the new townhouse

Today we paid our deposit and first month's rent on our new townhouse. Keys are in-hand! We are so lucky to have grabbed this place, the rental market in Seattle is extremely tight/competitive. Dustin has this crazy Craigslist mojo when it comes to finding rentals, so we managed to contact the owner of this place soon enough that we were first in line and able to move on the application right away.

The townhouse is located in the North Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle along the waterway that connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington. There is one small yard, 2 bedrooms, 1 office, and 2.5 bathrooms on a total of four floors with a patio or balcony on each.

Click the picture to read a little more about the floor layout and take a photo tour of the place -- our stuff is supposed to arrive Wednesday the 1st, though it has already been delayed once so we really hope the delivery actually happens.

Woodland Park Zoo and Gas Works Park

We visited the Woodland Park Zoo and Gas Works Park this past Sunday.


Just after mating. Yep, we saw lions mating.




Bird feeding area -- super cute cockatiels, budgies and other small parrots everywhere that would land on you and eat millet from your little stick thingy.


Rosetta parrots.


I think this donkey's name was Rico.




Gas Works Park has some great post-apocalyptic-looking sculptures.


Parkour!



Looking across Lake Union.

Saturday

Lunch at a vegetarian Thai restaurant.




The coolest plant shop I've ever seen -- The Palm Room in Ballard.


We stopped for beers and a light dinner at our new favorite bar, The Noble Fir.


We came across another mural by local artist Ryan Henry Ward -- you've seen his squid mural on my blog previously. There are 50+ murals by him on buildings across Ballard and Fremont.


We visited Card Kingdom, which is a huge card and board game store. Your inner nerd comes boiling to the surface immediately here. And your outer nerd loves it too. So many games and puzzles. We left with the game 7 Wonders and discovered another party game we plan to buy soon. There is a pub connected to the store, and they let you borrow games and take them over there to play for free.











Finally, we visited the Ballard Locks again from the southern side so that we would be guaranteed to make it to the fish ladder that we couldn't get to last time. The fish ladder allows spawning salmon to come in from Puget Sound and travel to Lake Washington, at which point they locate and travel up their native streams. The ladder consists of 21 chambered steps, called weirs, which allow the fish to swim upstream on a gradual incline. The sockeye salmon are traveling up the ladder now. It was really striking to see them up close. The last image above is of paddleboarders approaching the locks from the sound.

More photos from the day in my photostream. Tomorrow, the zoo!

we rode the monorail

On Tuesday we rode the monorail that runs between Westlake Center and the Space Needle. Because we pretty much had to. Monorail!

Bainbridge Island

We crossed Puget Sound on a ferry to Bainbridge Island with our friend JR this weekend (he took this picture).


We ate at a cool little counter service place called Fork & Spoon for lunch. After that we found this awesome place called Bloedel Reserve -- the following pictures were all taken on the ground of the reserve. It was really beautiful and well-kept, we were pretty blown away. The Japanese garden it contained is rated the #6 garden in North America.



















We ate at a great pub type place on the island and took the ferry back over at dusk. On the drive home we stopped at a park in Queen Anne to check out the great nighttime skyline. With that, ferry trip achievement unlocked!

Even more photos in my Flickr photostream.

downtown Seattle

Some interestingly patchy sidewalk right before I get to my building.


The first Starbucks (technically second) in Seattle, located in Pike Place Market sporting the original logo.


I love this sign.







More shots taken walking around downtown.

getting started

This odd water feature is in the lobby of my building. The building's Amazon name is "Blackfoot" -- It's 1.3 miles from our temporary apartment, so I'm walking there and back each day. My first days have been an absolute flood of information, so I'm just trying to keep up and get all of my various systems and memberships sorted out.







These shots are from walking home after dinner at a local restaurant today -- part of the walk is through a forested staircase to get to the pedestrian walkway over the highway. At one point you get a great view of Lake Union, the lake we're living near.

a day spent mostly in Ballard

Today we found a place we absolutely loved and applied to rent it; I hope it works out, more news on that once we know more. But it's really something.

We spent the rest of the day visiting the flagship REI store and eating at a great German restaurant in (I think) Belltown, and then heading up to Ballard. We visited the Ballard Locks and the botanical gardens nearby, and then found the coolest stretch of shops and businesses ever on Ballard Avenue. We ate there at The Noble Fir and then walked up the street for a while window shopping. We wandered into a men's local clothing and vintage shop called Blackbird that was still open and talked to the cool shopkeeper there for a bit -- I left with a kick-ass locally made tote bag by Filson (waxed canvas with leather handles) that I'll have to post about later.

I'm going to bed - first day of Amazon tomorrow...