It is Sunday 8 a.m. and I’ve managed to sleep well after yesterday’s exuberance. My body aches, but I’m soaking my bones in a nice hot bath and starting to feel ready for the day. As I glance outside I can see that the darkened streets are glistening from the light rain that is gently falling. The Sun is not completely up and it is cloudy to boot. Welcome to Seattle weather.
Today I am looking forward to watching my first M.L.S Soccer game at Century Link Field and my hopes are high that the Sounders will pull off a win at home against Real Salt Lake. O.k. so it’s not going to be El Clásico but I am sure I will have a great time regardless and have secured a couple of good seats in the stand.
After getting dressed I head across to the Daily Grill for my breakfast of convenience and after a short walk I am fuelling myself for the day ahead with enough bacon to feed an army. Once complete I head to the Sounders store to try and buy a top but sadly they are not open for hours and by then I will be meeting up with the guys for a spot of lunch.
I start to walk back to my hotel to catch up on some walk and bump into fellow UK SQL professional Craig Ottley-Thistle (web|twitter) so we decide to wander around the streets of Seattle to see what we can find. Sadly most of the shops are still closed so we eventually grab a coffee and I show Craig the inside of the Convention Center whilst we roll down the clock. I think he is impressed with the place.
Roll forward a couple of hours and we are joined by Régis (web|twitter) and Kenneth (web|twitter) as embark on a #sqlpubcrawl heading towards the Sounders game. Several beers later we finally arrive at the Pyramid Alehouse just outside the stadium and have a spot of lunch before the match. I’m not sure if my El Diablo burger is a wise choice, but after losing the roof of my mouth I am certainly full and ready to go. Since Kenneth and Craig do not have tickets for the game we part company and myself and Régis head into the stadium. By now the rain is getting slightly harder but it is not going to dampen our spirits.
To cut a long story short, the game was pretty much all over in the first 30 minutes with the Sounders going 3-0 up. Real Salt Lake were all over the place and the Sounders have capitalized on their mistakes. While the Sounders played well, there are too many kick and run balls being played into Salt Lake’s half and it is clear to me that the Sounders best policy of defence today is going to be attack. Sadly by the second half, attack has now dissipated and Salt Lake are on the offensive but can only manage a single goal in the second half. But I’ll take 3-1 and begin the walk back downtown with Regis happy in the knowledge that I’ve seen my first game of Soccer in the good ol’ U.S. of A.
After meeting back up with Kenneth in the evening for round #2 of drinks, we end up in the Serious Pie restaurant for a nice spot of Pizza followed (of course) by a drink to wash the whole thing down. Day two is over and now its time for bed…
See also in this series:
7 Days of PASS – Day 1
Filed under: Community, SQLServerPedia Syndication
