I Am Bismark

as i said i would be in my last blog post, i am currently in seattle. well, bellevue to be exact. i’m staying in the courtyard marriott hotel and i have a nice king size bed. its amazing what being able to stretch my legs out completely does for me sleep…

anyway, i left provo yesterday morning at the not so bright and early time of 6 am to catch my 8:20 flight. the plane was pretty close to being empty so i enjoyed an exit row seat and a nap. there were some really beautiful views of the mountains as we were flying in to seatac. amazing snow capped peaks.. much nicer than the brown blobs i see everyday in provo. to my surprise it was actually a bright and sunny day. i picked up my rental car (a hyundai santa fe… ugh i am not a fan of “suv” like cars..) and took to 405 up to bellevue. this taking a trip on a company’s dime thing is pretty nice. the room is nice and i can charge any room service or meals to the room and not have to worry it. not bad, not bad.

i relaxed in my room for a bit and then decided to head into downtown seattle. i called up bridgette and we decided we would meet at the seattle center (the place with the space needle!). its a pretty cool complex of theaters, an amusements parks, museums, etc.

this is the international fountain with the space needle in the back ground. a bunch of people were out cuz it was such a beautiful day. the water came out of the fountain synchronized with music, so all the children would try to run up and touch the fountain at the right time and not get wet. it was pretty fun to watch while i waited for bridgette to show up.

this was one of the many street performers there at the seattle center. he is currently juggling knives while straddling a young man from the audience. i also say an andean band playing. it reminded me of my time as a missionary in kiryu and meeting the guy at the train station who carved my companion and i andean flutes and taught us to play. i ought to dig that thing out when i go back to wisconsin for christmas.

i really wanted to go see the science fiction museuem/experience music project (i figured any self-respecting geek should), but by the time bridgette got there i was starving so we decided we should eat first. instead of just eating at a lame food court there, we headed off towards pike place, the big market near downtown. we had a nice walk and talk along the waterfront, and pike place was really cool. just a ton of interesting looks shops of all variety, with multiple stories and back alleys and such. definitely somewhere i would enjoy exploring more fully. but at the time my stomach was the most pressing concern, so we found a little shop in one alley claiming to have the world’s best clam chowder. it was pretty good stuff and it made me feel quite a bit better about life.

pike place was packed, so we decided to head back towards the seattle center. sadly by the time we got there, the experience music project and science fiction museum were both about to close so we didn’t go in. i don’t think i can ever forgive myself. it was quickly becoming dusk, so we decided to head up the space needle. right when we got to the top the sun was getting close to going behind the olympic mountains and was extremely beautiful.

this is my attempt to capture both seattle and mt. rainier in the background on my crappy iphone camera. i think bridgette got a few nicer ones with her camera, but i am still waiting on those.

and then the dusk skyline of seattle.

that evening after doing some relaxing and getting ready, bridgette and i headed out on the town. i was kind of tired (having been awake since 4 am), but we found a music club that bridgette had heard was good from some friends. the music was kind of eh, but we still had a fun time and made the most of it. since i was tired i ended up getting back to my hotel room at around midnight.

today i went back into the city for church at the university of washington’s institute building. it was actually pretty nice i thought. the sacrament meeting program was being put on by the institute choir (bridgette sang in it) and listening to the singing actually gave me some much needed pondering time. i came to a few important conclusions that maybe i will share on here someday.

after church, i came back to the hotel room and started studying how to interview with microsoft…. ugh, i am nervous. i basically know all of what to expect, what kind of questions i will be asked, etc, but its still freaking nerve wracking. i will have 4 hour long interviews, two in the morning and two in the afternoon with lunch in between. i am trying to stay positive and confident. i figure if i don’t do great this time, this is just great practice for helping me get ready for other interviews. there really isn’t much i can do at this point, so i am just trying to go with the flow.

anyway, thats whats going on up till now in my seattle adventure. obviously by tomorrow night i will know how the interviews have gone, so i will write a bit about that. i think i will also go to FHE with bridgette just so i am not sitting in my hotel room fretting about how the interviews went :). wish me luck!