Good morning from the train! It’s Saturday morning and we have been on the train for almost 25 hours. But shoutout to Amtrak for making it an easy and smooth ride with great scenery! We’ll be in San Jose shortly, and there are a lot of new things we will learn, so let me fill you in about our last couple days in Seattle. 

On Wednesday, we talked a lot about wealth inequality in the morning. In the afternoon, we went to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington and visited with Luther grad Jake Nowosatka, and two of his friends Greg and Bernie. All three of them were from different departments of Microsoft but met while rock climbing at a place not too far away. The talk was so informative, the campus was beautiful, and I think everyone was very intrigued by the visit.

On Thursday, we had another morning class session huddled around in the little living room of our place before we ventured to downtown Seattle in the afternoon when we went to the Amazon headquarters. We met with Peter Hill, who worked at Amazon when there were only 25 employees and when it was still considered a startup company. HOW COOL! It was so interesting to hear about how the company of Amazon has transformed into one of the most successful companies, in my opinion. 

After our visit at Amazon, we were able to take the afternoon off and explore Seattle, and let me just say that the skyline is beautiful. I took the time to see Pike Place and the fish market and the pier by the aquarium. On our way back, we stopped at a Starbucks Reserve where their “best beans” are obtained and brewed, and had an entirely different menu to a normal Starbucks. Even though the drinks were ridiculously overpriced, I thought to myself “when in Seattle buy coffee” and had the weirdest espresso drink I have ever tasted in my life, so there was that.

Well, there’s 10 minutes left of this train ride, so it is time for me to sign off and explore San Jose. Thanks for reading, talk to you soon!