This weekend has gone by so quickly that I can't even believe just how much of CSSI has already gone by... I'm combining the two weekend days into one post because it has been so eventful and filled with further exploration of the lovely city.
We started off on Saturday with a trip to the Woodland Park Zoo; I'd actually been looking forward to the trip since it'd been so long since I'd gone to a local zoo where I live. The weather was perfect for walking around, and we got to see many animals. Here are some pictures below:
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| Penguins! Surprisingly living outside in the hot weather. |
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| Giraffes frolicking around the field |
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| An elephant! |
After spending most of the afternoon at the zoo and checking in with everyone at 4:00pm, we celebrated Christine's birthday with cake and Happy Birthday songs in many different languages! Out of everyone who was there, we counted twelve languages known between us; it was so cool to see that out of such a small group, we knew quite a few languages. Next, a few of us set off for University Village, a local shopping and dining area that was only a short walk away from campus. For dinner, we went to a sushi bar! This was so exciting, because I'd always wanted to go to one where the plates of sushi revolve around the tables, and Blue C Sushi was exactly that. The food was, needless to say, delicious.
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| Outside Blue C Sushi |
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| Rotating sushi bar! |
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| Some of the scrumptious sushi I had |
Dinner was followed by taking in the scenery and doing a little shopping, we walked back to the dorms after sunset and hung out there for a little while until it was time for bed. After a long day of walking around, it was nice to finally relax in our rooms and go over plans for the next day before going to sleep.
Today, we set off for lunch first at Auntie Anne's (tried soft pretzels for the first time and they were awesome!) and Cheesecake Factory (for some pre-birthday cheesecake)! Afterward, we embarked on Seattle's Underground City tour, which I'd wanted to go on since last year in order to learn some more about Seattle's history. During the tour, we visited a few underground buildings preserved from the early 1900s; I learned many interesting facts about the city's earlier days, including one of Seattle's corrupt mayors Henry Yesler, a fire that burned down the downtown region, and a 2001 earthquake. To be honest, the tour was a bit short for my liking and there wasn't too much to see underground aside from dilapidated buildings, but the history aspect was what made me enjoy the tour the most.
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One of the original banks in Seattle; it was
open 24/7 for business due to the gold rush. |
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Original historical underground skylights,
installed for natural lighting. |
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| The first ever known picture of downtown Seattle. |
To end the day, we went to dinner at Red Robin, a classic American burger chain. The three August birthday girls, we actually all ended up getting birthday sundaes and being sung to by the serving staff!
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| Red Robin selfie while waiting for food |
Back at the dorms, our group began some preliminary planning and coding for our final project, in order to get a jump start on tomorrow's official beginning. From what we were able to accomplish today, I feel confident going into Monday that we'll be on schedule for the week and it was exciting to finally get started on the programming! Also, seeing as today was likely our last opportunity to explore the city, I enjoyed the packed weekend, particularly getting to experience many places that I hadn't been to last year. As we head into the final week, it's crunch time and I'm ready to put my acquired coding skills to the test.
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