los pinguinos!

Going to see March of the Penguins was more of an adventure than I was anticipating. First of all, the flyer said that it would start at 7pm. In small print, it added "or at dusk." Well, obviously, as it's summertime, dusk doesn't start until about 9:30pm. So once we got to the park, we got to sit outside and chat and tell stories and practice salsa dancing and swing dancing for awhile. Also, we grabbed some Subway at the park entrance.

BEFORE we got to the park, we did have to drive there, and that in itself was a unique experience. The vehicle we rode in was a covered pickup, but it wasn't a double cab pickup and as we four ladies are all grown women, we couldn't fit four in the cab. So Pippa and I decided to ride in the back. After all, we're MKs from Africa and riding in the backs of pickups--no matter how illegal it might be--is second nature to us. So we clambered into the back and proceeded to ride upright in the back. Then we thought better of it and decided to lie down. We had two reasons for this: 1) cops might see us and give the driver a ticket and 2) it was safer to lie down because we didn't jostle around as much. However, since our driver was handing the pickup more like a compact, it made the drive very exciting.

The movie itself was fun. It was very interesting to learn more about the habits of the emperor penguin, but the format of the film was very different. It was essential a documentary/nature film, but it was edited in a way that made it tell more like a typical movie. The penguins were super anthropomorphized, and they made the mating ritual seem almost like soft porn...odd. very odd. And I thought that I saw a lightning bug, and I was SO excited to see it. but then I realized that we were watching a film on a giant outdoor screen via a projector...and any bug that flies through the light will look like a firefly. So I was disappointed. And cold. But it was a very fun evening.

Tomorrow, Pippa and I are hitting up downtown Seattle to see the sights. I'm going to do my darndest to find the Fremont troll. I've never seen it myself, and this gives me the perfect opportunity to go to it. I just hope that it's not really out of the way. I don't want to take too much away from everything there is to do downtown! :)