A litte orientation

Before I came to visit UW last February, I sort of had this idea that Seattle was just a big American city that was settled nicely along the Puget Sound. I had images of something like Chicago on Lake Michigan, or a coastal city like LA, Miami, Charleston which as far as I'm concerned are cities situated in a north-to-south direction with a body of water at just one side of them. The only difference, I thought, was instead of the Pacific or Atlantic, it would just look a lot more forested, nestled in the dense evergreens of the Pacific Northwest. What I didn't truly understand until this last winter when I came to visit, is that Seattle is actually a series of peninsulas, more than one isthmus (you like that description, that way I'm not forced to pluralize isthmus and look like a dork), a series of lakes, rivers and of course the Puget Sound that create a rather complex terrain and urbanisitic nightmare for traffic. But it is the complexity of the area that makes it so charming and unique.

I thought I'd share a dumbed down/touristy map that shows the lay of the neighborhoods in the city of Seattle and their relation to water. There are a lot of other neighboring cities like Bellevue (where Microsoft is), Redmond, Issaquah, etc etc, but this map is just of the actual city of Seattle. Click on the map to englarge.

If you see where the University District is, and then you read the word "Wallingford to the left of it, my apartment building is pretty much where the 'd' in Wallingford has been written.

It's really amazing living around so much water, having to deal with bridges, and windy paths to circumnavigate large bodies of water, especially having grown up in Salt Lake where everything is laid on the grid.

I love it here, truly. The first week or two after moving was really rough, and at times I regretted my decision to move away from home. It was a strange time, because I was getting to know and appreciate the beauty of my new home, but I resented it at the same time for being so gorgeous. I guess I wanted to hate it on some subconcious level so I could keep feeling blue and wallow in my "bummed out" feelings. Of course those were just the pains of relocating, and the growing pains of removing yourself from your friends and family. It's the third time in the last 8 years that I've done this, and truthfully, it gets easier each time. But try as I may, I never could honestly hate the city...this place is intoxicating.

Seattle is steadily taking hold of my heart one vista, one redwood, one rain storm, one coffee house, one overcast day, one lake, and one friendly face at a time.