Seattle, Day 3

Today was the first official day of the meeting. The theme of this year's meeting is One World, One Health and many of the presentations that I attended today focused on how we need to know more about how animal health affects human health (think the H1N1 flu a few years ago) and how we need to think of health on a global level considering how much domestic and international travel people do these days. We don't want something like the movie Contagion to become a reality.

I got several compliments on my dress today (green dress, black belt), which was nice. It was also a way that someone identified me as I was sitting at the staff desk. This member that I didn't recognize came up to me to shake my hand. "Hi! You must be Tina." Um, yep. "I'm ___, from New Jersey. The staff at the registration desk told me that you were wearing a green dress with a black belt." Ha ha. Once she told me her name, I knew exactly who she was. Wearing color always helps! :)

I actually experienced the Seattle rain today during lunch time. I walked out to search for food, only to come back 10 steps later because it was cold and rainy and I didn't have an umbrella. I got some fish and chips with a co-worker in the hotel restaurant.

One of the highlights of my day was when the hotel had different kinds of ice cream bars available at break time.

For dinner, I went with 3 of my co-workers to a place called Sitka & Spruce. My foodie co-worker insisted on going there because the chef recently won a 2012 James Beard Award: "the Awards honor the finest chefs, restaurants, wine professionals, journalists, cookbook authors, restaurant designers, and other food professionals in the United States" (Wikipedia). The place had a rustic feel. There was pride in using local ingredients. It looked like they changed up the menu each day, depending on what was available and fresh. Because of this, the menu was on the short side, understandably. We ate some watercress salad, a selection of fish, and bread for the appetizer. For dinner, one of us had the grilled octopus and the rest of us had the chicken dish. Of course we had to have dessert, which was this custard-y pie thing with crunchies and caramel. Heavenly! I think it was a good decision to walk home.