On Saturday morning I called my sister and asked her if she was up for a little adventure. She said, yes. Yes, just to be clear, is always the right answer. I told her we were going to track down a little Europe in Ballard. C. said to me: what does that mean? I said: you'll see.

I picked her up and we stopped by BevMo and Fred Meyer. Neither of these stops were really related to pretending we're in Europe. We spent an embarrassingly long time in BevMo. Basically we walked up and down every isle of an over-sized liquor shop. commenting on all of the alcohol. In Fred Meyer, I picked up a crazy assortment of things: new pink nail polish, pickles, pickled veggies, green olives, balsamic vinegar, as well as an orange, a lemon and a lime. My sister spent the whole time laughing at me. I bought her a big bag of pretzels so I think we're even now.

Then we drove back to Ballard.  I found a spot and parallel parked perfectly on the first try.  We walked by Mr Gyros and I said: let's stop for a falafel sandwich.  We decided to split one. It was perfect and even better was the fact that we stopped by at like 2:45 and the shop closes at 3pm so we were inside eating falafel and watching other people get turned away. Your disappointment at being denied Mr Gyros makes my falafel sandwich taste that much sweeter. (Yes, I'm a horrible person.)

We wandered down the street to Bauhaus Coffee. We ordered little cappuccinos because we were pretending to be in Europe. I ordered 8 oz. which seems pretty spot on for Europe. C. ordered the 12 oz. cappuccino. I raised my eye at her--that's too big to European. She gave me this look: I'm not actually in Europe. I am in Ballard.

I let it go.

We drank our coffee out front.  Bauhaus makes a damn good cappuccino.

My only complaint? Look at the size of this spoon.