My Mom's Worst Nightmare

Oh no Mom. You were right. I've fallen in love with Seattle. 

My dad and I got into town this afternoon around 2:00 PDT. That's 2 hours ahead of midwest time, and that my friend is jank. It'll take some getting used to, but I'm hoping it only takes a few days to get the hang of it. Amazingly my dad and I hauled 4 suitcases, 2 duffle-bags, and 1 oversized "purse" to the car rental place and got a classy champagne Suburu Legacy which could hold all of my luggage. I swear my dad made that thing into a frickin' clown circus car with all the stuff he managed to fit inside. 

The picture above is the hill that I'll have to go up and down to get to work. I'm living in the Queen Anne area of town which feels like a cross between San Francisco and Alexandria, VA. The old buildings, huge hills, cable car lines for the bus routes, it all fits so well. If I had to give you a further idea of what it feels like, listen to the song American Boy. Now that is my side of Seattle.  Basically it's gorgeous and I'm going to get killer calves walking up and down these monster hills. 

Once we got into town I made my dad go and stalk around my new apartment building. It's called Paseo Apartments. This is the outside of the building. I wish I had taken a picture of the more immediate front because you walk up a patch of stairs and it leads right into an open courtyard. The actual complex is shaped like a horseshoe and there is a gigantic tree in the middle that looks like it's been shellacked. It's very Golden Girls but I embrace it. 

As luck would have it we actually ran into the two girls that were moving out of my future place. We stalkered our way into the apt to take a look around. Ladies and gentleman, I have a view. In fact, move over Barbara Walters, this is THE VIEW. When you look out of the window in our dinning area you see the rooftops cascading down the hill to end up with a distant view of the harbor and the neighboring mountains. The girls said that at night you can see the lights of the ferry and cruise boats floating by. Heaven.  The rest of the apt is pretty standard. I'm probably going to screw over my roommate and take the bigger room with the ceiling fan. But she'll have a good view! And a room that's hot as hell. Too bad my internship started first, sucka. I'll probably offer to switch half way through because I'm a lady. We'll see what goes down. 

Moral of the story: I really like our apt. Good location. Amazing view. Not too cramped. I say we did alright for ourselves. 

This is a view of the hill I'll be walking down to get to work. It really does put the Pentacrest hill to shame. But as you can see, it's all pretty and I'll be looking out over the water as I skid down 0.6 miles of cement. No biggie. I really do think I'll need to invest in some rain boots.

As my dad and I were clinging to our Google Maps print out to figure out how to get downtown we were surrounded by hills and trees. There were trees everywhere. Then we passed a bend and got this shot of the skyline. I was jazzed. Also--Washington is the Evergreen State. This picture stands as testimony to that fact. 

This is our hotel. The shady, shady Eighth Ave Inn. We love that feeling of not knowing what type of drug deal was made here the previous night. I want it noted that I will also be sleeping on top of the comforters, thank you very much. Whatever, it was cheap and close to everything. I mean look at that Space Needle. Not too shabby.  

Here's a look at all that luggage I was talking about. I came to play ball. 

We got some dinner at a local cafe. It wasn't too expensive and the food was actually really good. Our waitress was oozing sass and perkiness. Everyone so far seems to be so nice. It's hard to think that people in a bigger city will be as nice as they are in Iowa, but so far so good. (Also, my dad was actually happy to be there. Honest.)

See what I mean? Happy Papa Abba! You can see the crowds of Bumbershoot in the background. That's the name of the huge music/food/awesome fest that happens Labor Day weekend in the Seattle Center. It's like they knew we were coming and threw us a party. 

Seattle is boss. I'm starting to not freak out at the idea of calling it home for awhile.

*** My address is 1517 6th Ave W Seattle WA 98119. Use it often! ***