Back from Seattle...think we found our neighborhoo

[stretchad]

DH and I just got back home after spending the weekend in Seattle...We flew out Thursday night and I did my interview on Friday. Went well, so the waiting game begins!

Frankly the whole weekend it seemed like the city was conspiring to make itself so amazing that there'd be no way I'd hesitate to move if I got an offer...Zero traffic during our test commute from SODO to Issaquah on Friday evening, beautiful weather on Saturday, awesome food everywhere we ate, and the cutest farmers market that we stumbled upon.

If you recall I had been asking questions on this board about neighborhoods...while we were in town we decided to do a pretty intensive tour of various parts of seattle to see what types of areas we liked.

So the areas we drove around on Friday were Issaquah, Talus, Somerset, Newport Hills, Newcastle, Bellevue. Areas were nice, but nothing saying "YOU NEED TO LIVE HERE". Saturday we started with the northside tour through greenlake, wallingford, queen anne, magnolia...loved queen anne and magnolia, especially the area around the village (and the Saturday farmers market). Commute to Sodo would suck though (I think...).

From there we headed north to ballard, up to north beach, then back down towards greenwood/loyal heights then over to ravenna, bryant, windermere and laurelhurst. Really liked windermere and laurelhurst! Beautiful homes, yards, very manicured.

Then, met up with his sister in West Seattle in the afternoon and did the afternoon tour of Normandy Park & Burien...they were nice areas with some beautiful view homes...Also drove through Genessee neighborhood which was cute, but the houses seemed small. Drove up California Ave, which was nice because of all the shops & restaurants...headed to North Admiral and BINGO, fell in love with the area...the houses, the views, the shops, the commute. We have a winner! I was hoping that this neighborhood would be nice in person given its super short commute. SO Happy that DH also liked it as much as I did (if not more!). So , if I get an offer and decide to accept it, that's probably where we'll look to move!

Thanks for some of the suggestions for dinner too! We ended up going to the Purple Cafe, since it had a really good looking menu and someone on her recommended it. AND it was also a block from our hotel which was nice since we were EXHAUSTED from essentially putting 200 miles on our rental car without leaving king county...

KMFX that I get to become a Seattle nestie some day. You ladies seem pretty awesome.

[Deleted]

Awesome! Lots of good luck vibes coming your way!

[mkate710]

Muahaha we've sucked in another one with our Seattle summers but really, I think you'll enjoy living up here and hopefully it will work out for you to do so! Good luck!

[joenali]

I used to live in Admiral! We live in the Gatewood neighborhood of west Seattle now.

[jennlin]

The weather here sure was perfect on sat, wasn't it?

Good vibes for your interview! You're wecome to stay and play with us anytime!

[tacocat]

We just had dinner at La Rustica. Go there when you come back. I gained 40 pounds and it was worth it!

[Deleted]

Glad you had a lovely weekend and glad you enjoyed my fav restaurant OOO, I HOPE you got the chocolate salted caramels!! Those are TO. Die. For.

I lived in Magnolia and yes, it is VERY charming, no? It feels like living in a small town but with super-easy access to the big city plus Discovery Park is right there and you're just a hop from Ballard (DT being 10-15 minutes). However, commuting from there to SoDo is no longer very bueno since they're tearing up the viaduct and once they build the tunnel, no exit on to Western means the return home would require more circuitous/trafficky paths.

[InBetweenDays]

Yay! Glad you were able to find a neighborhood you liked and was within a good commuting distance!

[Deleted]

Yeah, I used to take Western, hop on 99 by the Art Institute, hop off at the Stadiums and continue down 1st to Lander and easy in reverse. I was SO glad we moved about 2 weeks before that started getting all messed up.

Yeah, and how much LOVE that the Spokane/WS bridge was supposed to be down in Fall of 2011 What are they even DOING anymore?! I drive under it frequently and I can't see any progress having been made for the past 4 months!!

[joenali]

I took a new teaching job in west Seattle to save me from my crazy commute to Green Lake.

[niq]

Jul 22, 2012 21:27:47 GMT -5 stretchad said:

Then, met up with his sister in West Seattle in the afternoon and did the afternoon tour of Normandy Park & Burien...they were nice areas with some beautiful view homes...Also drove through Genessee neighborhood which was cute, but the houses seemed small. Drove up California Ave, which was nice because of all the shops & restaurants...headed to North Admiral and BINGO, fell in love with the area...the houses, the views, the shops, the commute. We have a winner! I was hoping that this neighborhood would be nice in person given its super short commute.

That's fabulous! I really like that part of West Seattle, the little strip on California is a little bit walkable, it's beautiful in the sunshine, etc. It'll be great if the commute is short but you may need to take your passport to visit people on the Eastside or North End .

[tacocat]

Jul 23, 2012 0:34:15 GMT -5 @jennuinne said:

Jul 23, 2012 0:11:43 GMT -5 tacocat said:

We just had dinner at La Rustica. Go there when you come back. I gained 40 pounds and it was worth it!

DH took me there a few week ago and I was under-whelmed. Maybe we ordered the wrong things? But, I've had better Italian and thought it was expensive for what we got.

My pasta was just ok I will admit but the appetizers and specials were great