A Visit To The Emerald City

I have every intention to keep my personal life and my professional life separate with this blog. That’s not always easy, especially for me as my work is a big part of my life—it’s sad, I know. It’s just good practice to keep work out of the picture in my cyberexploits. I will be omitting some details on situations that concern work. This is deliberate to CMA. It’s a necessary evil. I’d like to keep my job—I’m sort of fond of it and paying my bills on time in general.

That being said, I recently went to Seattle on a business trip and I have to say I love that city. First of all, I can breathe there. There’s something in the air in Las Vegas that makes my sinuses unhappy on a regular basis. I didn’t have any of those issues up in the Emerald City. Second of all, they have water (which is probably a factor in my First-of-all). Most desert dwellers get punch drunk over seeing water and trees and I am no exception to this rule. Third of all, it’s just a beautiful city. Seattle has lots of great old buildings, rolling hills (which I was not aware before going there) and loads of things to see and do.

You can’t go to Seattle and not see the sights. It would be a travesty not to visit at least some of the attractions that downtown Seattle has to offer. When I got there on Sunday it was lunchtime. After checking into the hotel we went to Rock Bottom Brewery. I had Salmon Fish and Chips. I didn’t even know you could get that anywhere! The food was great and they had Root Beer Barrels instead of mints! I haven’t seen Root Beer Barrels in years. I grabbed a handful for the road.

The first place I went after lunch was the Seattle Aquarium because I love otters. I can watch them for hours; they’re some of the most graceful creatures on Earth. Unfortunately it was getting dark when I got there and the otters are outside (obviously, because they live in water and that’s where the water is). I did get to see them but it was too dark for photographs. I liked the Seattle Aquarium immensely; they really have some great exhibits.

For instance, they have an exhibit where you can actually pet some of the animals there. I got to touch a starfish, something a land-lubber like me was unlikely to do anytime in the future. They also had puffins which I had never seen up close.

What’s a trip to Seattle without going to Pike Place Market? Unfortunately I got there too late to see any fish-throwing but it was still neat to see where they filmed “Sleepless in Seattle” and look at some of the vendors wares even as they were pulling up shop for the night. This is something I’ll have to check out again at a later date.

I had to go to the Space Needle too. The Space Needle is the Seattle skyline. It was so great to see the city from 500 feet up. I, of course, had dinner at the Sky City restaurant because I was a wide-eyed tourist. It was REALLY expensive and not worth the price but your paying for the view, I suppose, and that was really great. I could see Qwest field where the Seattle Seahawks were giving the San Francisco 49ers a beating Monday night.

Tuesday night I had dinner at Anthony’s Pier 66. It’s a beautiful restaurant with a terrific view of Elliot Bay. Their salmon chowder is excellent. After that I was treated to a ride through Capitol Hill which is a really neat part of the city. Very hip and trendy. Some of the houses there are huge! They also have several beautiful churches there, which is ironic since this is a counterculture hotspot of Seattle.

I had to leave Wednesday night to come back to Sin City. I wasn’t in Seattle as long as I wanted to be and I wish I was still there (breathing is highly underrated). I will be going back next month on another business trip. I can’t wait!

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18, 2007 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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