This post is written upon free coupons from McDonald’s. We are not paid for this post.

Our flight to Spain was from the Seattle-Tacoma (SEATAC) Airport.  Flights from the US are way much cheaper than if one flies out from the Vancouver International Airport.  Frankly, I don’t have much of a choice of the departing airport when it comes to staff travel.  Flying from SEATAC is the cheapest they could route me.  Otherwise it would have been about $200 more … per person.

It was very much down to the wire.  He he he … Suanne was quite nervous but I knew our travel services will come through.  On the day before our scheduled departure date, we still had not had the e-ticket issued.  We only received the e-ticket about 18 hrs before our departure time.

Since our flight is in the morning the next day, our plan is to drive to the SEATAC Airport the day before and stay the night in one of the many motels around the airport.  We chose one that has a night stay with discounted long term parking.  Found one that had crappy hotel rooms but at least the long term parking was cheap at $8 per day.  One tip about the long term parking in the hotels in SEATAC — you can actually bargain with them on the posted rate.  We had our parking reduced to $8 from $9 per day.  All long-term parking and motels provide free shuttles to the airport.

Our original plan was to have a nice lunch in Seattle at Mae Phim.  But because by the time we gotten the e-tickets in our hands, it was already too late.  So we decided to just take it easy and take a slow drive and just settle for burgers.  We stopped at the McDonalds outlet in Burlington along I-5.

If you remembered, McDonalds sent chowtimes quite a number of McDonald’s Angus Third Pounders coupons last month (see our post here).  We have given away all we had except for two.  So we used that.  To our slight dismay, this coupon is only for the sandwiches, not the meal deal.  Oh well, at least it was free.

For those of you who received the coupons from Suanne, have you used your coupons yet?  Let me know what you think.

The Angus Third Pounders are only officially launched in the US.  They are not in Canada yet and if you see them here, it is probably under trial or test or whatever they call it.  The Angus Third Pounders came in three different different offerings:

• Deluxe
• Bacon and Chesse
• Mushroom and Swiss

The sandwiches alone costs $3.99 USD.

One thing we noticed differently is the bun.  They are much better tasting than the normal ones.   They are toasted sesame seed buns and are sweetish and soft.  

The Mushroom and Swiss have a more subtle flavour and creamy in taste.  Both the soft mushroom and the mayonnaise gives a collective softness to the texture.

Both Suanne and I prefer the Bacon and Cheese better.  It has a more pronounced flavour and has a crunch to the bite (from the red onions ring and pickles).  This burger is a world of difference from the normal burger offerings we have in Canada.  It is no way in comparison with the best burger in Vancouver (Burgers Etc) but it is pretty good still.

We got some fries and drinks too.  Strange thing was that they ran out of ketchup.  Can you believe that?  I couldn’t when they told me that.  They added that there are no ketchups in all surrounding McDonalds that couple of days because the shipment did not arrive.  I always had ketchup with my fries — I can’t eat fries without ketchup.  Instead they gave us Honey Mustard.

Already I could see Suanne smiling.  I told her it’s coming to a reality … the next day we will be on the way to Spain and our vacation starts.  No, she said.  Our vacation started the moment we cross the US border and this McDonald meal is our first meal of our gastronomic vacation.  OK, I can accept that.

Next post … making our way to Catalonia.