Liz and Shane in Boston (Part 1)

Elizabeth and Shane didn't come into town until around midnight last Friday, so before picking them up from the airport, I attended a girls' paint night with some SOs and LGOs over in Boston. 

 

Here is what the painting was supposed to look like:

 

As you can see, we all added a little of our own creativity and some of us boycotted the birds on the wire even though I'm pretty sure the title of the painting was supposed to be "Birds over Boston" or something.

Here's mine up close:

Originally we had Liz and Shane's whole first day in Boston planned out to include the Freedom Trail, dinner in the North End, and a few other things. But after the Sox won the series and a last minute Halloween party popped up, we changed all our plans. 

So we started Saturday morning early with some coffee and cinnamon rolls and a walk across the river into Boston for the Red Sox World Series Parade. It was pretty packed.

 

Here we are, anxiously awaiting the Duck Boats carrying baseball players.

  

Chuckie got this awesome shot of the trophy.

 

Big Papi!

After the parade, it was SO NICE outside so we decided to just keep walking around the city. We walked all the way up Newbury Street, went in and out of some stores, got cupcakes, walked through the Boston Public Garden and Boston Common, and then decided to find somewhere to eat lunch.

Even George Washington was wearing a beard to support the Red Sox!

 

Liz was obsessed with this outdoor bookstore right next to where we ate lunch. It's a cool picture and I personally enjoy the leftover confetti from the parade on the ground.

Before we headed back to Cambridge, we walked through Beacon Hill and the Esplanade along the river. Everything was so Fall-like and beautiful.

I was so happy it was warm enough outside for the sailboats to be out on the river! Liz and Shane really got to experience Boston at the perfect time of year.

After we walked a million miles all day long, we ended up back at our apartment for some rest and relaxation before we got some pad thai takeout.  That night we had an impromptu Halloween party at our apartment before we all went out for Liquor Treat with all the LGOs. I'll save that for the next post. So far I've only shown you up until 4pm on Liz and Shane's first day here. We have a tendency to wear out our visitors, as you can see.

Goodbye, Seattle

It's hard to believe it, but our 6 months in Seattle are already over. We leave TOMORROW.

We definitely have mixed emotions about leaving. On the one hand, we're ready to be back in Boston with our apartment, furniture/stuff, and friends. On the other hand, the weather in Seattle has been perfect lately and we've recently discovered a couple places in town that we wish we would have found sooner/had more time to explore.

To sum up our time here, I've come up with a list of my 10 favorite and 10 least favorite things about Seattle.

Least Favorites:
1. Lack of air conditioning in most places, especially in our apartment.
2. Aggressive/mean homeless people.
3. The fact that people sometimes walk around naked in the streets and it's ok. Nothing will shock you more than walking to dinner and rounding the corner only to almost run smack into a topless woman.
4. Ants in our bathroom. Ants in our kitchen. Ants on my arm while I'm sitting on our couch.
5. Lack of parking. Of all the hours we've spent in Seattle, about 50% of them were spent searching for a parking spot. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but... only a little.
6.  Construction. It seems like all of Seattle is currently under construction. Which leads me to...
7. Traffic. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, there is ALWAYS traffic. 1 pm... 10 pm... 7 am... I've never seen anything like it.
8. Pacific Time Zone. I feel like everything revolves around the Eastern Time Zone and being out here makes us feel like we're always behind. And I hate adding 3 hours to the time when I look at the clock to see if it's an acceptable time to text or call someone on the East Coast. It also makes watching a TV show difficult if people on the East Coast watch it first and post about it on Twitter. (#firstworldproblems, I know)
9. Four way stops where no one has a stop sign. There are so many parts of Seattle where there will be an intersection where a logical 4 way or at least 2 way stop should be, and there's just no stop signs. It's like taking your life into your own hands every time you drive.
10. There's no ChickFilA here and the closest Dairy Queen is a 20 minute drive.

Favorites:
1. Mountains and water everywhere. The scenery here never gets old.
2. Walkability. I like that we've lived in a neighborhood where we can walk to work, the grocery, Starbucks, our friends' houses, dinner, frozen yogurt.
3. Speaking of Starbucks... they're everywhere! It's great! I was in a building downtown a few days ago and counted 4 Starbucks in just one building. It would be an understatement to say I've consumed a lot of coffee in the past 6 months.
4. Summer weather. My ideal weather is basically Seattle summer weather. Highs in the 70s-80s, sunny, no humidity, and a little cool at night. I have been in heaven this summer. I think it's Seattle's best kept secret that if you can put up with 9 months of clouds and misty rain, you're rewarded with 3 months of perfection.
5. Unlimited things to do. I feel like Chuck and I have done and seen a TON in these 6 months, but I feel like we barely dented the surface of the amount of places to go and things to do around here.
6. Free time. Without homework and extracurriculars, Chuck had a lot of free time during the week and weekends to hang out with me. This allowed us to do a lot of activities during the week. And by "activities during the week" I mean "sit on the couch and watch countless hours of Justified and Friday Night Lights while drinking chocolate milk." Yep. We're awesome.
7. City Target. A 3 story Target in the middle of downtown that has a special escalator for your shopping cart.
8. Unique bars. Seattle has some really unique bars here that I haven't seen anywhere else. My favorites are the Arcade Bar and the Pie Bar. The Arcade Bar has old school games and pinball machines you can play while you have a little drink. The Pie Bar sells two things- alcohol and pie. It's amazing.
9. Shopping. There are so many good places to shop, downtown, the U-district, the outlets, the malls...
10. I know I already said this one but it really is my favorite, favorite thing about Seattle- the mountains and water. It's just SO. PRETTY. here. Just look at it.

The view from the street corner of our apartment entrance. Not bad.

Two weeks of traveling and then we'll be back in Boston! I'll update soon with pictures and stories from our drive.

Fish, Baseball, and Mountains

These last few days in Seattle have felt a lot like our life in Boston. Not only are there a few more LGOs in Seattle right now for internships, but there are also several of the Sloan students here for their summer internships. This means there are a lot more people making plans and meeting up. This is what Chuck and I have been missing about Boston, so it's been nice to reunite with some of our Boston friends!

Last Thursday, Amazon held a free night at the Seattle Aquarium for all of the MBA interns. 

The night included free admission to the aquarium, free food and drinks (one thing we REALLY miss about MIT- all the free food and drinks at events!) and a chance to meet and network with all of the interns currently in Seattle from schools all over the country. We didn't see much of the aquarium but I have to say from what we did see, it wasn't that impressive. I guess this huge tank was pretty cool though.

The best thing about the Seattle Aquarium was the location. It's right on Puget Sound. Awesome view.

After the aquarium we went out to a bar in our neighborhood for a little while with some of the LGOs and Sloanies. We had to take this picture of Chuck and two of his classmates, ZZ and Hector, because the 3 of them were on the same "core team" in the Fall. It's crazy that 3 of the 7 Puffins (their team name) all ended up in the same place for their internships!

Friday night, Chuckie and I ventured downtown to Safeco Field for the Mariners vs. Cubs baseball game. He had been to the stadium before with some of our friends on a night I had to work, but this was my first time at the field. It was beautiful!

The game wasn't sold out by any means so we just picked some seats in left field, and in the shade, and enjoyed the game.

For a reason I can't remember, my dad has always been a Cubs fan, therefore my family has always cheered for the Cubs. My dad also coached my little sister's softball team for a lot of years, and they were always the Cubs. So this was the perfect game for us to go to! I felt a little bad, cheering for the Cubs instead of Seattle, but no one seemed to mind and there were actually A LOT of Cubs fans in attendance! Sadly, the Cubs lost.

But I did hear they beat Seattle on Saturday and Sunday. So yay!

Saturday we woke up early and met up with some LGOs and Sloanies to drive 2 hours to Mt. Rainier National Park for some hiking. Chuck and I had been to the park before with my parents, but now that it's summertime, the snow is melted and the park looked a lot different!

We started with a hike on the Rampart Ridge Trail. The trail was a loop and the whole thing, round trip, was about 5 miles. I think. At least, that's what the sign said.

The hike up to the viewpoint was not easy but not TOO intense. We did sweat a lot though. But when we finally made it to the top, the views were incredible. The weather was perfect that day as well which made it even better.

Hello, Mt. Rainier!

The way back down was a little intense because for a small stretch of the trail we were completely ambushed by mosquitos. Once we got away from them though it was a nice walk down the hill.

Because of the timing, Chuckie and I had to leave after that hike so I could get back to Seattle in time to work an event at the arts center, but the rest of the group continued up into the park to do another hike. I wish we could have stayed because it was such a nice day for hiking! Maybe next time, I won't have to work on the same day.

Sunday I had to work at Nike all day but Sunday night we met up with some friends to see the new Star Trek movie. We saw it partly because we wanted to hang out and partly because no one has air conditioning in their apartments and it was really hot on Sunday and seeing a movie was an excuse to get out of our houses and hang out somewhere with air conditioning.

So as you can see: networking events, bars, group outings, baseball games... Yes, Seattle felt a lot like Boston this week.

Up next for us is another trip to Louisville. Originally we didn't plan to visit home in July but Amazon wants Chuck to visit several fulfillment centers around Kentucky to shadow some people and see if he'd be interested in working in one of the fulfillment centers after LGO. Exciting stuff! I'm just going along for fun. We leave for Louisville on July 4th and we'll be there for 2 weeks! Chuck has to work the whole time we're home but I don't, so it's kind of like a summer vacation for me. Chuckie will work on his internship and I will work on my tan! (Don't worry- he gets to have a little fun too!)

Twin Falls, Ballard Locks and Meredith Grey

This past weekend was one of my favorite weekends since we moved to Seattle.

 

Saturday morning, we picked up Chuck's classmate Orion and headed out of the city to go on a hike and see some sites. We drove about 45 minutes to Twin Falls for a hike that had nice scenery but wasn't too strenuous. My favorite kind. :)

 

 

It was a little rainy but the trees provided some nice coverage and eventually the skies cleared up.

 

At one point we got adventurous and hiked off the path down to the water to get a better look at one of the falls.

 

 

We wanted to explore more so we planned to stop at Snoqualmie Falls on the way back but we missed the exit and I had to be at work soon anyway, so we will have to do that one another weekend.

 

On Sunday we slept in a little and then ventured out to take advantage of the sunny day! We heard from Chuck's other classmate, Gold, that we should check out the Ballard Locks sometime so we headed to Ballard, one of our favorite neighborhoods in Seattle. The Locks were awesome and I highly suggest checking them out if you are in Seattle! I wish we had known about this place when my sister and parents were in town visiting.

 

The locks are where boats transfer from the lake to Puget Sound and from the Sound to the lake. Initially I thought this was weird- why can't the boats just drive on through? But apparently the locks are there to maintain the water levels in the lakes. I know I won't describe it well so here is a link to the wikipedia page if you want to read more about how it works. Ballard Locks

 

Here is a boat going through from the lake to the sound. He ties up to this little wall, then they close the gates on both sides of him and start to lower the water level.

 

Now he's way down there!

 

 Then once the water was level with the water in the sound, they opened the gate and he drove off! The whole process took less than 10 minutes. We were amazed.

While standing there, Chuckie noticed a little animal in the water and said he thought it was a seal. We watched for a few minutes for it to come back up and sure enough, it was a little seal! We were really excited about seeing a seal just out in the wild because the only seals we've ever seen were in a zoo. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the little guys. :(

 

As we were leaving, a bunch of "big" boats were coming through and were all going to be transfered at the same time. We would have stayed to watch but our parking time was up so we had to get back to the car.

 

 

After the Locks, we drove back into the heart of Ballard and parked and looked for a lunch place. We got sidetracked by a Gourmet Popcorn store (which Gold had also told us about) where we bought some delicious Hawaiian Salted Caramel Popcorn. Yum. You can purchase their popcorn online here: http://www.kukuruza.com/   I highly recommend it!  After our quick detour, we stopped for lunch/dinner at "The Matador" which we were drawn to mainly because the sign said "Restaurant and Tequila Bar" which to us meant Mexican food and well, tequila. We were sold.

 

 After our late lunch/early dinner, I made Chuck drive us around to find Meredith Grey's house which, I had read earlier in the week, was on Comstock Street in Queen Anne. You know Meredith Grey.

The fictional character from Grey's Anatomy (a show we used to love until it got really weird around the 5th season and we stopped watching.) And while all the filming of the show takes place in LA, including the indoor scenes at Meredith's house, the OUTDOOR shots of her house are from a house in the Queen Anne neighborhood. So we're driving along, looking for Comstock Street and instead, we found this.

 The most amazing views of the skyline and Puget Sound we have seen since moving here. Everyone says the best views are from the Space Needle but honestly I think this is better, because we got a view of everything INCLUDING the Space Needle. This is yet another place I wish we would have known about when my family was in town. The view was breathtaking. But no one has told us about this park! We found it by complete accident! Thank you, Meredith Grey!  (For anyone visiting Seattle, you can find this viewpoint by googling "Kerry Park.")

 After our stop at the surprise park, we found her house 2 blocks later and then on our way out, realized it was only a few blocks away from the Top Pot donuts we ate at on my birthday!

 

That was it for our outdoor adventures this weekend. We also spent a good amount of time watching movies. Two at the theater and one at home. We saw The Great Gatsby, Iron Man 3, and rented the first Star Trek so we can go see the 2nd Star Trek in theaters soon. All 3 were really really good but I have to say Iron Man 3 was by far the favorite. You just can't beat a superheros and Robert Downey Jr.'s humor.