New Year's at 520 feet

Posted on Jan 2, 2008 in Life | 1 comment

Because I work for the largest homebuilder in the Northwest (and I happened to be in the right place at the right time), I scored two tickets to the observation deck party at the Space Needle: 520 feet up.

We had to miss most of our friends’ annual New Year’s soirée, which is a hardship because they’re Italian and make some incredible grub. But we headed downtown around 8:30 and, mercifully, were in our parking spot (another benefit from my employer) by 9pm.

Some brief banter with the elevator attendant (Jeremiah) about despite having to work on New Year’s, running a glass-faced elevator up and down one of the world’s best-known landmarks was pretty cool.

It was pretty cool, despite the issues with the fireworks. Lesson learned for the next time I’m given free tickets to New Year’s at the Needle: watch the pyrotechnics from “SkyLine lounge,” the banquet area much lower along the Needle. From the O-deck 520 feet up, most of the fireworks were below us, and we only saw a few arcs. There were, however, some spinners attached to the outside of the O-deck that were very cool. (We also saw the spinner that “simply fizzled for about a minute,” according to that PI story.)

A note about the food: my coworkers were enjoying a six-course meal (free upgrade to their tickets by the Space Needle) that we arrived to late to partake in. But don’t cry for us, Argentina; we enjoyed the “hor d’oeuvres” served at the SkyLine Lounge. And by “hor d’oeuvres” I mean baked salmon, chicken quarters, roast beef, salads, ravioli, poached shrimp and pre-cracked crab legs on ice. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention caviar! Yep, the little fish eggs that you hear so much about. (It was mostly salty and nothing I’d spend a ton of money on, personally).

We tried to get on camera while King 5 TV, our local NBC affiliate, did their report from the O-deck. Our mild interest in waving to the camera was nothing compared to the preponderance of obnoxiously drunk idiots clamoring for a second’s screentime. So all we have are some photos and our souvenir noisemakers to prove that we enjoyed the event.

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