I grew up in Columbus, OH. It is just as moody in Seattle. Rain, overcast.
I only lived there for a year, and I got suckered in: the very first time I visited was in the summer. I had never been so far north before. There were friends I met up there who took me to the ferry to Bainbridge. It was beautiful. That day, the sky was clear. From sea-level, I could see the summit of Mt. Rainier looming over, floating above the horizon.
I had been living in Atlanta for five years (another city I missed). I traveled across country in a car to move to Seattle. When I got there, it was dark and dreary -- but not that much different from where I grew up. I found an apartment in the Capitol Hills neighborhood and walked everywhere -- something you couldn't really do in Atlanta unless you were living in Midtown. It was awesome. Although the weather is cooler, the humidity is so high and the temperature variability so low, that it doesn't feel cold. (Unlike the high desert of northern Arizona where you get much bigger extremes in temperature within a single day). There are all these hidden pedestrian pathways in between buildings, both in downtown and in Capitol Hill. There is a obstacle course built just for mountain bikes at a park underneath a highway.
And the people! I didn't realize how much I didn't fit into Atlanta until I showed up in Atlanta. First, there were a lot more Asians. Second, the subtle, subconscious racism that I blew off in Atlanta just wasn't present. But mostly, people wore a lot of the kinds of clothes I wear: outdoor gear, ready to go hiking somewhere.
Seattle has a lot of micro-cultures. The vibe in Capitol Hill is different from Queen Anne, Fremont, downtown -- at least, those are the places I visited the most. It shares a lot with San Francisco, but people feel a lot more welcoming. The food is as awesome as the places I've explored in Atlanta and San Francisco, as is the micro-brews.
I have talked to folks who say that Seattle people are standoffish, but that's never been my experience. Maybe it is because I was moving from Atlanta, or maybe because I moved to a city where I already knew people.
I only lived there for a year, and I got suckered in: the very first time I visited was in the summer. I had never been so far north before. There were friends I met up there who took me to the ferry to Bainbridge. It was beautiful. That day, the sky was clear. From sea-level, I could see the summit of Mt. Rainier looming over, floating above the horizon.
I had been living in Atlanta for five years (another city I missed). I traveled across country in a car to move to Seattle. When I got there, it was dark and dreary -- but not that much different from where I grew up. I found an apartment in the Capitol Hills neighborhood and walked everywhere -- something you couldn't really do in Atlanta unless you were living in Midtown. It was awesome. Although the weather is cooler, the humidity is so high and the temperature variability so low, that it doesn't feel cold. (Unlike the high desert of northern Arizona where you get much bigger extremes in temperature within a single day). There are all these hidden pedestrian pathways in between buildings, both in downtown and in Capitol Hill. There is a obstacle course built just for mountain bikes at a park underneath a highway.
And the people! I didn't realize how much I didn't fit into Atlanta until I showed up in Atlanta. First, there were a lot more Asians. Second, the subtle, subconscious racism that I blew off in Atlanta just wasn't present. But mostly, people wore a lot of the kinds of clothes I wear: outdoor gear, ready to go hiking somewhere.
Seattle has a lot of micro-cultures. The vibe in Capitol Hill is different from Queen Anne, Fremont, downtown -- at least, those are the places I visited the most. It shares a lot with San Francisco, but people feel a lot more welcoming. The food is as awesome as the places I've explored in Atlanta and San Francisco, as is the micro-brews.
I have talked to folks who say that Seattle people are standoffish, but that's never been my experience. Maybe it is because I was moving from Atlanta, or maybe because I moved to a city where I already knew people.