My Last Night in Seattle

My last day in Seattle ended in Fremont, and it could not have been more fun. When I woke early in the morning, I was about 5% packed. Everything I was going to take was scattered on the floor next to my new empty REI rolling luggage. I was planning on taking my bike and snowboarding equipment, but at the last second realized I could fit everything I really needed in to one bag. With the storage box still in the parking lot, I decided to throw a few more things in there and call it good. Around 1pm I had everything packed and I was ready to go. With some extra time, I borrowed a friends car and drove down to the Super Mall to get a new belt and some pants. I'm still not sure if they have my size clothing in Japan, I'm not to excited about XXXL.

Plans for my last evening in Seattle were determined a few days in advance. A friend of mine invited me to a chocolate factory tour at Theo's up in Fremont, something I could not miss of course. But a few hours before the tour we decided to go to a cafe to play chess, ship mocha's and read. Chess somehow turned into a slaughter, as my king got more and more trapped in the center of the board. She managed to pull this off while reading to me, stories about the importance of potatoes from the current Economist magazine.My chess game has been off for the last half year or so. After getting my ass kicked, we went for short walk around Fremont, ultimately ending up at Theo's. Theo's is a cool factory, I guess it is one of the only companies in North America that takes free trade cacao beans from places along the equator and turns it into chocolate bars, body rubs and other treats.Everything here is organic and more healthy then mass producers. The factory is not typical for me. First of all, its clean because they make food stuff here. For example, I did not really even feel safe eating in the cafeteria at Chicago Assembly, this place looked like an operating room.

The next big difference between factories where I work and this one, everything was turned off and there was no second or third shift maintenance going on. Weird, I wanted nothing more then to push all the green buttons and start production. But then again, the idea of making more little bits of chocolate to eat, well might be a bad idea.Chocolate bars don't make themselves.

The night ended at Al's on 45th st in the Wallinford neighborhood. Five of us talked over water and beer.