It’s been almost a week since Justin and Stephanie left Seattle, and I feel like I’m just now recovering. When I returned to work on Monday, my boss – a Seattle native – asked what we’d done for the past four days. After I ran down the list, she blinked at me and said “I haven’t been to most of those places and I’m from here.”

And now I finally understand the appeal of the staycation concept. I mean, yes, I understood before about not spending a lot of money and being able to feed your pets on time. But overall, trying to be a tourist in the city where you grew up, especially in St. Louis, where most of the tourist spots are always open and always free, doesn’t feel very special (although I suppose you could always learn about new places, and this is probably something a lot of St. Louisans could stand to learn when they recommend Cunetto’s, Imo’s and toasted ravioli to tourists because JUST BECAUSE IT’S A THING THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT GOOD, YOU GUYS).

In Seattle, everything is expensive and you can’t park anywhere and there’s always a chance that the mountains will magically appear, so being a tourist here is interesting and, if you’re doing a lot of things, exhausting. There’s always a bus to catch, weather to avoid, and money to pay to see something new (or again, but point out why it’s cool to someone for whom it is new). By the time I dropped those guys off at Stephanie’s friend’s place in Greenwood on Sunday evening, my feet were throbbing, there was already a running list of things we didn’t get to see (Jimi Hendrix statue, Jimi Hendrix grave, Underground Tour, HIGHWAY GOATS), and a pang of regret that I didn’t know Seattle better when Mike and Abbi came to visit, because I would sure love another chance to show them around and maybe this time we won’t get lost during rush hour.

Oh, and my Fitbit progress report told me that I walked just over 38 miles in four days. Well, mostly. Obviously I walked a bit outside of those days, but the bulk of the walking happened then and I don’t even care about all the day drinking I did because I for sure burned those calories right off. And I’ve kept it up this week, though not at quite the same pace, but still, a good one, and that’s beneficial considering the fact that for the past three nights, I have had pizza for dinner.

Three different pizzas, I should add, although two of them were homemade and contained at least four servings of vegetables each (kale, tomato, broccolini, bell pepper, etc.). Plus tonight I had a salad, as well. And although one of those pizzas was purchased even though I am back to pretending to be broke, I am getting 50% off Postmates deliveries for all of March after guessing the correct Best Film for the Oscars (if you don’t guess a film about slavery then you don’t know anything about history or the movies), so naturally I took advantage of that plus the $3.14 delivery fee special for Pi Day today (only $3.14 for delivery of any pie!). So it’s okay!

Speaking of pies, Stephanie might still be a tiiiiiiiny bit mad at me for making her walk up these hills (I do not blame her and yes, I said all of the falsely reassuring things that Courtney once told me), but I did introduce her to Pie, and that plus beating the city’s Tetris scores was worth it, I think.