Seattle! How is it now? Are there jobs? Should I move there?

the advice to walk and look around is the best thing mentioned on this thread. a great apartment next to my house sat open for 6 months because all the (lazy) landlords did was put a sign up on one utility pole.

As for a fap, it'd be fun to have one outside. play ping pong or croquet and drinkdrinkdrink. We must welcome A Lingbert!

http://mlb.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pMLB2-109672reg.jpg

!!!

We have a croquet set in storage over there, and will gladly contribute food, booze, and cleanup labor.

Can you get those hats from Ebbets Field Flannels? I know they still make the Rainers one. But those Pilots caps are amazing!

Matos - so so otm.

I used to live in a big old haunted house in Madrona, but it's been years since I've been back. It'll be nice to be back.

Lots of great suggestions. I was only in Seattle for about 2 days last month, so I obviously didn't get to see everything, and my impressions of the areas are fairly vague. I decided on Captol Hill as my first choice based on some positive things I'd heard/read about it and the little of it that I saw. What sold me (at the time, anyway), I think, was the neighborhood leading down to Washington Park (I'm pretty sure I have my geography straight here, but maybe not). It looked so pleasant and green, but maybe that's a super-expensive area that I won't be able to afford anyway.

I thought Ballard was a nice area, but maybe a little far from things and maybe a little too tranquil. I liked Fremont a lot, but it seemed like a place to visit rather than live in. Upper Queen Anne seemed generally uninteresting and overpriced (though nice views, of course), but I'll definitely have to give Lower Queen Anne a good look. I don't know if I saw much of Belltown or Wallingford at all.

I'm also thinking I might have to finally break down and get a cell phone. If I'm going to be wandering around most of the time when I get there, I don't want to miss any calls from prospective rentals. 28 years I've avoided having one, but I suppose maybe it's time. Where does someone even shop for cell phones? Malls? My friend says he likes Sprint. I guess they have Sprint stores, don't they?

But yeah, I'd totally be down to FAP should one materialize.

I mean, the Funhouse, Seattle Center, Larry's, Easy Street, Pagliacci, Racha, Roti, Blue Water Grill, Mirabeau, Ladro, post office, Bamboo Garden, McMennamins, more thai... all within easy walking distance. I don't think Hollywood allows for this many places to be this walkable from one place -- having grown up in west part of L.A.

Then again, you said you'd rather visit than live there, and that's a very fair assessment of Fremont.. especially now. (I'm just riding out the construction issues)

yeah, a bad example wrt walkability, but it seemed to fit in the sense that it's filled with a fair amount of cool commercial places, but also felt a bit empty. my impression might well be unfair - i only spent a little time in a little stretch of it.

Anyway, I signed the lease on a place in Lower Queen Anne yesterday. I found looking for a place to be extremely frustrating, and so when I came across this place, I just said fuck it and signed. I was able to talk them down to a 9 month lease, and it's fairly cheap (also small. 300 sq ft studio, and it has a gorgeous sidewalk-level view), and the neighborhood does seem cool. I'm only a few blocks NW of the main area. I figure I'll use the 9 months to get a better feel of the city and find a better place then. No big deal (though I'm kinda bummed because I got a call from a place I liked better later that night, but by then it was too late. Alas).

So yeah, thanks for all the tips everyone. I move in next weekend. Tomorrow I start job hunting. I'm looking for something temporary until I finish my EMT stuff in December, so maybe I'll try and hit up one of the neighborhood places. I'm going to talk with a temp agency tomorrow hopefully, too.

Also, Seattle is confusing as hell to drive in.

Also, the downtown library is the coolest library ever.

Very true. When I moved there, I wanted to be sure to live in sight of the Space Needle, so I'd have a landmark to find my way home. Also, lower QA is where the differing grids of the two guys who laid out the city meet up in chaos. (Arthur Denny and Doc somebody - read Sons of the Profits for enlightenment; v. funny esp. the rivalry between Tacoma and Seattle.)

Went to the Japanese Garden today. It's nice, but I really really really really wish it wasn't right next to a busy street (Lake Washington Blvd?). The traffic noise ruins the ambience.

I briefly drove through (and stopped a couple times) the Washington Park Arboretum. It manages to be just far enough away from the busy street that the traffic noise subsides to a dull roar and you can actually hear the animals and the wind. I'm looking forward to going back and spending more time there.

Has anyone been to the Hoh Rain Forest? Once I get settled in, that's at the top of my to do list. Should I be as excited about seeing it as I am?

That book was written by the guy who originally started the Underground Tour, whose name has completely escaped me. Bill something or other.

Yeah, there's no way to avoid that initial "GAWD I HATING DRIVING IN THIS FUCKING CITY!" breaking-in period... but it does go away once you find ways to maneuver around the streets that don't end prematurely, get collided into 5+-way intersections, or get confused with the whole directional suffix. (i.e. Denny Way, Boren Ave, Westlake Ave., Taylor Ave., Hwy 99/Aurora, etc. -- ok Westlake becomes Nickerson St. just south of Fremont, but the street swerved to become east-west so that makes some sense at least).

The worst thing is trying to get to the other side of Aurora Expressway, and the sad truth is.. you just have to know which streets go underneath or over it, and which streets don't -- the hard way.. since that cement center divider knows no exceptions (south of Winona Ave. that is.)

also, psst... Mt. Rainier

The Hoh is awesome! I drove over that way initially to see what a town named Humptulips would be like, but hiking in the rainforest was the best. Once when we were there in November, a herd of elk were munching away right next to the trail. Also, in the spring I've seen families of river otter playing. Another cool thing to do on the peninsula is the ocean beaches - all kinds of tide pools - and the hot springs at Sol Duc.
I'm there, maan.

What is this "Mt. Rainier" you speak of, gabbneb? Is this some obscure local attraction?

And if you haven't noticed, Seattle drivers are.. ur.. bad. But they're very polite and slow bad drivers, so you can see the dumb thing a driver is going to do 5 seconds ahead, allowing you to roll your eyes, and just slow down and/or maneuver around him or her.

The one time I was in Seattle was during the grand opening shindig, and it was pretty cool. But man, is that place going to look dated in 20 years.

I'm moving to eastern Washington in a week, so I'm probably going to get to Seattle more often now as it will be the closest "real" city. Spokane is big-ish compared to whare I'm from and where I'll be, but it dosen't quite cut it.

haha I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the "STOP FOR ME IT'S THE CLAW" sign that someone posted on another thread is right here in Seattle.

The downtown library looks kinda dated now, actually, but it's still cool. Though maybe I'm still in the passionate beginning phase of the relationship where everything is lovey-dovey and wonderful and the sex is fantastic, but soon the novelty will wear off.

our library in a scene from battlestar galactica: http://www.kriskrug.com/images/vancouver-library-battlestar-galactica.jpg

i was just in seattle briefly to tour the U-W campus' student union building in advance of a similar project at SFU. how does the university district fit into the city as a whole, culturally? both of vancouver's universities are relatively quite isolated from the city centre.

sorry to derail the thread. i'm just trying to prompt some similar photos of the seattle library.

(i assume, minus a dot, that's your email?)

The U-district is certainly in a corner of the city that many can easily avoid if they want to, however, it's really easy to bus to from any central neighborhood in Seattle, really. If you have to try and map central Seattle as a square, the U-district would easily be the NE point of that square... it's not "way the fuck out" there, comparatively speaking, i.e. it's NOT like UBC where it's this place hidden and tucked away west of a mini-forest that separates it from Kitsilano.

That said, UBC is a beautiful campus in a beautiful spot.. and the isolation does give it part of its charm.

True story: One night about 11:30 p.m.--a weeknight--on Capitol Hill, I was headed to Chop Suey for a show. No traffic, except one car coming from my left. I was about to jay walk and decided, sensibly, to wait for the car to pass. The driver stopped in the middle of the block and waved me across. It's like, "You idiot, I'm waiting for YOU. YOU'RE the one with the 2,000-pound piece of metal that could crush me. GO!"

I really love the U District, one of the places in the city that's retained its funkiness, and especially enjoyable once you're immune to spare-changers, as I've been for a while now. (Though once I did get heckled by a couple spare-changers in Belltown, which was interesting.)

Is it like New York's?

Fugghedaboutit.

It is like Robson St in downtown Vancouver?

Uh, no.

Does it have a lot of cool shops that people gloss over and don't realize exist because people think Capitol Hill is the Soho of Seattle when in fact it's really the fringe art retail neighborhood moreso than anything else?

Definitely.