Why?

Because I cannot resist a W boozing experience. W Hotels - an America-wide chain of super-flash hotels that's gradually monopolising other bits of the world, though is sadly eschewing the UK - offer oases of cool and luxe and glamour. Their hallways are dark and (fashionably) womb-like, their lifts are gorgeously lit, and pyramids of shiny apples adorn every stylish, deep-mahogany surface. Oh, and they have unfailingly good bars. I've taken in LA, I've done a couple of different ones in New York and so, when I found myself alone, confused and jet-lagged in Seattle, well! The W Hotel shone out like a beacon of nice. I fled to it.

Seattle, home of grunge and coffee?

Yup. I'd exhausted the Starbucks in the city (which, unlike their UK equivalents, are all high ceilings and hushed reverence) and I'm not entirely fond of grunge. Which I think is over, anyway - even in Seattle. But my sources told me that Wednesday nights and Saturday nights were hot at the Seattle W. Wednesdays is a salon-type, après-work venture, called SIP (Social Interactive Playtime, yikes!). And Saturdays is a more hedonistic, lairy affair, called SIN (Social Interactive Night-time; a motif emerges).

You presumably went to both?

Yup. Alone. But I made friends. I'm good like that.

You're a slapper like that.

Anyway, this W bar was a fine-looking joint. It spills down and out of the split-level lobby, and is all marble and modern dark wood and velvet. It pulls in a good, mixed crowd (I do find that bars in the US in general are much more mixed in age-terms, than UK equivalents. If you're a teeny bit hip, or eccentric or interesting, you'll fit in, whether you're 21 or 61. I approve of that.) It's got low-key DJs and an excellent cocktail list, oooh, and a surprising but good house-cured meat bar snack. It was convivial, with the kind of acoustics that engender chat; cheerful and flirty without being oppressively lechy, chic without being sneeringly fashionable, laid-back but in a sharpish, Seattle way, as opposed to a cod-spiritual, LA way...

Did you get drunk?

A little bit. Three cocktails plus preposterous jet lag equals a certain squiffiness. I ended up in bed at 8.30 on SIP night, and 9 on SIN night, having failed to encounter W regular Megan Mullally (the brilliant Karen of Will and Grace fame), but having met some jolly nice locals. Whose names I've forgotten. Hey ho.

· W Seattle, 1112 4th Ave, Seattle, 001 206 264 6000, www.starwoodhotels.com/whotels