Seattle Rocks!

This weekend was so fun because we weren't busy doing house stuff so had time to explore! There are tons of quirky little neighborhoods. For example, there is literally a troll under one of the bridges squashing a VW bug on Troll Ave, I'm not kidding.

We've been in Seattle for a month now so thought I'd post some pictures. Does the first one look familiar, you Grey's Anatomy fans? The other 2 are from a music/indie film/art festival we went to this past weekend called Bumbershoot in the coolest venue ever: under the Space Needle. I'm telling you all of this so you will visit us next year over Labor Day! It's a great time to visit....perfect weather and Seattle's uberfest. We heard The Shins, The Gourds, Rodrigo y Gabriela, all highly recommended!!! Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Road rage and watermelons?!

So, I have to say besides being yelled at once by a driver for putting on my blinker when I shouldn't have, I've been pleasantly surprised in the fairly courteous way people drive here. Typically, someone will eventually let you in if you signal. However, this was not the case yesterday afternoon driving around with my real estate agent. She was trying to get over into the left hand turning lane from the right lane and had her blinker on for a while. She gunned it to get over (and later tells me the car was 2 car lengths back so she didn't feel that she cut him off too badly, if at all). The car, which she may or may not have cut off, pulls up right beside me on the passenger side and screams at Leslie and says, What are you doing? She says sorry. He says I have kids in the car. Leslie says sorry again. The passenger in the front seat throws a watermelon across the driver and it lands splat, at my window!! I jump and the guy tears off. We are both shaken up and marvel at what just happened. What anger! Nice lesson to teach your kids, dude. And what a waste of a perfectly good watermelon. Have you ever heard of such a thing? The splattered fruit was all over the car, on the top and the windshield as well. Leslie then tells me that I'll notice drivers in Seattle are angry. I have noticed how centered everyone is about traffic but this is just odd! And a poll back in April or May said for cities, Seattle had some of the most friendly drivers. Apparently that poll did not take into account this super angry guy!

Houseless in Seattle

Still no luck on the housing front after a good week plus of searching. We've got a good real estate agent who keeps telling me not to get antsy. Easy for her to say, she's not living in an Extended Stay! Honestly, it's not too bad but after months of living out of suitcases, I'm ready to be in my own place. There might be one possibility, I'll keep you posted....

Almost 2 weeks in Seattle and I can not complain (well, except for my watermelon story). The weather is so different from what I'm used to in the summer: 70s and clear. Today, Pike Place Market turns 100! Visited a farmer's market yesterday for organic fruits and veggies all locally grown. These people are into the environment and dogs big time!! Another interesting thing I've noticed are the teriyaki restaurants in practically every strip mall/intersection. Heard there are over 100 teriyaki joints and only 12 McDonald's in Seattle proper, my kind of place! Ryan was disappointed in this fact, ha. So you'd think with a health conscious population that dietitian jobs would be plentiful, not so. I've only been able to find 2 openings. Hmmm, is it career change time? I could handle health or travel writing or even blogging.

Went to a Mariners game Monday night at Safeco Field: what a stadium! I'm not into baseball but I might become a fan going to games here. We met Ryan's cousin, Gabe, and some of his friends pre-game at the Pyramid Ale House right across from the stadium and later enjoyed an $8 beer in the stadium with a great crowd and wonderful sunset! The Mariners even won with a bottom of the 9th homerun! So much to do here, I can get used to this....

The West (Left) Coast

We're enjoying the more liberal side of the US so far---couldn't tell you how many Impeach Bush signs we've seen! Also the sheer amount of Asian restaurants is amazing--went to the International District for Vietnamese food and durian (the stinky fruit that's not allowed in hotels in Thailand) was on the menu and in the farmers' market. Seattleites don't mess around with their food!!

On the housing front, we've decided against a temporary furnished apartment and plan to make the Extended Stay our home for a while. Our work with a real estate agent to find the perfect home won't come cheap, we are in major sticker shock!! From what we've seen in our price range in Seattle proper, we can afford a fixer-upper in an ok location. Read: potential if you're handy, which we're not so the debate goes on. Should we buy a brand new fully loaded townhome in a good fun area or a small house in an up and coming neighborhood that needs work??

In between house hunting, we met up with a friend from Guam, Amy, whose family lives close by. And I got to see Ryan's new work digs. It took us double the time that it needed to as we mistakenly got on the freeway and didn't need to do! Embarassingly enough, his work is right off of the street where our hotel is!! Just shows you we don't have a good handle on where stuff is. Seattle has been confusing for us to get around as we're staying on the east side so always have to cross a floating bridge so we've been rewarded with gorgeous water views. We even saw Mt. Rainier one day. I have to brag that the weather has been really nice this first week, not the first thing you think to say of Seattle. It's cool and not humid, plus we haven't seen rain yet:-)

We're "home"

We finally arrived in the Emerald City (didn't know Seattle is called this) yesterday afternoon!!!! The 4 hour drive from Spokane made for a huge scenery change. The plains of eastern Washington look like Nebraska, I swear. But then we crossed the Cascade Mountains and over a canyon/gorge (who knew?) into the Seattle area. It was sunny on the eastern side; the clouds look like they couldn't make it over the mountains into Seattle. It's 60 degrees here!!

Today begins the most unknown question of all: where to live? We're armed with Sunday's classified ads and some internet resources. We'll be scoping out different neighborhoods to choose our fav area.

On a food note, there's a Whole Foods just down the street from our hotel, already loaded up. And our first meal consisted of Thai food; there are Asian restaurants everywhere, I'm in heaven! This is a far cry from Columbus, Mississippi.....