And so it begins again..

I arrived in Spokane, WA two nights ago after an exhausting 12 hour travel day across the country. I ended up with awesome seats on all my flights because they were so full, so I got upgraded for free to the "premium" seats with extra leg room and they let me check my second carry-on for free.

It was cold and dark and wet when I got to Spokane, but my friends were there to pick me up and it felt just like old times again, despite being in such a new and unfamiliar place.

Spokane has about 200,000 people, but the city is huge and sprawling, and surprisingly "short" -- No big high-rise buildings or skyscrapers, so it's hard to distinguish the city center. Right now, because I don't know it too well, most of the buildings look like the same old-fashioned brick structures. It's gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but I'm not used to so much brick!

My new home is the upstairs of a cute little bungalow house, converted into a 2 bedroom apartment. My first thought when we walked in was that it looks exactly like a little Hobbit house on the inside. Because it's on the second floor, all the ceilings are slanted and low as if being in an attic. There are a couple doorways so short you have to duck to go through. We have a tiny little kitchen, a bathroom where the ceiling is so low you have to duck to take a shower, a little living room, my housemates' bedroom, and my bedroom. I have a nice queen-sized mattress under the low slanted portion of the ceiling, a huge closet, a dresser, and a little window with a view of the Moody Bible Institute across the street. I'll try to post pictures later.

The first morning dawned cold and gray with a mix of rain and big fat snowflakes that melted as soon as they hit the ground. By mid-morning though, the precipitation had stopped, and we took a trip out to a few stores to get groceries and supplies and show me around Spokane. This side of Spokane looks like any other city outskirt, with strip malls and chain restaurants. There's lots of urban renewal going on though, which is cool to see.

After lunch we headed into the "pretty side" of Spokane, which is to say, downtown. It's about a 15 minute walk, during which you cut through a nice little neighborhood, the Gonzaga University campus, the Centennial Trail (a 33 mile pedestrian trail), and Riverfront Park, which is sort of the Central Park of Spokane. Everything is in beautiful fall colors right now.

Downtown is full of more old brick buildings, tons of skywalks, a lot of upscale hotels and restaurants, and a bunch of hole-in-the-wall local coffee shops, book stores, art co-ops, and cafes. I'm so excited that all of this is within walking distance from where I live!

By far though, my favorite part of Spokane is the river, which cuts directly through the city. There are huge waterfalls right in the middle, partly formed by the man-made dam and partly natural. Riverfront Park flanks both sides of the river, with beautiful little suspension footbridges cutting across. The park was pretty empty when we walked through, but apparently in the summer it gets packed.

In the evening, we headed across town to my roommates' friends' house for their weekly potluck. It was a group of outdoorsy 20-somethings who work at REI, AmeriCorps, and various local shops, who talked about hiking, snowboarding, roadtrips, and travel.

And so ended my first day in Spokane. Today will likely entail more job searching, more exploring, and hopefully I'll get out to take some pictures so I can actually show you what all this looks like.

More to come later..