Seattle

I'm in Seattle.

Even now I can't quite believe it.

Since my last entry, rather a lot has changed. Not least of which is that I was officially offered a job with Amazon, which I (unsurprisingly) accepted, and which began in earnest on the 10th December 2012. That same day, I was pulled aside by my boss' boss (if I've understood the hierarchy correctly) and told confidentially about a proposed "developer exchange", whereby some devs from London would go over to Seattle to "learn how they did things", and a short time later some Seattle devs would make a return trip to do some teaching. He asked if I was interested, and I jumped at the chance - well, to tell the truth, I nearly laughed in his face until I realised he wasn't joking...

Clearly they think highly of me. Let's hope I prove them right!

The taxi from St. Albans to Heathrow left at 2:45, so I decided, in an effort to beat jetlag, to stay awake throughout the night and to sleep on the plane, waking up at a normal time on PST. And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for that pesky Entrance Visa...

Turns out that Americans are quite picky about who they let into their country (who knew!?). There's an online application form called an ESTA that one needs to fill out before one is allowed to board a plane that is US-bound - somehow, this had slipped the mind of the company that had organised our travel, and three of us only found out about it when we tried to check in (the others had all travelled to the US recently and were still covered, but had forgotten to tell us). We used the airport internet to fill out said form, and prayed that it would come through on the check-in system in time - strangely, the second guy to do so got through fine, while myself (who'd filled it out long before him) and another guy, Mark, had to miss the flight.

Luckily, we could reschedule at no extra cost for a flight 6 hours later, but that did throw my sleep schedule slightly off. By the time we were finally being called for boarding, I was a shambling zombie. Thank God Mark was there, otherwise I don't know how I would have got through the flight transfers and made it to my apartment!

But what an apartment! Two double bedrooms, two bathrooms (one en-suite), dining area, sitting area, and fully stocked kitchen - TV, Wifi, washer and dryer, weekly maid cleaning - it wouldn't shame a five-star hotel! Once again, gotta hope I'm living up to Amazon's expectations, but I seem to be doing alright so far!

On top of my flights and a very generous per diem, Amazon have also offered to fly partners/girlfriends/what-have-you's out for a visit. Given that Laura has long thought that Seattle is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and it's been a life goal for her to visit the Space Needle, it's fair to say she was pretty excited about that :)

This is my first time in the US, and it's been very surprising. The most noticeable thing has been how friendly, warm, and open everyone is. Although I was in no state to appreciate it at the time, several people at the boarding gates and on the flight simply struck up conversation with Mark and myself that felt genuinely interested. This morning, when I stopped, confused, on the pavement (oops, sorry - on the sidewalk) when the building numbers ran out, the very next person to walk past stopped and jovially asked me where I was trying to get to. Waiters want to know your life story, cashiers are honestly pleased to meet you - and, in the case of one lovely home-goods store worker named Lesley, will give a 10% discount for a new arrival. I must admit, that one nearly brought on both tears and laughter - just as with my first week working in London, every so often I have to stop myself from laughing out loud at just how ridiculously amazing my life is right now. Nobody pinch me, ok!

I wanted to rant and rave about how wonderful things are, how refreshing the outlook is here, how excited I am to begin work in earnest (everything's very much been setup so far), all the things I want to experience in Seattle (they have a "Museum of Rock Music, Science Fiction, and Pop Culture" - I may ask to be buried there!), and a million other things, but the jetlag has very suddenly hit hard. I earnestly hope I can write more later this week, because I don't want to forget this!