Enthused!

Well I am back from my whirlwind and fabulous trip to Seattle with 124 of my fellow Nintendo Brand Ambassadors! There was so much packed into our 36 hours there. I feel like I was there for much longer than I actually was! I flew out of Boston bright and early on Thursday and after a brief stop in Chicago, arrived in Seattle around 3PM their time. It was funny actually. For the duration of my flights I did not come into contact with anyone going to the summit. Then after a rather bumpy landing into Seattle, once the plane had settled I heard the girls in front of me mention something about "Justine" who is our Brand Ambassador coordinator. So of course I spoke up, excuse me are you guys with Nintendo?" and they were like YES and then a voice from behind us pipes up? "Nintendo?" and We're all like "YES!" and then two girls in front are lke "Nintendo?" and we all yell NINTENDO IN THE HOUSE. We were all so pumped. So we made our way to the shuttle and over to our gorgeous hotel and luckily I had some downtime in my room to relax and wash the plane off of me before the Nintendo of America cocktail reception being held in one of hotel restaurants. One of the best parts of the trip was the other girls. Everyone is so friendly. I mean I did not know a soul there but was able to insert myself into conversations and make friends super easily. Of course an open bar always helps in these endeavors, but I met a lot of fun girls that night who became my go to girls for the trip. After the reception ended a few of us stuck around for a few more drinks and made plans to meet for breakfast in the AM. With that I headed back to my hotel room where I promptly recieved appx 3 hours of sleep becauise I was too amped up to go to bed and then I woke up at 4AM because my body was still on East Coast time. No matter though! I caffeinated myself with some of that world famous Seattle Coffee and met up with some friends for breakfast before heading over to Nintendo HQ with everyone else. Now, before going to Seattle I knew it would be gray and most likely rainy. What I did not know is how lush and green it would be. As we drove to Redmond (where Nintendo America Headquarters is located) I was struck by the vivid greens of the grass and the trees and the moss growing everywhere. It was the brightest shade of green I have seen in so long (especially coming off the end of this drab dreary New England winter). It was so vibrant you were almost glad for the gray sky, a blue one would have been too much. Anyway we spent a really lovely time at the Headquarters, trying out the Nintendo 3DS (which is incredible and the most impressive DS to date) I could not get past the 3D aspect of it. I mean I knew it would be 3D but had never been able to picture it. It literally pops off the screen and adds so much depth, it brings game playing to a whole other level. In the photo above we are playing against each other in Street Fighter and it is INTENSE! Definitely my favorite game of the day. When we weren't playing with the 3DS's we were exploring the headquarters and enjoying a delicious lunch and visiting the Nintendo World Shop. We all had a blast and were really excited to take a Nintendo 3DS of our own home! I wish I could show you photos of the building but we were strictly prohibited from taking photos of anything other than the room pictured above. However the lovely Justine did provide us with this Nintendo sanctioned photo, so you can get an idea of the size of the place. Please note the rooftop gardens - gorgeous! One of the funnest parts of our day at HQ was meeting all of the Nintendo employees and how amped they were about their job, the brand and about making sure we all had a great time. I imagine Nintendo must be one of the coolest places to work! Anyway after our Nintendo Day, we piled back into our busses and headed back to the hotel. I had a little time to get ready and then headed back out for another cocktail reception followed by dinner on the town! When we were initially sent our itineraries for the trip a month back, we could pick from a list of ten Seattle restaurants what our top two choices would be. After doing some research online I decided I definitely either wanted to go to The Purple Cafe! So I was really psyched that that is where I ended up going to dinner (we split up into groups of 15-20 and each group went to a different restaurant). Upon stepping into this restaurant I bet you will see why it was my first choice? Could it be....the enourmous tower of wine??? Nah!! Anyway the food was sumptuous and the company divine! I sat next to new pals Kimberley and Michelle and we had a blast. After dinner there were after dinner drinks at the hotel back and then bedtime and then the next day I went with some ladies to the airport and we hopped our plane to Chicago, and then from Chicago I hopped a plane to Boston and got home late saturday night. So you see what I mean by whirlwind. It could not have been a better time and I want to send HUGE THANK YOU out to Nintendo America and Brand About Town for a wonderful trip. If you'd like to see the rest of my photos please CLICK HERE.