Emerald City

I got back from Seattle around 7:00 last night.  It's nice to be home, but what a great trip!  As promised, here are some of my pictures.

The view from my hotel room.

I stayed with Beth and fam for most of the trip, but because there was a session I wanted to attend at the conference on Friday morning, and I needed to leave straight from there to go to the airport, I just stayed at the hotel where the conference was on Thursday night.  (Also, I love staying in hotels.)

Entrance to Pike Place Market.

Beth was kind enough to give me a fantastic tour of Seattle on Wednesday, the day I had off from the conference.  Unfortunately, I picked up some weird stomach bug or something and was feeling pretty queasy all day, but I was at least able to walk around and check out the market.  It's right on the water, and it was so cool.  (I actually went back by myself on Friday right before I left, when my stomach was feeling better, so I could taste all the goodies they had to sample!)

Back side of the market, seen from a pier.  The weather was pretty Seattle-y that day!

Back side of the market, on the other side.  The market itself is in the long stretch inside all those windows, and it actually extends down a few floors too.  I didn't realize it was that huge!

View of part of downtown from the street in front of the market, with little cafes and shops on the left.  We went to a fantastic French bakery which you can barely make out on the left in this photo, Le Panier.  Mmmmm, butter.

The pig at the entrance to the market.

There was so much fresh seafood there.  It was really cool!

This is so gross that I just had to share it.  There's a wall by the market where everyone sticks their gum.  :-P

On Thursday before I left, we went to a really nice park, called Volunteer Park, and climbed to the top of a big tower overlooking the city.  (Beth, I hope you don't mind me sharing this picture here - please let me know if you want me to take it down, but I just thought it was so sweet!)

Beth and kiddos at the top of the tower.

View of downtown from the top of the tower.

Remember the song "Black Hole Sun", by Soundgarden?  Apparently this is the black hole sun!  You can see the Space Needle through the middle of it, too.

Then I took a few more pictures on Friday morning before I left.  Because my stomach was finally feeling better, I had to get a big latte for breakfast.  The stomach troubles really interfered with me consuming as much coffee as I would have liked, unfortunately!  But this latte was reeeeeaaaalllly good.

Possibly the best latte I've ever had, at Cafe Migliore.

Cool buildings and pretty sky downtown.

Looking across part of the Puget Sound (I think; there were too many bodies of water around Seattle to keep track of).

Thankfully I didn't see any guys on skateboards actually being pulled by cats.  But we did see a guy with a cat on a leash at Volunteer Park.

And that was Seattle, more or less.  I loved it.  I would definitely go back, any time.  And the conference was really fun, too!  The next time it's being held in San Diego, so I might see if I can get an abstract together for that one.  If not, next spring it'll be in Hong Kong, and that would be pretty amazing...

Time to walk dogs!