Walking in my shoes

I get a lot of e-mails from people asking me how I like living in Seattle. It seems to be a city that has a lot of debate of urban legend versus fact. It has a reputation for rain, flannel, Microsoft millionaires, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Starbucks, Eddie Bauer, Costco, Amazon, music. But what's it really like? Realizing it's only been seven months, I can at least speak to an initial impression (and sorry this kind of got a little long, so I may leave it up for a couple of days since work is kind of crazy right now anyway).

This picture was taken around 6:30 p.m. this evening, about a block away from my place and that hill across the way is Queen Anne. I absolutely love my location within the city, as I'm along the east side of Lake Union. I'm about 1.5 miles from the Space Needle (the tip of which you can see above that pile 'o crap on the left), and 2.5 miles from downtown, yet my little street is fairly quiet and away from typical city noise. The east side of Lake Union has NOAA, boat repair business and house boats., and feels like we are in our own little nook.

I'm also about two miles from the UW campus, which is where I was when I shot this picture in late March. Nice cherry blossom trees, huh?

Though it's overcast in this picture, I will say that it's not always this way. It's one area where I think Seattle has been grossly overrated, especially compared to any other northern city in the winter. It hasn't rained as much as I thought it would (and that included an almost-record-breaking streak in January). The winters are fairly mild with day time highs in 40s. It was about 70 today with sun, breeze and NO HUMIDITY! I'll take this any day over the tornados in Texas and hurricanes in Hawaii (both of which, I've endured).

This is the pier where they shot The Real World in 1998. I took this today, so you can see there is blue sky.

Traffic: It's no worse than any other major city, and easily better than Honolulu or Dallas traffic (where I've spent about 95% of my driving years). Most people use the bus to commute, as there's no rapid transit system yet, though they're working on a light-rail option.

Drivers: People aren't as polite as they are in Hawaii about letting you in, though admittedly, they're not quite as slow here as they are over there:) It seems as though whoever's on the road seems to "claim" it, whether it be bicyclists that hog the lanes, pedestrians that suddenly leap out in the middle of the road, and cars that plow through crosswalks (despite having pedestrians in them) in order to run the red light and just sit there.

One of the things that surprised me when I first visited Seattle (and my friend, Brook) in 2002 was how hilly it is. My SIL, Jess, said the thing when she visited in February. When they re-built Seattle after a huge fire in the late 1800s, they literally built each street one level up, to solve the sewer line issues they had beforehand.

The benefit is that it's a great ass workout, but they can be pretty steep with the hill up to Queen Anne as the worst at an 18% grade (which is also featured in the first picture).

One of the other complaints that I've heard about downtown from others that have visited here is the amount of panhandlers around. You can't walk a block without someone asking for money, but it seems pretty harmless.


This is the Fremont Troll which lies beneath the Fremont Bridge. Seattle is divided up into very distinct neighborhoods, much like Manhattan, and you can almost tell what type of personality someone has, just by the neighborhood they live in.

This is probably one of the most educated and "aware" places I've ever been, yet without the competitiveness or perhaps harshness. There are a lot of transplants that live here, so there's not a feeling of exclusion on that basis alone.


Puget Sound here. What's kind of interesting here is that there are so many single people and you don't feel a sense of shame by not coupling up. You see people alone all the time and don't think much about it. From a dating perspective, someone here told me that Seattle's supposedly a difficult place to date in, but I can't imagine it's any worse than any other city, as it comes down to putting yourself out there in the first place.

As far as the music scene goes, it seems to be here, but I admit that I haven't actively sought it out as movies have always been more of my passion and interest (we currently have the Seattle Film Festival running and I've volunteered a couple of times).

Taken downtown during the winter. One thing that I have noticed that's different with the people, or at least compared to other places I've been, is how open they are with sharing personal information.

I've had more people "out" themselves to me in the past week than had ever done so before I moved to Seattle (with the Seinfeld disclaimer of "not that there's nothing wrong with it"). Total strangers have shared personal information, stories, histories or even shown me their hives (I shit you not, this happened when I was working the film festival last week). And strangely, I'm not sure which surprises me more: the fact that it happens or that I'm becoming so unphased by knowing more about these strangers than some of my best friends.

People seem very open and tolerant here, or at least what I've experienced so far. And I've noticed that people seem to be "younger" here with their attitudes, style of dress, etc. People are just laid-back here, do things outside, and seem to appreciate where they are and what they have. I can't imagine how any one could not like it here because there seems to be a niche for every type of person.

I really enjoy it here, and I think I found the perfect city for where I am in life and what I need. I've made some friends (mostly thanks to my old friend, Brook), I like my work and I'm having a good time. It's so pretty up here, and I, unfortunately, never seem to be able to take a picture that does it justice. Okay, so when are you coming to visit?

No, I haven't seen anyone wear flannel. Yes, there literally is a Starbucks on almost every corner.