Visiting the Emerald City

I returned from my weekend trip to Seattle today, and mainly liked what I saw.

Put another way, I liked what I saw of the campus, I liked what I saw from my future adviser, I liked the other history grad students I met, the scenery, the things to do around the university, things of that sort. Those were definite highlights of my trip.

The lowlights were staying in a really dumpy hostel in a sketchy part of town and visiting some lousy apartments that I wouldn't want to inhabit in the fall. However, those weren't reflections of the school or the city, just unfortunate factors of my trip.

Thursday evening I departed early from work so I could catch an earlier flight on standby. That worked well, except that the flight left probably 45 minutes late because the plane was late getting in from some other city. And, we learned later as we were aboard waiting for takeoff, because there had been an air leak reported so they had to fix the mechanical problem. Not exactly the most reassuring words to come from the cabin moments before embarking on a long flight, but it did appear to have been fixed. In any rate, we landed in Seattle without incident, though we were probably 25 minutes or so late. I called Trish, the history grad student who was hosting me for the first part of my visit, and she and her husband picked me up and whisked me away to their apartment, where I slept very well on the hide-a-bed.

Friday morning I walked to the History Department with Trish, who dropped me off at the office of my adviser-to-be, Professor Felak. We chatted for at least an hour and he gave me a much better overview of the program, the course offerings and the timetable for working on my degree. I definitely have the potential to go from start to finish of the M.A./Ph.D. in six years, assuming I get cracking at it right away, which I plan to do. Tentatively it looks like this fall I'll take second-year Czech, a seminar course with Felak on Eastern Europe, and probably something from one of my potential other fields. At present I've declared fields in Modern Eastern Europe and Comparative Colonialisms; I'm looking tentatively at doing my other fields in Russia/Soviet Union and/or Germany. But, I'm excited to know that I could, for my fourth field, work in another department on either Baltic or Balkan history and literature. This is an exciting prospect for me, though it probably holds little interest for anyone else.

Provisionally, though, I think my timeline will be to get Czech and some of my fields out of the way in the first year, then do the core seminar and a second field in Year Two, when I'll also start TAing and will likely take my M.A. exams in the spring, followed by the rest of my language study (second-year German, perhaps) and my other two fields, to be completed over Years Two and Three. In the fall of my fourth year I'll probably take my Ph.D. exams and then begin doing dissertation research. In Year Five I'll hopefully get a fellowship to do dissertation research abroad, and then I'll come back for the sixth year and try to write it all up. That may well stretch into a seventh year (or even beyond), depending on the timing of things, but I'm hoping that everything aligns in a way to make it possible and that I maintain the motivation and work ethic to make it happen. Still, I found it extremely encouraging that Felak thought I could finish in six years (which is on the low end of the spectrum for non-U.S. history), so it will definitely be in my sights.

After that meeting I spoke briefly with the graduate adviser and also filled out paperwork so I can get on the payroll and begin collecting a paycheck in September. Then I met up with Trish and a Czech friend of hers, and we went for Thai food on the Ave, a main thoroughfare near campus in the University District. They left me to wander around for a few hours, I explored a bit, bought some gifts and a t-shirt at the bookstore, got a hat, and had a cold drink at the newsstand/coffee bar on the Ave. Then I met back up with Trish, we picked up another grad student, Heidi, and headed to the weekly happy hour for history grad students. That was pretty good, with good, cheap food and some interesting conversation. Trish dropped off Heidi and I, who then took her dog for a walk through this arboretum, which was cool. I got to ask more questions about the program and such, then she drove me downtown to my hostel.

The hostel was, as I mentioned, disappointing. It wasn't the worst hostel I've ever stayed in -- that's an honor that will long and probably eternally belong to the Yellow Submarine Hostel in Budapest, but it was pretty high on the sketchiness scale. To wit: when I arrived around 8 Friday night, the hostel was doing some free dinner for guests that also included free beer, dispensed from a Rubbermaid pitcher filled from a keg behind the front desk by the staff into plastic cups of the patron. The rooms were, well, hostel rooms. Three bunk beds cramped into tight quarters. I had the bunk above some dodgy-looking old guy who was lying in bed trying to sleep. There were foot lockers underneath the beds, however, these didn't come with locks. I could've bought one from a vending machine for five bucks, but I opted to keep my backpack with me and take my chances with leaving a duffle bag of dirty clothes on the bunk. Not wanting any part of the cheap beer drinking occurring in the common room, I wandered outside to Pike Place Market, the famous Seattle farmers market with fish being tossed to and fro. However, most everything in the market closes pretty early, so there wasn't a lot to be seen. And the neighborhood wasn't the greatest, so I went to one of the many coffee shops in Seattle to get a hot chai latte and chat on the phone to Colleen until they closed. I grudingly returned to the hostel and sought refuge on the exterior porch, which offered more quiet and privacy than any of the indoor common areas, as well as a view of the entrance to a strip club across the parking lot. When it came time for bed I took all my luggage and possessions, save for my sneakers, onto the bunk with me and proceeded to slumber.

Originally I made arrangements to see the first prospective place to stay at 11 a.m. Saturday. However, I decided that I'd get an early start on my day if for no other reason than to get out of the hostel quicker. I had set my alarm for 8, but I woke up sometime after 7 and opted to just get up and go. I took a shower (the shower was at least reasonably clean), checked my mail, locked my duffle bag at the front desk and was off. It was maybe 8:30 at that point.

Since I hadn't seen anything open in Pike Place Friday night, I decided to venture down there again before I left, fearing that I'd be out of luck if I tried to visit in the early evening after returning from apartment hunting. That move proved smart. Not everything was open that early, but a good bit of the market shops were, and there was a healthy hustle and bustle that had been conspicuously absent the previous evening.

Pike Place Fish was indeed open that early, which afforded me an eyewitness view of the famous flying fish. I also scored some free samples of delicious smoked salmon (this was the first time I enjoyed eating salmon, mind you), and was really, really tempted to try to buy a whole crab to take back to Chicago for dinner the following night. After venturing through the market I bought a half-dozen mini-doughnuts from a stall for breakfast, then headed out for the day's work.

Friday evening I had gone to great pains to map out my itinerary on the Seattle bus system so I wouldn't be stuck trying to aimlessly ascertain which bus would take me where I wanted to go next. Unfortunately, when I used the Metro trip planner, I hadn't yet developed a knack for Seattle's address and grid system. When I entered the address of the hostel, it said it couldn't recognize it as such and gave me three or four options, all of which had the same street number and name, but different directions. I must've chosen the wrong one, because the itinerary it spat out claimed I'd only have to walk .3 miles to get to the bus stop. Now, I should've suspected this was a bit close when I had trouble finding either of the cross streets in the downtown inset of my AAA map. But I did eventually find them, albeit tucked away in a corner. Still, it took me something like 20 or 30 minutes to walk there, so I'm guessing I covered closer to 2 miles by foot. But the exercise was good for me, I'm sure.

One nice thing I discovered about the Seattle bus system is that it's fairly clean and modern. Many of the buses appear to be electric, operating sort of like European trains with overhead electrical lines. And, on weekends, you can buy a day pass for $2.50, which is the equivalent of paying two full fares. Not too shabby.

I made it to the first house at 10:30, a full half-hour early. No problem. Lauren, the 58-year-old trumpet instructor who owns the house, was ready and waiting for me. He gave me a full tour of the house, which has three bedrooms that will be available to rent long-term beginning in September. One is small, probably comparable to my bedroom here, by which I mean it has a metal clothes rack in lieu of an actual closet, but it'd be $400 a month. The other two bedrooms are a good bit larger, have full-sized beds and other furniture, like dressers and desks and the like. One of the two has a walk-in closet, the other has a smaller closet, but also had a shower and sink (though no toilet) attached. Those are both $500 a month. The other bathrooms, downstairs living room, dining room and kitchen are all communal. And pretty nice. The policy on food is that everyone is expected to buy groceries and if it's in the house, it's fair game (unless tagged with a note to the contrary). But, all the utilities are included, I believe as well as DSL, and there's a landline that would be available for local and incoming calls. There's a free washer and dryer in the basement (which could also be used for some auxiliary storage), and there are a couple of sheltered places where I could lock up a bike. It's only about 2 miles from campus, and I think it's generally pretty level terrain between the house and campus, so it wouldn't be too bad. There's a convenience store five blocks away and a full grocery store five blocks beyond that. But, Lauren has a van and said he wouldn't mind letting me ride along when he goes grocery shopping. Plus, he said that he hopes to befriend anyone who lives in his house, in which case it wouldn't be inconceivable that he'd drive me to and from the airport on the rare occasions when I was flying somewhere. And he seems like a pretty nice guy. So this place is definitely a maybe. My main reservation is that I don't know who else will be living there, and I'd really prefer to be around other UW students, especially grad students. But, if I somehow knew there'd be grad students in the other rooms, or if I was more confident that I'd make new friends pretty quickly, I think that'd be less of a deterrent. And, even if I don't feel like biking to campus, there's a bus that picks up right by the house that runs straight to the Ave, probably in five to 10 minutes.

So after Lauren showed me around, we sat down and chatted for a bit. He asked me about the other places I had seen and I explained that his was actually the first, but that I was going to look at some other places afterward, including a couple of buildings near campus that rent apartments/rooms to students. I also explained how I felt somewhat limited by not having any potential roommates lined up, and he then proceeded to make recommendations about newspapers where I should look if I wanted to go that route. Then he offered to drive me to my next appointment, which was in Lake City, in the far north end of Seattle. But since that wasn't for more than an hour, in the meantime he'd drive me around to show me different parts of Seattle and to give me a sense of where everything is in relation to his house. It was very nice. He drove me to a beach, explained to some degree how the address system works (all north-south streets are avenues, whereas all east-west streets are, well, streets), gave me some history and chatted about himself and asked about myself. We drove through Fremont, the self-proclaimed "center of the universe" (it actually said this on a sign for the neighborhood), which he described as a sort of off-the-wall refuge for former hippies, and we went past the 20-foot statue of Lenin that had been relocated from Eastern Europe to Fremont in the 1990s. Finally, he drove me all the way up to Lake City and said that even if I decided to live somewhere else, that I should give him a call sometime if I wanted to get together to go hiking or take in more of the city. He struck me as a really nice man who's just a little lonely as he no longer has family living with him and just really wants to have people around. Which, in some ways, is how I'll probably feel initially when I move to Seattle. Maybe it'll be a good fit.

The place in Lake City made me feel like it wasn't really worth the effort to go out there. First of all, it's about as far north as you can go without leaving the Seattle city limits. If my shoulder wasn't injured I could easily throw a stone into the first suburb with the aid of a crow hop. I had been leery about this place before mainly because of the distance. It's probably six miles or so from campus, which isn't terribly close without a car. Or even with a car. She said that there's a bus that's only about 20 minutes from the campus, which was true. But when I left it took me nearly 15 minutes just to walk to the bus stop, and that was with the benefit of going downhill on a relatively difficult incline. I can't imagine how bad it'd be to try to go up it. I think if I were to bike it I'd probably have an easier time dismounting and walking the bike uphill. Plus, the bus stop is roughly the same distance from the nearest grocery stores, so it wouldn't be a particular fun place to live.

As for the place itself, it'd be three rooms. One is a little study downstairs with a desk, bookshelves and filing cabinet. Upstairs is a small living room with a tiny foam couch and a small TV. There's a decent-sized bedroom with a big bed, closet and some shelves. And in what appears to have once been a closet, there's a toilet. Just a toilet. And a curtain. Plus, the way the roof pitches makes it awkward for me to walk down the stairs. Then there were the animals. Her dog, an Australian cattle dog mix, was sweet enough. But she has two cats. One I didn't see, the other kept jumping onto the dining room table between the two of us. I petted the cat's back, for which she tried to bite me. I really didn't want to stay at that point. And as if all that weren't enough to turn me off, this place would be $525 a month. Which includes most of the utilities, except that she'd expect me to pay $50 or so in the winter to help cover heating costs. And I'd also have to pay for either a landline or DSL or cable to have Internet access. I was only too glad to leave. I got the vibe pretty quickly that this wasn't some place I'd want to stay.

After stopping in a gas station to buy a large bottle of cold water, I caught the bus back to campus. It did take only about 20 minutes, but by then it was a purely academic exercise. As I had half an hour to kill before my third appointment of the day, I stopped in a nearby Jack in the Box and ate a salad for lunch. Then I walked to the next house.

This place was really close to campus -- only about two blocks away. However, the two blocks in between constitute Greek Row. Not the best thing. But, the place was really cheap: $410 a month. It was a little dodgy, but I thought it'd be livable at that price. There's a full-size bed, dorm refridgerator, microwave and a couple of chests of drawers included. They said they probably could also get me a desk and lamps if need be. So it wasn't too bad. The bathroom was shared by the floor, and it looked kind of old, but presumably it's functional. I could presumably even keep a bike in the entryway just inside the front door, so at least it'd be sheltered. However, the kicker with this place is that the kitchen and laundry are in the basement. And the only way to access them is by going outside and walking around to the side of the building.

Now, before I proceed with this story, I should mention that up till this point, it had been a gorgeous day in Seattle. Blue skies, not too many clouds, and not a drop of precipitation. I couldn't have asked for more perfect weather.

However, during the time I was upstairs looking at the room, it had started to rain. Which only dramatized how awful it would be to live in this place when I had to go outside everytime I wanted to use the kitchen. It's Seattle, for crying out loud. It rains. A lot. And even if it weren't raining, it'd still be a monumental pain in the ass, one not worth saving $90 or so on rent.

When I left there it was pouring. And I had nearly two hours to kill before my last appointment of the day. So, I decided to make for campus and seek refuge in the HUB -- the Husky Union Building. I imagine this is the UW's counterpart to NU's Norris. At least, they also have a CampusLink inside the main entrance. Being a Saturday, there wasn't a lot of activity, and this seemed like as good a place as any to ride out the rain. I checked my mail and figured out what time earlier flights left so I could try to go on standby. Then, once the rain had subsided, I went outside in search of a dry place where I could get reception so I could sit and call Colleen.

Finally, I found a bench near a flagpole with a "view" of William H. Gates Hall, home of the UW law school. It's a modern brick and glass structure, but one that doesn't seem very elegant and looks like it must cost a fortune to heat and air-condition. In that way it reminds me a lot of Windows: it tries to be forward-looking and cutting edge, but ends up being ugly and inefficient. I also like how the business school is housed in the building on campus that most resembled a Communist apartment bloc.

I chatted with Colleen for a bit, gave her a recap of the places I had seen so far, and lamented having to return to the hostel in the evening. She came up with a brilliant suggestion: go see a movie. Hardly ever watching TV, I had no idea what was playing, but she told me that SuperSize Me was now out, and she graciously went to the trouble of finding a cinema nearby that was screening it, as well as show times. So I settled on that.

In the meantime, I went and saw the last two buildings of the day, both of which are owned and operated by the same management company, University Housing. The first one I saw, Campus Heights, was easily the nicest place I had seen all day. It was a recently constructed building, with single-room apartments for rent. The units have a built-in desktop, a full refridgerator, microwave, closet (more like a wardrobe cabinet with a shelf and clothes bar inside), and a full bathroom. They also offer cable Internet for $15 a month, which is a pretty nice deal. The rooms start at $575 a month, although they're on the smallish side. There's a shared kitchen on each floor, with two sinks, stoves and microwaves, and locking cabinets for each unit. Plus, there's a washer and dryer in each kitchen, so that was nice. Apparently there's also bike storage underneath the building in the parking garage. And it's maybe half a mile or so from the edge of campus, which isn't bad at all. Plus, there's a Trader Joe's about two blocks away, and a full-scale supermarket two blocks beyond that. So it's a keeper for now at least.

We then went to Patricia Place, which is very similar. It's near where the place with the outdoor-accessible kitchen was, but not quite so close to Greek Row. The rooms looked fairly similar, if slightly older. They have the same built-in desktop but a smaller refridgerator and no microwave. However, there are some shelves and in some units a built-in bookcase. Since it wasn't a building built by the property management company, cable and Internet have to be obtained directly from Comcast, so it's more expensive. Also, though there's a kitchen on each floor, the laundry's in the basement. But these rooms start at $550, which isn't bad. However, both of the buildings are otherwise unfurnished (though I could rent a bed and desk chair for $10 a month if I wanted) and they don't include utilities, though apparently those run about $10-15 a month. So, while they're nicer, they're also smaller and more expensive.

At the moment, I still think my best option would be to get in the single student apartment building on campus, which is $502 a month, including all utilities, plus ethernet, satellite TV and local telephone, and is furnished with a bed, desk and bookcase. They're four-bedroom apartments, which means I'd be living with three strangers, but I kind of like the idea of at least having roommates to start. So I'm still undecided.

After visiting the last apartment, I wandered to the arthouse theater to buy a ticket for the movie, then walked back to the Ave to grab dinner and kill time. I stopped in a hole-in-the-wall Middle Eastern restaurant and got very excited when I saw fuul on the menu. But when I tried to order a fuul sandwich they said they were out, which disappointed me. I had a falafel sandwich instead, which was good but not so existentially satisfying. I then wandered back to the theater to sit and relax until the movie.

I highly recommend this film, by the way. However, if you go see it, you probably shouldn't eat for several hours beforehand. And you probably won't want to eat anytime afterward. It's graphic and shocking enough to make me want to swear off all forms of fast food and junk food forever. Very powerful. It's funny, but also cutting toward the food industry. But, it was very cool.

After the movie got out, I begrudgingly walked back to the Ave to wait for a bus back to the hostel. At least I didn't get back till almost 10, which meant I didn't have too much time to kill. I checked my e-mail and then went to bed, planning to get up early to take a much earlier flight home.

Overall, I really enjoyed Seattle. I thought it was a cool city with a lot of natural beauty, and the weather was great, even if it rained a little. Plus, the University District actually feels like a college town and has plenty of stuff to see and do. It's a far cry from the desolate and deserted nightlife of Evanston.

I think the biggest challenge will be overcoming the overwhelming sensation of feeling alone when I first move in. Until I meet some friends, or have some friends come to visit, or have some friends move to Seattle (hint, hint), I know I'll feel pretty lonely. Maybe that's a good reason to live in Lauren's house, or in campus housing, or somewhere else where I'd have a roommate. At least to have a somewhat familiar face or two around until I get settled.

But I've come away from my trip feeling like I definitely made the right choice. Even if there wasn't much of a choice to be made on my part. The university is definitely the place for me to do and study what I want and am interested in, and culturally and aesthetically, it's such a vibrant, beautiful town that I think I'll really enjoy spending the next six-plus years living there.