Things I am Seeing, Learning, Discovering, Etc.

Things I am Seeing:

1. Lots and lots of bikers (bi and not motor cycles)

2. Lots and lots of outside runners (maybe we have fewer because it's so so hot?)

3. Some really incredible bridges -- over 149 bridges in the city!

4. Lots and lots of Asian restaurants -- Filipino, Thai, Vietnamese, etc -- we're really close* to Asia over here (*it's all relative)!

5. We went today to the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle Center -- a free music and arts festival! (and underneath the Space Needle!) Saw and heard some cool/weird stuff. Will post pictures from today soon!

Things I am Learning:

1. There are lots and lots of designations for rain that are used here on a regular basis:

-Mist

- Sprinkle

-Drizzle

-Spit

-Rain

-Pour

-Deluge

I have not yet experienced each of these, but this is what they tell me exists.

2. The inside of the Space Needle revolves: about 1 revolution/hour.

3. Regular jackets are pretty useless unless you have a rain shell for the outside. (I will be investing in one soon.....)

4. Slowly learning the street names and places in the general area...

5. There aren't that many fast food places here and no Wal-Marts in Seattle proper. What do these people eat??

Things I am discovering

1. Cafe on the Ave : My Seattle-version Cafe Plaid!

2. Bus routes - 70s buses will take you downtown. $2.75 fare will get you as many AM buses as you want or PM buses as you want - depending on the time of day you purchase it. I may ride buses around one of these days.

3. While I was afraid of a summer without ChickfilA--there is a group who drives the hour and a half to the nearest ChickfilA franchise on occasion! New best friends.

4. Beth's Cafe - although it sounds like it might be cute - is not "cute" per se.

5. Grace Seattle - a PCA church we went on Sunday where several RUF people go

6. Grace Seattle's Experimental Orchestra - really unique church music!

7. Safeway and Costco are my supermarket options. So unfamiliar, but I'm learning.

I've had a bunch of things recommended as activities for the coming weeks, so stay tuned for word on more adventures (and more pictures....)

kt

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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

But it's always rainy in Seattle! It's raining today! Not too bad, it feels like Oklahoma March outside. I am loving it. The house where I'm staying has the furnace attached to a gas stove in the living room, so every time the furnace kicks on, there's a fire in the stove in the corner. This is literally like another world from what summer in OK would be like.

This morning I woke up around 8:30 (which was 10:30 Oklahoma time! Loving this time difference!) and had some time to myself. The house where I'm staying at this moment has a family living upstairs in the main house and they rent the bottom floor to college students -- so the pitter patter of feet above my head was the first thing to greet me this morning. :) I'm having trouble adjusting to the weather, while I am loving the temperature it is just really difficult for my mind to figure out what I should be wearing when I leave the house. It's weird that it's nearly June and it's too cold to wear open-toed shoes to church. You get the idea.

I went to church this morning with two boys I had never met before -- Randy and Tristan. They both go to RUF at UW and they gave me a ride with them to church at Grace PCA. I think it is so, so fun to visit PCA churches around the country because they can be so so so different from each other. The church music was led by an "experimental orchestra" - some violinsts, an electric bass, a flute, a piano, a trumpet, a bassoon and a drumset. Oldest band member: about 75. Youngest band member: about 9. It was definitely unlike any music I've heard in a PCA church before!

After church I went with Randy and Tristan to lunch at a diner called Beth's in Aurora near Greenlake. I didn't have my camera today or I would be taking more pictures of these things. It was fun to talk to them about RUF and UW and music and so many things that we could relate to each other about. RUF meets on Wednesday this week so I think I'm going to try to go! I think that will be fun.

I was going to go exploring this afternoon but it's a little rainier (haha) and chillier than I thought it would be so I'll try again tomorrow. Sorry that this blogpost reads like a "dear diary." I'll try to make them less so in the future.

I'M IN SEATTLE.

Get yo'self up heah.

Has Today Come so Soon, Already?

In a few short hours I will board a plane that will take me further northwest than I've ever been before. While various travels have taken me to other corners of the country (Boothbay Harbor, ME, Miami, FL and Phoenix, AZ being a few of them) I have yet to explore the Pacific Northwest to its fullest extent. In fact, I will be about as far from Vancouver, BC as my parents' house is from OU right now. Eh, Oh. Go.

It seems like I would have a lot of things to say right now and thoughts rattling around in my mind, but I find myself surprisingly thoughtless and emotionally neutral at the moment. This is not how I expected to be, as I rarely am in an emotionless state, and stress and anxiety generally show themselves by pouring out my eyes in tears. Maybe I'm underwhelmed? Maybe I'm so overwhelmed that my body doesn't know how to respond? Maybe I'm so certain about this that there is no need for tears. It's probably one of those.

Next words will come to you from the rainy city. The city of the Space Needle and Nirvana and Starbucks. What an adventure.

kt