Until the moment of impact

2004-12-13 - 6:33 p.m.

Today after work, I walked down to the post office and then over to the international district. I tried bubble tea at a new place called Honeymoon Tea which was actually pretty good, although not the best. So far Gossip still holds that position.

During the first half of my day today I went to another mandatory class meant as a pep-rally of sorts for new hires at my hospital. I don't think I actually learned anything, but it was sort of fun. We sat at tables and the people we sat with were our teams for all the activities. Luckily, I had several outgoing people in my group who were more than willing to do the public speaking bits. One of our activities was a scavenger hunt of sorts which had us running around the hospital in our little groups. That was interesting.

I also got my 2nd TB test today. I'm a little concerned because usually it just disappears right away, but this time it's forming an itchy red bump. As long as the bump doesn't get bigger, though, I think it's ok.

Yesterday I was adventurous. Yesterday I went out and met up with a group of people from online. Only, I hadn't even met these people online. I've participated a little bit in this particular website that has the goal of getting people together to meet as friends. They post various events and then people sign up to attend them and then hopefully actually go. Although historically getting people to actually go has been a bit of a problem, so I hear. But anyway, I signed up to go on the Seattle Underground tour with this group. Fifteen other people also signed up, but only five others actually showed. But it was fun! I was wanting to go on the tour anyway, so I figured I might as well do it in an environment where I can meet people. I don't know if I will ever actually see any of those people again, but that's ok.

The tour itself was interesting, too. I don't know how many of you know this, but a good deal of Seattle used to be significantly lower than it is now. And also a good deal used to be higher. They used to have trouble with the tides coming in and flooding the lower areas and then with the invention of the flush toilet they had sewage issues, too. So they decided to raise the lower part by taking dirt from the higher part. They built retaining walls down both sides of the streets and then used hydraulics to wash dirt down from the hills to fill in the space and raise the street level a story. This took years to do, though, so in the meantime, people could still use the sidewalks down at the old level. Once the streets were completed, they built another sidewalk up at the new street level, but left the old sidewalk still usable down below, effectively making tunnels down below all the sidewalks which opened into what was once the first floor of the buildings and was now the basements. This went on for quite a while until they developed rat problems and a few cases of bubonic plague broke out and the tunnels were closed.

So there for the history lesson. One interesting fact: more dirt was moved in this project than in the construction of the Panama Canal! Yeah! Another thing I found very interesting were that the 'tiles' I'd seen embedded in the sidewalks and I thought were just for decoration, ended up being skylights to let light down into the lower level. I was amazed at how much light they actually let in.

After the tour, three of the other people and I ended up going out to dinner. We went to a restaurant called Jai Thai in Belltown. Normally I don't particularly enjoy Thai food, but this time I liked it very much. Yay, I finally found Thai food I like! I had fun talking with those people too. One of them was even crush-worthy, although he's a bit too old for me (32, I'm due to turn 26 sometime soon) and most likely we aren't each other's types. But that's ok, he was still cute. And he was very touchy--like when he shook my hand he touched my elbow with his other hand. Maybe that's weird, but I liked it.