Sleepless in Seattle

Seattle is a beautiful place. I know I say that about a lot of places I have been to, but hey, I will say it again. I was visiting friends in Seattle this weekend and it was memorable trip. After being at the airport for a while because A1's* flight was delayed, we were picked up by A2 and he insisted that we go to the Space Needle that night itself (it was 10:30 when we left the airport). I thought "Why not? - I am here to see Seattle, not to go home and sleep at 11 pm!" The Space Needle is your standard Seattle tourist attraction. The view from the top is nice and we got some decent pictures, but frankly, this is not my favourite part of the trip. We headed over to S's to say hello and caught up with her and J that night before we went home and crashed.

On Saturday, we set out to Olympic National Park inspite of a slight rain (a few drops of water cannot stop us from exploring now, can it?). The Park is between Seattle and the Pacific Ocean and between Seattle and the Park lies a bay. You can either drive around the bay on 101 or take a ferry. The ferry is faster and more fun and we decided to do that. Cars are driven right onto to the ferry in two tiers and once you reach the other side after a windswept half-hour ride, the cars can simply drive out and back onto the road. It is a good 1.5 hour drive to the park from the ferry terminal, but oh what a drive! Let's just say that the rain definitely does good things to the vegetation. Once in the park, we picked up maps from the Visitor's Center and then drove up to Hurricane Ridge - a fantastic sight of snow-capped mountains with a deep-green ridge in the foreground. Quite breathtaking. Several photographs later, we drove back down and headed to Crescent Lake. We caught the lake just as the sun was thinking about setting and it was a treat. The water was a profound green and I wondered if this had anything to do with Seattle being called the Emerald City. Probably not, but what is life if we cannot make our own associations and connections? The shutterbugs had a whale of a time. The sunset indicated the end of any hope that we had for more exploration and we headed back the way we came. The Park is huge, and places we missed include Sol Duc, Heart of the Hills, the rain forest etc. And we did not even get to do a decent hike!

Sunday was devoted to the city of Seattle itself and the warm aspect of meeting friends! S came over to join us in the morning. First things first i.e. we had lunch at this delectable vegetarian place called Cafe Flora. Every single item on the menu was something I had never heard of before and I was surprised. I had assumed that there are only so many veggie food options in the USA and that I knew most of them. But this was different and a good different. The ambience there was also very atrium-like and cozy with big glass windows and lots of sunlight. After that, we headed out to Pike Place Market, a bustling semi-outdoor market. It was a perfect summer Sunday and the people of Seattle did not intend to let it go to waste! Plenty of people milling around. The highlight is the fish store where the fish gets thrown around a lot! And we also did the touristy thing of visiting the first Starbucks store (1912). Then onto Alki Beach where we spent some time trying to get flat rocks to bounce off the surface of the water - or in my case, trying to perfect the art of sinking it on first contact with water. We then drove back to Redmond where we briefly met up with one undergrad friend who is starting work at Microsoft. Then we had dinner at M's place - a very sumptuous meal I must say.

All the friends I met at Seattle (it was great to meet up with all of them btw) work for Microsoft. Apart from Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Expedia and Starbucks are the other big guys up there. I felt that the pace of everything there was not so harried like it sometimes gets here in the Silicon Valley. Or maybe that is just because it was a weekend. Overall, Seattle is great - the rain can be a bother but I think folks there have accepted that and it does not hamper their activities or their spirits. Plus the abundance of things of do and nature's generosity to the area may make up for that.

And the title of the post just means that I my flight was at 6am Monday morning.

* - All names abbreviated to protect identity and spare me the task of introductions

Back I am

It's been a while. I could be arrogant and say that that was because I had other important things to do :) What I can say is that me not blogging is not for lack of things happening but more of a lack of inspiration to write (read laziness). Been doing some travelling, more coming up. My mother mentioned that there are always friends visiting California and therefore, me. Isn't that one of the cool things of living here?

I am reading "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Quite interesting. Maybe I will write a review when I am done? But for now, I can't wait to plunge into the weekend!

Oh and btw, I just saw Star Wars Episode III. Very much like a Tamil movie, is what I thought ;) Time to leave, it is now. Ok fine, I'll stop.