Searching for Seafood

I'm in Seattle this week for business. The business in question is hanging out with a bunch of developers to learn how their software works so that we can integrate with it better. This is well and good and hopefully helpful for the company. It also means I get to hang out in Seattle.

Of course, the biggest stereotype about Seattle is that it rains a lot. It hasn't actually rained since I got here, but everything is soaking wet, so it must have been raining before I arrived. On top of that, the weather has been slate gray and cloudy, with a promise of snow in the next couple days. So rain: check. Mind you, only the sky is gray. Seattle is built around Puget sound, so you have these long fingers of deep blue water running through the city, which is a combination of European style crammed-like-sardines buildings and huge masses of greenery. It's really a very nice looking place. The people seem friendly enough, though a bit on the quiet side.

The other thing I've heard about Seattle-landers is that they are heavy coffee drinkers. This is, in fact, true. The folks I'm working with have a coffee corner in their company, there's a coffee place across the road, there are piles of Starbucks coffee shops all over (apparently the chain started here), and even the Space Needle sells "Space Needle Coffee" in the giftshop. The coffee announces itself as being from "the coffee capital of the world." I had to speak quickly to avoid being served a friendly cup of coffee just as I arrived (though they do have hot chocolate, so I can pretend to fit in ... if I feel like it). Suffice it to say that the caffeine addiction runs long and deep.

The photo is the space needle itself, of course. The top part is an observation deck with museum-like exhibits. There are telescopes, binoculars, touch-screen video tours of Seattle, and lots of kidsy science-museum type things. It's about 540 feet tall (that's what, 200-ish meters?). There's a fancy restaurant 100 feet up, but I haven't tried it yet. The gimmick is that the restaurant s-l-o-w-l-y spins, and that you get to take in a varying slice of the skyline while you eat. I took this picture from just across the road, right next to a McDonald's which sits beneath it. The McDonald's announces that it serves "Seattle's best coffee" on their glowing marquee, and for all I know, they could be right. Don't expect me to bother finding out.