The first 24 hours

We got into our neighborhood just in time to meet our landlord. As usual with apartment leases, we had tons and tons of paperwork to fill out. She is an incredibly nice lady and I'm glad that she and the maintenance worker both live in the building and are easy to contact.
This is what our building looks like:

After about an hour and a half of paperwork and a tour of the building, Zach and I start unloading the car.
Street parking here is $4.00 an hour! Yuck. For lunch we went to this little Polish place across the block from us called George's Sausage & Delicatessen for $5 sandwiches that our landlord recommended to us: yes, they were very good. The place also sold a lot of Polish food that I had never seen before, most of them with labels in Polish. Moving everything in and unpacking what we could took up most of our afternoon and evening. After we exhausted our energy on the studio, we followed through with our plans to go see Prometheus at 9:00pm. We only got a little lost on the way there. After that it was obvious to our bodies that we needed to pass out; so we did. It was a beautiful sunset that night:

Saturday, this morning, we had to move the car before 8am because there was only free parking until then. Unfortunately we had to pay to keep it in a lot all day. We're trying to sell it; not only do we just not want one, but it's also very expensive to have in this city, not to mention useless. Gas here is $4.20 right now. Day and monthly parking are hardly deals; we were looking into renting a storage unit maybe an hour out of town and sticking it there. I think we're ultimately going to decide to sell it ASAP. Traffic is not only sucky, but scary, and even if we kept the car for convenience I wouldn't want to drive it around here.

Our plan for the day was 1) get to a thrift store 2) grocery shop 3) spend time in library, mostly for Internet sake. We found a thrift store not a few blocks from Seattle University called Value Village. They were pricy, but I shouldn't have been surprised since everything is a little more expensive in big cities. We got a decent stool/chair for our breakfast bar (so happy to use that thing) as well as some other necessities for the place (garbage can, plunger, etc). After dropping them off at our studio we took off in the opposite direction to Pike's Place Market to grocery shop. Of course, things seemed a little spendy again, but we were buying fruits and veggies after all. On the way back home we stopped at a convenience store and bought a big bag of rice.

Inside the top floor of the Seattle Public Library where we were sitting

Now, we're in the library working on updating things, browsing Craigslist, and applying for jobs. We won't have Internet in our place until Thursday 14 June (which is also my first day of class!). I have an Interview for a job on Monday and the director of the Student Development Administration program at SU said he'd show me around campus early next week. I have lots to do, including get a student ID card before class starts.

So far I've been using Google Maps a lot to get around the city. I have a good sense of direction, but there's just so much here, it's overwhelming. In fact, I've become overwhelmed and anxious many times since arriving here. The noises, the busy streets, the customs; I just want to understand it all so I can stop worrying about looking stupid or something bad happening. This sheltered, quiet, midwesterner is just going to have to get used to it all. EDIT: I just read this great article called 15 Things You Should Know About Seattle that actually consoled me a bit.

It has been a little over 24 hours that we've been in Seattle, but it's been 9 days since we've really seen anyone from St. Cloud. I really miss you guys. It's so different here and nothing would make me happier than if you all were to come out here and live with us.

Side note:
I've mentally began preparing a funny list of things that I must accomplish in order to call myself a Seattle local, these being:

• Climbing neighborhood hills without panting all the way to the top
• Not being afraid to shove through tourists at Pike's Place Market to grocery shop
• Getting a WA driver's license 
• Knowing how to use ORCA (public transport) without looking stupid
• Become friends or at least be on a first name basis with two or more local shops/eateries
• Having a go-to bar
• Giving directions
• Seeing a big name concert at the Gorge Amphitheater 
• Becoming hipster (just kidding, folks, just kidding)