I made it to Seattle! West Seattle, to be precise. The first five days were (I'm told) the most gorgeously sunny and warm that the city has seen this year, and people kept asking me if I was adapting to the heat (mid-80s). I was carrying a sweater. I'm absolutely loving the city, the water, the greenness, the bustle, and of course my old friends (Ian, Jenn, and Robert, so far - more to come!). In a couple days I'll be visiting with my sister, father, and step-ma in good ol' Bellingham, my old college town. For now though I'm trying to buckle down and do what I came here to do - work. It's tough, but more on the work and the toughness later. If you want to send me a postcard, send it here. I'm living in the basement of a great big house that houses a so-far-fantastic family of four. It sits atop a hill overlooking Puget Sound - even the basement has a view of the water! Looking down the street I can see the blue, blue water and the two Bainbridge Is. ferries shuttling people and cars back and forth throughout the day - the limits of my camera don't do it justice. Heather and Maxine (the pooch) are driving up at the end of the month, despite the foul price of gas. She'll be spending her time studying for the GRE and coveting the variety of shoes available here in the big city. Max, for her part, will be chumming around with the resident poodle of the house, and I hope they'll both help keep me on task. When we're not working, studying, or chumming, we'll be sipping margaritas by the pool. Honestly, we're more likely to spend our time chugging coffee on the shores of Alki Beach, which is a 10 minute walk down the street. It's a popular place for families and joggers, I've noticed, and it's full of seafood restaurants, which do me no good at all. Can you can see the Space Needle peeking out in the distance? The angle of this shot is a little deceiving. The Needle is actually a good swim past the northern tip of W. Seattle which you're looking at here. If you go around that tip to the east side of W. Seattle you get a better view of the city - like this (Space Needle to the left): You could take that "water taxi" there to downtown for three bucks. I haven't done that yet, but believe me I will. Despite all appearances here W. Seattle is not an island. In fact, it's closer to a penninsula. To give you a better sense of it, the picture above was taken from here. Since arriving, the Sociology department at the University of Washington has generously given me an office to share with another graduate student. Because it's a 1 1/2-hour busride away, I haven't yet spent much time there...but I will. This is Savory Hall, home of the Sociology department: And this is my little corner of the world: I've spent the past few days settling in, catching up with friends, and trying to find contact information for the organizations I'll be interviewing. Of course that's easy to do from any coffeeshop with wi-fi and there are lots of 'em here. In the coming days I'm going to look into other sources - besides newspapers - for names of social movement organizations (police records and IRS rosters) and then I'll start making phone calls. Poco a poco - bit by bit.

This entry was posted by Jeff, on Friday, May 19, 2006. You can leave your response.