pikes place and emp

Yesterday I went with my roommate and a friend from school out to downtown Seattle to visit some places. Luckily it wasn't raining most of our stay! There was that weirdo drizzle at times. Seriously Seattle what kind of thing is this drizzle stuff? Is it raining? Is it not? WHAT.

First we went to Pike's Place Market. It smelled like fish, though I didn't see them throwing an around. Maybe next time :) Maybs.

I got some apple chips! I've enjoyed cinnamon ones in the past, so I knew I had to try these

It was very crowded in the morning when we went, and I could tell a lot of people were tourists because they stood around taking pictures (kinda like us lulz). I wonder what the best time to go is...?

Next we went to the EMP museum. It's a museum about music and pop culture. I wasn't terribly interested in the music aspects, but they had both Fantasy and Science Fiction exhibits going on at the time, and once I looked into what they contained I knew I HAD TO GO. HAD. TO. GO.

I don't watch Game of Thrones, but my friends were so excited to see this lol

It's not a giant museum, but since we got discounted tickets through Microsoft Prime it was well worth what we paid. Awww yesss discountssss

The chair above was near the entrance to the Fantasy exhibit, which had costumes and probs from a number of well known fantasy films and shows. I was most excited to see pages with handwritten annotations by Tokein, but I couldn't take any pictures of those. Though I hadn't seen all of the things represented, I knew of a lot.

Costumes from The Princess Bride!!!!

The fantasy exhibit was upstairs, while the SciFi one was downstairs. This is what I came to see: the captains chair from Star Trek the original series!!! Gotta love that 60s sci fiiiiiiii

Now with more tribbles!!!

They also had stuff from other star trek series, the matrix, and other series. Including Stargate! I am a big fan of the original movie, though I haven't yet gotten to the television series. I don't care what you think, the original film is great. HATERS TO DA LEFT

Going on in the same time was the Northwest Folklife Festival. I didn't take any pictures here, but we wandered around for a little bit after the museum. There were quite a few people playing instruments of various kinds on the sidewalks. It was like *doo doo doo dooooooo* combined with *vvvveeeeeeee* combined with *taptaptaptaptap* all at the same time. ._. 

The worst part of the day was when we realized the address on the parking stub did not actually correspond to the entrance to the parking garage. It took a while to find our car again... All I wanted to do was faceplant. But I drove home and ate a fudgesicle instead. Close enough

-Stripe

things begin

I have now finished up my first week here in Redmond for my internship at Microsoft, and if possible I'm even MORE excited for the rest of the summer now.

The first day went as most first days go. Intern orientation all morning and 'mixer' type events afterwards. While some of the presentation dragged on and on, it was really exciting to be given hints about what events would come later in the summer. Days of puzzles and baseball games and intern-only festivities.

They gave us crayons at an intern mixer ... I couldn't resist

One somewhat unwelcome surprise was that the team I am on, along with two fellow interns in the same program, is currently on a bit of a camping trip. And by that I mean they are temporarily housed in a Microsoft building 30 minutes away in Sammamish while other teams shuffle about. The drive is a bit annoying after being delighted at living so close to main campus, but it's only for a short while and the area is gorgeous.

They had a cookout for the Outlook team one day this week, so we walked down towards the lake to eat and hang out. It was really lovely despite the cold and drizzle. Really glad we got to see this area: I doubt I would have driven down here otherwise!

The office is pretty fun though. Everyone is very friendly and eager to talk to the new interns about our ideas and out projects.

Free drinks all round!

We've already gotten started working on our summer project. It's really cool, and I love how much input it allowed for us to have with our own ideas and perspectives. If all goes well our work will be available to Microsoft customers! How cool :)

-Stripe