Day 4 : Spokane to Bellevue

Well, to be honest, I’m not sure this is really Bellevue. My address is Bellevue, but I’m right across the street from Microsoft, which is supposedly in Redmond. Also, I’m on the north side of Bellevue-Redmond Road. Unfortunately, I just looked at a map of Microsoft, and it looks like I may have to cross a highway to get to work, in which case driving may be a lot faster than walking, because there are only two places to cross that I can see.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Yesterday I left Spokane* to find that the stereotypical Washington greenery disappears like 20 miles out. The rest of Washington is pretty much like a flatter version of Montana until you reach Seattle—dry, rolling hills with scattered farms using irrigation. It’s pretty now, but I bet it’ll be cold when I drive back in November.

Speaking of cold, the first thing I did upon arriving was to buy a rain jacket. (They are surprisingly hard to find out-of-season in Indiana, where most people use umbrellas anyway, although I didn’t spend a lot of time looking either.) It was Seattle-normal** 20 (68) and rainy and I was wearing a light shirt and shorts. ALSO, my room wasn’t ready yet, so I had to waste time somewhere. I got directions from the front desk for a shopping centre. Said centre turned out to be a cross between a normal mall and a strip mall. The hotel clerk apologised for its small size, but it’s really about the same size as the Bloomington mall. The main difference is that the people there were all super-geeky looking, even the kids. Probably it was that I showed up at lunch time and most of the people in the food court were playing chess or WOW CCG***. Compared to a normal mall, I felt lot less likely to flip out and kill people, which is normally how malls make me feel.

When I got back, I spent a few minutes commiserating with another person waiting to check in, which wasted enough time to finally actually check in. I’m at a long-term stay hotel, so it looks like a hotel room except that it has a surprising amount of closet space, a two-burner electric range and a real refrigerator. Unpacking didn’t take long. In fact, my living quarters are now neater than than they have been for something like 6-7 years (right before I got that second monitor in undergrad and right after Chris’ Epic Open House).

So here I am. I’m going to find a grocery store today and get some food just in case I’ll have time this week to cook. Don’t expect very many posts for the next three months, although who knows? Working with C++ may make me angry enough to write the occasional misinformed tirade.

*What is it with American hotel breakfasts? “Continental breakfasts” are nothing of the sort—for fruit, they have two wrinkly bananas or apples and no granola or yogurt.
**Guess what the weather is like today? Well, actually, the sun comes out from time to time. After South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, though, I’m kind of tired of the sun.
***No, I will not link to anything WOW related. I want to help you learn to help yourself.