« Fredex Delivers on Sundays (At Least At Press Conferences) | Main | Where Else Would I Learn About Broad Social Trends? »

January 17, 2005

Their Library Beats Your National Parliament Building

In Which I Return to Seattle for the Second Time in Five Months

Right. So over my first 28 years I had been to Seattle exactly 1.2 times (where the vaguely defined 0.2 of a visit will refer to an ill-fated business trip that involved hopping into a rental car at SEATAC and high-tailing it to Portland). Then, over the past five months, I go to Seattle twice, once on leisure and once as part of a legitimate business jaunt. Good stuff both times through -- I really can't say enough about the land of lattes. My highlights:

Pro Sports For The People: Got a chance to check out the Sonics take on the Clip Show at Key Arena. Very solid experience. The tickets were reasonably priced, refreshments were ample and creative (lots of tricky microbrews available at the arena -- more on the microbrew thing later), we were officially upgraded to the lower bowl midway through the second quarter by a Sonics employee (which denied us the opportunity to unofficially upgrade ourselves) and the crowd was young and vibrant. I think it must be my big-city East Coast home that leads me to think of a young crowd at a sporting event as extraordinary; I'm too used to normal folks being priced out of the market by the corporate types.

It's on the water; that means "eat the fish": though it doesn't necessarily fit into my larger theory on fast food (briefly summarized, said theory argues that as you move east to west in the continental US, the burgers and mexican food get better, but the pizza and sandwiches get worse), the seafood is absolutely the way to go in the greater Seattle-Tacoma metro area. I did very well with some fish tacos at some fresh-mex franchise as well as some shrimp and salmon at a proper dinner.

Speaking of food-and-drink, VELCOME TO HOUSE OF BEER!: while the rest of the country has moved on from the fancy craft beer fad (and beer in general), you can still walk into pretty much any bar in Seattle and be confident that you won't recognize 98 percent of the beers on the menu. Tempting as it was to trot out the Sam Adams routine, I mostly did in Seattle what I do in every other bar I walk into -- order one of my two signature drinks: (1) "I'll have what he/ she's having" or (2) "Make that two of those."

Not purple and pink, but not bad: in terms of nifty public architecture, you really can't say enough about what Seattle's got going on. In addition to the Paul Allen-funded fantasy castle that is the Experience Music Project, Seattle also has a phenomenal new public library, courtesy of celebrity architect Rem Koolhaas. Really impressive stuff. The funny thing is that you try to chat up the locals about how beautiful their city is, and specifically their public infrastructure and architecture, and all they can tell you is how they don't have good public transportation. Right. Trust us, Seattle, your shiny buildings are a lot cooler than some crappy light rail system that no one will want to ride anyway.

In case you were thinking of taking a shot at him: got the tour of the MSFT Redmond campus from a friendly older gentleman driving a shuttle bus. After he shared some details on the drainage system on the company soccer field ("Same as they have in the Seahawks stadium") and the total number of buildings ("70 and counting!"), I fed him the softball question that I just assume everyone asks: where is Bill Gates' office? "Oh, well that would be Building X, on the Yth Floor." Pause. "But you'll never make it that far" comma he added ominously, before filling me in on the details of the security system ("They have cameras everywhere, more than Vegas"). And here I thought I might drop in for a cream soda and some video soccer!

Didn't make it back to Tacoma, though. Sigh.

Posted by thatkid at January 17, 2005 6:25 PM under The Papers

Comments

Post a comment

About ThatKid

Copyright (c) 2004-2007 thatkidinthecorner