Inference

Things I’m learning about Seattle:

1. It’s more north than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, and the days are amazingly long in the summer. For instance, we went to see the Seattle Symphony* play Rite of Spring yesterday night and when we came out at 9:30 pm, it was still light outside. This is indescribably cool. I hear it’s correspondingly depressing during the winter, when the sun sets at 4:30 pm.
2. The people here are really, really friendly. When I moved out to the west coast, I was told that people in California are more friendly that people on the east coast, but I didn’t find that to be the case. Up here, though, it’s amazing.
3. The traffic is terrible, as bad as in the San Francisco area. Why are all the cool cities so crowded? :)
4. The weather here is mercurial. Windy and drizzly, then hot and cloudless. An upshot is that weird things happen, like this awesome lightning storm last night. Check out some pictures  (not taken by me):
5. Shoutout to my sister Meera.
6. I had forgotten what it’s like to go to venues where people smoke: it’s really annoying.
7. Watching the Lakers lose is just as fun up here as anywhere else.
8. All told, though, Berkeley is better. Going back should be fun :).

* What is it with orchestras calling themselves “symphonies”? For some reason this bothers me. It’s like calling a baseball team “The Oakland Baseball”. No, baseball is what they play. There’s a reason it’s called the House of Representatives, and not the House of Dumb and Bloated Laws: the House contains Representatives, and emits Dumb and Bloated Laws. So “Seattle Orchestra” would be just fine. (I realize there is precedent here, in that string quartets refer to both the music and the group, etc. Then again, language has never made any logical sense, and I still find myself caring about these things. Call me dumb.)