I Still Havent Found What I'm Looking For

Some days, some places, they just seem to conspire against you. When you really need to find something it so often cannot be found. Its as if the Gods have decided to play a little trick on you, hiding away what it is you're after. Surely, you think to yourself, it cant be THAT hard to find.

Sometimes it just is. Travelling from place to place, all of them now new to me there's a certain amount of orientation to be done. To find my bearings within the metropolis I find myself residing at any given time. Some places everything just seems to fall into place. You find the places you want to visit, the right bus, the bar or whatever it is just seems to happen. Others, like here in Seattle, it becomes a mission of epic proportions. Simple tasks become enduring and the magic of being in a new place drains from your soul.

My arrival day presented me with the first of these simple tasks: Go for a walk, find a bar and chill. Not much can go wrong with that can it? I mean, I'm in Downtown Seattle, right in the heart of things, what could possibly be difficult about that? Actually, quite a lot!

It would seem Seattle's bars like to hide away. They like to be where you wouldn't think they'd be. I had expected to find them dotted about the place as frequently as the coffee shops that adorn every street corner, yet I seemed to walk and walk and walk and find nothing! I would later discover that the myriad of bars were located around Pioneer Square, an area that was as yet unknown. My disbelief continued and anxiety heightened as minute after minute ticked by with no bar in sight.

I was just about to turn around and find my way home when, of course, now not looking for one, a bar seems to appear, as if just placed there by the Gods. That's how I found myself in Collins Pub and sampled my first beer Seattle style! You'll just have to wait to hear all about the hoppy goodness of Seattle's finest!

The first mission then was eventually accomplished. As was the 2nd, in the end but the need to find a replacement charger for my mobile phone led me on a several hour long wild goose chase around Downtown Seattle.

Simply put, my charger decided its days were numbered in Albuquerque and with nothing approaching a nearby cell phone store either there or in Vegas (no, its ok, I didn't even bother to look), here in Seattle was my first chance to bring some life back into said device.

Once again, thinking to myself "hmmm, Seattle's a large City, a modern City, mobile phone shops are likely here en mass". Wrong, wrong wrong! My assumption that, like at home, I'd be bamboozled by the sheer volume of shops offering me every phone and deal under the sun was, in no uncertain terms, utter rubbish!

I did find a phone store, just the one but it would seem the Nokia phone is a rather Alien concept this side of the Atlantic and my request for a new charger for such a phone was met with wide eyes. I walked and I walked and I walked failing to find anything remotely like a phone shop. I was actually going through emotions of disbelief when, out of the corner of my eye a glorious image of a T-Mobile store glittered, welcoming me in.

A good hour and a half and $30 after I had set out I celebrated the new charger now residing in my bag! The old cliche that you never find something if you're looking for it never seemed to ring more true!