More Seattle pics

Some more pics from Rohit from our Seattle visit. Isn't the man a good photographer?? Also, you can see here photographic evidence that it isn't *always* raining in Seattle... (sometimes it's just getting ready to... ;)

First Seattle visit!

So Nik and I followed in the steps of the great Lewis and Clark this weekend, and ventured to the Pacific Northwest to survey the land and locals. Also ostensibly to find me a place to stay, but our success in that quarter was a little iffy. Details on that in a minute, but first: what a cool city! This first pic is the skyline, as seen from Elliot Bay; the second, a frightening Viking encounter. Rare evidence of the Norsemen's spread into the Pacific, and predilection for coffee and garage bands.

Alissa met us at the airport, and played gracious hostess for the weekend. In her care, we got to tour the city and the UW campus, and learn a little about the people: "very hippy-dippy and trail mix." Just my kinda folk! :) We met Rohit at Pike's Place Market, took in some fish and coffee, and went on a harbor tour for an overview of the city history. Apparently the founders of the city dreamed of making it the New York of the west coast -- there's even a mini statue of liberty on one of the peninsulas.

The city itself is surprisingly clean and walkable, relatively speaking. The downtown is very much alive with sights, sounds, and people; not a donut-city, as many seem to become when their downtowns go to pot. There also seems to be a lot going on at any given moment. The music festival Bumbershoot was on this weekend, but we managed to avoid the crowds and traffic.

In the end we didn't end up securing me a place to stay, but I'm glad to have been able to see what I was getting into before school started. So far, so good! :)

Bloggity blog blog, jiggety jog

Hello, friends, family, and random internet voyeurs! Since I'm such a rotten correspondent (as everyone can probably attest), I thought I'd try to post my new-home goings-on in one place, and maybe it would make it easier to send pics and updates. :) A sort of one-stop Shauna shop.

A little intro to this blog: I'll be moving soon from my beloved Arizona desert wasteland to the great rainy north of Seattle to start a master's program in Computational Linguistics at the University of Washington. Since this promises to be a great adventure (excitement! thrills! lonely evenings of cheetos and finite state automata!) I'll try to take lots of pictures and keep updates here. You can watch my transformation into beret-wearing, coffee-drinking, haiku-composing urbanite ("So very much rain. A cheeto calls in the night. Puffy or crunchy?")

Seriously though, the city looks to be most cool, and the school is beautiful, and the program very exciting. Everything would be perfect, really, if I didn't have to leave the people behind, but, as Billy Joel says, "so it goooooooes, and so it goooooooes.... If anyone wants to take a Seattle vacation in the next 12 months, you know where to staayyyyyy..."

Hugs to all!