Smiling in Seattle

I’d never been to Seattle until last Friday. In many respects it was like driving for 3 hours to be in Vancouver!

Just as many carpet/ rug shops, the home of Starbucks and good coffee joints, Pudget Sound on one side and Lake Washington on the other, pot smokers on the street and the same issue of the homeless population.

As the picture on the left shows it’s not a bad looking city… I can’t profess to having taken this shot. In fact I totally forgot my camera ,which for a traveller is a poor sign.

I was picked up early in the morning by Adam, Derek and Mike from TeamPages – who no doubt have google alerts on so hi guys! We’re working on a potential business alignment with them and they kindly invited me to attend Soccer Palooza to get some customer/market insight and get to know them and their business better.

It turned out to be one big bundle of fun from start to finish, we laughed, we joked and we smiled so much our cheeks were sore on Saturday morning. It helps that these guys are as crazy as me and can handle mocking and sheep shagging jokes and give it back just as well!

I spent the morning wandering around the city with my tour guides Derek and Adam, who were lacking in detailed city knowledge and took me on a lovely tour of the non-seafront seaside walkway right by the noisy freeway. I made up creative stories on the history of the famous fish market and we simply walked the streets and took it all in. We met Mike after his business meeting and all had lunch with the lovely Laura aka Apples, fellow Iso team member from my London days and all round great gal.

After a trip to REI – the equivalent of MEC here in Vancouver, I felt like I’d been to some mountain chalet and hung out in a natural park. They’ve tried to emulate the outdoors with a waterfall, mountain bike path and climbing wall to test out all their sporting gear. I somehow escaped without buying anything!

The guys left me in some dodgey part of town armed only with a small cowprint suitcase to defend myself. Whilst they set up their booth for the event on Saturday, I took myself off to a quality cafe and enjoyed the rare pleasure of 3 hours to read my business book, some People magazine goss and write down my rules to live life by (more on that next post).

I spent the evening near the water enjoying a drink in the sun with Laura and friends and then heading off to play my first official Disc golf course. I can tell you that arriving slightly drunk and continuing to drink  cider from a brown paper bag like a bum is not a great recipe for frisbee golf success. That game made me feel that I had to unlearn all that I’ve learned about throwing. Apparently it was one of the more technical courses, but I can’t blame that for hooking every throw, hitting more trees and poles then I care to remember and reaching par only a few times!

The evening was filled with us meeting the guys again to watch some entertaining jazz in a bar filled with an average punter age of 50+. Apparently when us ladies walked in they switched to playing romantic Marvin Gaye jazz numbers (one of my all time favourites) and turned to face us.

We finally decided to call it a night and I was treated to stay with Laura’s at her folks huge house. It stood proudly atop a hill with stunning views over the water and back to Seattle, pretty special to wake up to that.

The soccer event was an intelligence gathering exercise in most respects, and a chance to connect with potential advertisers and grab some free swag. Mike and I noted my first ever sales pitch attempt for FundRazr during a workshop on sponsorship was treated with dead silence and looks to kill from the presenter. Naturally I took that as a positive sign

The trip home was filled with more laughter, silly games, fantastic Thai food and no border crossing stunts.

I loved the impromptu trip and the connections made with my new friends that was way too much fun. Life’s short, laugh often!