Seattle - The Apartment

(July 6th, 2012) With a trunk full of salt and a box of donuts safely buckled into the front seat, I set off through the Pacific Northwest for the road portion of my trip to Seattle.  Winding through the coniferous forests while being serenaded over the radio by Johnny Cash singing Hurt, Cake performing Long Time, Of Monsters and Men, and many other bands, I set out to meet my once and future running buddy Yev.

Stock photo of Yev from a run through the Pecos.  On that day, Yev learned the hard way that you shouldn't store a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in your water bottle's pouch...

Yevgeniy Kaufman, a name I always easily remember as I fondly recall reading through Yevgeniy Zamyatin’s We, happened to be in Seattle that week on his apartment hunting trip.  Serendipitously, Kim was in flight to Seattle in order to rent out the apartment she owned there as her last tenant had just moved out.  The last thing she said to me before taking off was ‘There’re too many people that want to check this out, can’t you just find someone for me and take care of it?’  Well, little did she know that, upon landing, I already had her prospective tenant lined up and ready to view the place.  It’s always nice when things can work out that easily, especially since most things in life are far from easy now days.

Kim’s (and now Yev’s for the duration of his lease) apartment was our base of operations for the weekend.  With a borrowed air mattress for a bed, a borrowed shower curtain and single towel, we managed to have a rather cozy stay.  The apartment itself was settled in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, kind of the trendy/gay/young/up all night area that just screams out to twenty and thirty somethings without a family to live here!  Up all night, and slightly hung over in the mornings, the neighborhood lacked for no small amount of entertainment between the drag shows, gourmet restaurants, themed bars (one was in a former funeral home…I’ll let your imagination fill in the rest), and open parks filled with throngs of people enjoying life and bicycle polo.

Don’t get me wrong, other neighborhoods had a certain charm too…the fish markets

  

Pike's Place

the statue of Lenin surrounded by fire and guns

The controversial addition of Lenin to the Freemont neighborhood in Seattle.

 

and a troll under the bridge

No Mai there...Kim had to keep looking elsewhere...

amongst other oddities, but it was the Capitol Hill area that I’d want to live while young and single. 

Next up: the food of Seattle (did you expect anything less?)