Seattle, like some other cities that aren't Philly, does some funny things with streets and addresses. First of all, it has numbered avenues. Like 4th ave, where I live. I can handle that. The problem is the addresses are schizophrenic. They have multiple...versions. Like: 1200 12th ave. And: 1200 12th Ave South, which are completely different locations! 12th Ave and 12th Ave South are the same street, but when you see "South" that means the little numbers in the address denote a completely different section of the same street. This fun little fact screwed me up before, but it didn't sink in until I hopped off a bus for my orientation at 1200 12th Ave, and then walked 24 blocks to 1200 12th Ave South. I have some ideas for making a city even more confusing, but I'll keep them to myself just in case any of you ever design a city.
Fortunately I did a lot of walking last week and didn't even break a sweat. I figured out the bus system. Imagine if Septa had a first class option, where all the seats are clean and the drivers are friendly and you dont have to use tokens for mass transit. Thats the way all of Seattle's buses are. Also, they have a subway made out of buses. I'm not kidding. There are big tunnels underground, and they drive buses through them. As if they were trains. And the tunnels are all circular, like we're the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Except that the tunnels are well lit and not dirty.
The people here are nice. I often run into someone who goes out of their way (compared to Philly) to start a conversation. Its kinda weird but I like it. If everyone is so much nicer maybe I'll have better luck with girls in bars. Or I'll hang out in the university district a lot. I haven't been up there much; only once so far after my laptop destroyed itself (Windows updated itself into broken) and I had to get another one. I went to Best Buy hoping to get a cheap laptop with Linux--well, I'm going to stop here because this little story ends the same way all of my Best Buy stories end. Suffice to say, I know how to get to the University District. I think I want to finish getting my private pilot license before I go back to grad school though. That will mean I'll be even older when I start classes again. Could I still find a smart girl? I've seen amazing girls get attached to guys that are far older, dumber and uglier than I am, so I'm not going to worry about it.
I went salsa dancing on a Wednesday and it was ok. Made me miss brazil's, and all the girls I used to dance with there. I miss Sonia's lessons too. And I never got to dance with Nicole or Cassie before I left. :( I want to find a dance studio here, but their websites don't look too encouraging, and the one teacher I saw wasn't impressive. Her little lesson felt like a ballroom class.
It doesn't actually rain as much as I thought. Apparently its the gloomyness that gets everyone down. I don't think I'll have a problem with it, unless it interferes with flying and skiing. Which it might. The coffee thing is for real, though. Coffee shops don't permeate the entire city proper, but when you go downtown there is almost one on every block. Also, some of them stay open late, like bars. I kind of want to try going to one late and night and see if smart girls hang out there.
There are definitely a lot of tiny little weird differences. Like the video store that is closest to me that rents videos for one night, for at least as much as blockbuster/hollywood video charge for a week. I had to walk ten blocks to get to blockbuster. And they didn't have "The Great Train Robbery." I dont know if I'll ever see that movie. I can't believe I actually got up and just moved out here. Also, in the supermarket I went to, you don't even put your own food on the conveyor belt. In fact, they didn't have conveyorbelts. You walk up to the cashier, and drop off your cart or basket like you're a snobby rich person and they scan your items directly from the cart. Like lifting the items out of your cart is too much work for you. Unless, of course, you're me, and you didn't get a cart or basket because you were only planning to grab what would fit in your backpack anyway, and end up awkwardly handing it to the girl at the register. I don't make a very good rich person.
There are definitely more bums here. A lot of them put less into the act than in Philly. Some of them might actually need help though. In Philly it seems like there was almost a distinction between the bums asking for money and the homeless people who didn't ask but actually needed it. Here I can't tell the difference. And the crazies are different. In Philly it was the black-jew people reading made up old-English sounding Bible verses over loudspeakers. Here I saw people with signs like they were protesting, but they had what sounded like southern accents (or some kind of rural accent?), and the stuff they were shouting had more of an apocolyptic flavor. Also it was more offensive and less comical. Oh, and they wanted to free Gaza, which made me immediately cynical since the annoying political people never scream stuff about Darfur or the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Sierra Leone or the hunger or HIV epidemic in your face. Or protest about the lack of schools in Afghanistan. Or, perhaps, I'm really just annoyed because that was the day I was looking for a Cosi's and I never found it. Instead I ate stuff from a Chinese fast food place in a mall food court and felt sick later.
At work they don't let you be the administrator/root person on your computer. I'm starting to think that now that I'm at Amazon I won't have the luxury of doing pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want with my computer anymore. I spent most of my day today watching training videos that nearly put me to sleep, which is a step up from the military documentation I used to read that always put me to sleep. Also, I might not find my desk tomorrow. I think I work on the 4th floor. Also the laptop I got from Best Buy has the shift key in a really weird place. I just wanted to share that with you.
All my stuff is in transit and I feel aimless and bored without my guitars, or my flight bag, or my skiis, or my climbing gear, or a reliable internet connection (Comast out here is worse than Comast in Philly). Sometimes I think about the job I left behind and the other grad students there and how comfortable I was. Sometimes, especially today during the boring movies, I think about the girls I left behind, including some that won't miss me. Memories linger in my mind like ghosts in doorways. Probably just because I haven't met any girls yet. Or too much caffeine.
Last week I showed up in Seattle with a sunburned face and not nearly enough clothing in my bag. Since then I've done a lot of walking (enough to make my calf muscles sore) and drank a lot of coffee and endured a lot of cold, cold weather. I bought a blanket and got over my fear of buses and started cooking again. Oh, and I'm starting to get a taste for wine! I can impersonate a cultured person FTW!
Not a bad start.
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