It was nice having visitors again for such a long period of time. David and Karen really tested us on their visit with questions about the area - moreso than any other visitors have done. In researching answers to some of their questions, I found out a few interesting things - for example, King County (the county Seattle is in) was named after Vice President William R. King. Neighboring Pierce County was named after the recently-elected president Pierce (King was his VP). King was the shortest-serving VP not to advance to the presidency and the only VP never to wed. He was also nicknamed "Aunt Fancy" by contemporaries and had a dubious relationship with James Buchanan. In 1986 the County voted to re-dedicate itself to Martin Luther King, Jr and this was approved by the state in 2005. That was the most interesting thing I learned. It was nice to be tested on my knowledge of the area and sometimes I surprised myself with how much I knew, but there's always more to be learned.

Despite our relatively small apartment, having friends stay for a week turned out to be virtually no problem or inconvenience whatsoever (at least for Lesley and I). I couldn't get along with just anyone staying with us for a week, but in this case it worked out fine, it could have even been longer with no problems.

I've also realized that despite having many ways to get around in Seattle, none of them are very good, especially for visitors. We definitely drove a lot more during David and Karen's visit than we normally do, however we took transit more with them than we had with any other visitors we've had. In some cases it just makes more sense to take mass transit rather than drive. We had a few problems driving through heavy traffic and trying to find street parking and we might have been better off taking the bus. Still, sometimes it's just kind of difficult to get around by any mode of transportation. For example, I still don't understand how to use and pay for light rail, despite being a big fan of it and keeping up with all kinds of local transit news. However, I suppose overall we didn't have too much trouble with transit. I had to write bus directions for David and Karen to use while Lesley and I were at work, and actually that worked out pretty well. We took light rail back from the soccer game, and while the streetcar was no longer running, it wasn't a big deal to walk home the rest of the way. So, even though Seattle is too big of a city for driving to be easy and the city doesn't make transit easy, it is nice that transit can still fit into our lifestyle.

There are probably some more tourist activities that Lesley and I would like to do sometime. The coffee tour that Karen and David went on sounded like a lot of fun and I'm sure there are some other walking tours that would be nice. Lesley and I still haven't been to the Seattle Aquarium or the EMP, though we have no real interest in either of those. Though the Space Needle is really expensive, it is nice to go up with visitors and point things out. It was nice we were able to avoid paying admission to a couple things this time, but maybe next time we have visitors we can fit in some other new things that Lesley and I might like to do and maybe some new restaurants to try.