got back, I went to talk to Mike Orrison while Sarah got some well needed rest on one of the couches in Platt.

As it started to become night, we hopped back on the train and headed into Los Angeles. We went to go meet Sarah's friend Lucian from boarding school. She picked us up from Hollywood and Highland and took us straight to Real Food Daily. I had been to RFD before when I was going to school at Mudd and knew that it was quite good. Sarah and I split a fettucini alfredo which was amazing. We all ended up getting desserts just before the place closed.

The next day we slept in -- but not too much. We had to pick up our visas. We took it easy at Lucian's place in the afternoon. I got in contact with Herbie, an old friend from Mudd, who is now a bike activist living in Los Angeles about to start grad school at UCLA. It had been quite awhile since I last saw Herbie so it was good to reconnect. We went out and got (surprise) Thai food.

Just as it seemed this little jaunt had started, it was coming to an end. We got a good night's sleep on Tuesday night as it was the calm before the storm. After getting up and packed, we ate at LA Vegan Thai for lunch. We split some fresh rolls, Thai iced tea, pad thai, and a very non-Thai "chicken" wrap. It was pretty good and not too far from LAX.

After arriving back in Seattle, we got one of the last few rental cars left and headed home.