Back from Seattle

So, we are back from Seattle. We spent one week there working and enjoying the place. Though I did not expect, I loved Seattle. I was very impressed by the mixture of water and mountains, plus all the vegetation. And, above all, Mt. Rainier got imprinted in my visual memory. During the week, Dirk and I spent most of the time in discussions related to spirituality and technology with Craig Warren Smith and Robin Rieck at UW. We also had some meetings at Intel Research and Microsoft Research. We spent the weekend with our friends, Lili & Nik and the small Anya.

We spent an unforgettable night on Vashon Island, at Stephen Silha and Gordon R. Barnett, where we first met Mt. Rainier and experienced how beautiful it can be. This image keeps staying in my mind:

I was really impressed by it since the mountain appears totally disconnected from the land. Actually, at the beginning we thought it is just a funny cloud formation 🙂

We also had a very nice dinner cooked by Gordon, we explored Gordon’s Bells and we saw a very nice sunrise.

On Saturday we strolled through the Pike Place Market, of course including a stop at the original Starbucks.

Anya had her own fun:

Since the weather was so amazing, we then went up in the Space Needle.

The view from there was excellent:

I have to say I felt quite sad when we left Seattle and all I could think of was the Mountain. Of course, it is not the only one around there, but by far the most “mysterious”.

I hope we can get back there soon!