Monday, April 5, 2010

From an island, nearly

Well, we have moved just 15 mins south of our previous residence in seattle. this is west seattle... and i write from an island, nearly. it is a large peninsula that sits well out into Puget Sound. one can take a very pleasant drive around the perimeter right at the water's edge, and feel as if you're in a small oceanside town. from the south and the airport west seattle is ez access. but from all other directions it can get interesting. on the waterside you will arrive by ferry, maybe from vashon island or bainbridge, and a walk-on only ferry gently takes people w seattle to downtown waterfront full-on view of downtown seattle. To arrive from the north and the east, you must cross the west seattle bridge


on arrival in west seattle one must not expect life to be as it was in seattle, as I did. it is just a 5 minute drive to downtown seattle, but you don't realize this phenomena until you live here. somehow residents - and there are a lot of people here - have kept hungry developers who would eat it alive out of their hair for the most part. miles and miles of alki beach are still amazingly as they were decades ago. the cutest houses you'll ever see populate this peninsula, each different from the two on either side. people are pleasant. i would wager some money that there is someone who has not left the peninsula in their whole life. it is an island. the flip side is that the remoteness also means that my familiar gym, hair salon, pharmacist and all kinds of shopping are no longer available. it is simply not practical to leave w seattle and venture far. however, the one district that is very accessible is the industrial area of seattle called georgetown, just south of downtown so some call it SODO. In sodo resides one of my fave places, starbucks headqtrs. we can even see starbuck herself peeking above their hdqtrs from our new house, which is such fun b/c I love starbucks and have since the 80s