Micah

Walnut Castle = best hospitality and tacos!

Arguably the best coffee in the U-District, but also has an amazing chai selection that will titillate anyone’s taste buds (though maybe slightly offend traditionalists). I’ve got the best drinks from the morning baristas, one of whom was ranked #2 in all of Seattle in a recent contest.

The crowd is a mix of students, computer geeks (UW’s tech building is nearby), artists, and musicians, usually aged 18-30. The music is usually a combination of electronica, indie, and some obscure [to me] hip-hop.

There’s an open mic on Monday night where a lot of the performers know each other. Poetry is often ignored by the mostly college-age audience but music with alternative/indie/rock influences or a high amount of novelty is very much appreciated. Performers play on Friday and Saturday nights and many have monthly gigs.

I landed here a few hours late on a Saturday night after a storm in NYC and found myself stuck in this airport for the next 8 hours due to the delay. Not wanting to spend any money on a hotel, I found an uncomfortable set of benches and got a few hours of sleep here and there under the harsh lights and the ridiculously frenetic jazz emanating from the airport speakers.

Between harsh but quickly forgotten dreams, I watched CNN as the pope died. It also happened to be time for daylight savings, so I got to watch the clock jump from 2:00am to 3:00am in a second. I was so happy to leave in the morning, but whenever I find myself at O’Hare, it still makes me smile a bit, especially the ridiculous neon-ceiling’d passageway with sci-fi background music. This is an absurd place where absurd things happen.