The Seattle Sun
*note: for some reason I can't add pictures. I will work on that. eventually.*
If I ever move to Seattle, I'm renaming my blog "The Seattle Sun." Because it's quirky and unforeseen and would make me laugh. Although honestly, the past 3 times I've visited Seattle, I've seen a good amount of sunshine.
And also honestly, I could be overestimating the sun's sky presence because I was mostly in windowless rooms during the day, because that's the most appropriate place to have an oncology conference. [I don't actually think that; a cancer diagnosis now has a fair bit of hope in it because of the amount of research and money devoted to its relief.]
The JADPRO conference was recommended to me by coworkers, and when I saw that it was a) aimed at advanced practitioners, b) all about oncology, and c) in a city where friends of mine live, I signed right up.
I stayed in a very-small temporary apartment place down by Pike's Market, and got awakened every morning by recycling collection at 3am (the 3-hour time difference from DC didn't help that). I walked or biked up to the conference center about a mile away, and several times bravely ventured further than that (I get lost fairly easy). Because of those ventures, I learned several things.
1) plastic shopping bags cost 10 cents each there (in DC it's 5 cents, and in Texas, it's free)
2) the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle is basically built on a 60-degree-grade hill, which is difficult to get up even with power-assisted bicycles
3) Uber can be scary for unexpected reasons.
This trip was my first experience using Uber [I've had an Uber ride before--several times, actually--but I've never arranged for one], and the first several rides were fine. Then I had an ambitious goal to go to the LDS temple there, and things got weird. The driver I got had Buddhist-type music playing, which is theoretically calming, but when he turned around to ask me where to go once he had already navigated us to the highway, what inner peace I had got a serious beating. Eventually, after 5 or 6 episodes of him turning around, handing me his phone with the map pulled up, and asking what he should do next, I gathered that he probably couldn't read a map. Or understand the complex directions his map app voiced aloud. Or understand primary-level English--which included my instructions. Or drive smoothly; his accelerations, decelerations, lane changes, and turns were all staccato. I weighed my options. I could try to get out and get a different Uber driver, but we were on a highway, and that seemed like a bad idea. Or I could ask him to take me back, but I didn't actually know how to arrange for that. It seemed like there was a decent chance of crashing, and I could just play out in my mind the sequence of events: how my husband would sue Uber, and Uber would punt it over to this driver here, and he would lose his job, and he would have a hard time finding a new job, and my co-workers would wonder what the heck happened. So instead, I "translated" his phone's directions to monosyllabic words and exaggerated hand gestures until I finally reached my destination.
It was really hard to convince myself to call for an Uber back; I finally reasoned that walking or biking along 10 miles of a highway bridge was a whole lot less safe than calling for another Uber.
Other highlights of the trip include:
-randomly being in the same city at the same time as friends from California
-staying with friends on my last night in Seattle
-random weird places to eat
If I ever move to Seattle, I'm renaming my blog "The Seattle Sun." Because it's quirky and unforeseen and would make me laugh. Although honestly, the past 3 times I've visited Seattle, I've seen a good amount of sunshine.
And also honestly, I could be overestimating the sun's sky presence because I was mostly in windowless rooms during the day, because that's the most appropriate place to have an oncology conference. [I don't actually think that; a cancer diagnosis now has a fair bit of hope in it because of the amount of research and money devoted to its relief.]
The JADPRO conference was recommended to me by coworkers, and when I saw that it was a) aimed at advanced practitioners, b) all about oncology, and c) in a city where friends of mine live, I signed right up.
I stayed in a very-small temporary apartment place down by Pike's Market, and got awakened every morning by recycling collection at 3am (the 3-hour time difference from DC didn't help that). I walked or biked up to the conference center about a mile away, and several times bravely ventured further than that (I get lost fairly easy). Because of those ventures, I learned several things.
1) plastic shopping bags cost 10 cents each there (in DC it's 5 cents, and in Texas, it's free)
2) the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle is basically built on a 60-degree-grade hill, which is difficult to get up even with power-assisted bicycles
3) Uber can be scary for unexpected reasons.
This trip was my first experience using Uber [I've had an Uber ride before--several times, actually--but I've never arranged for one], and the first several rides were fine. Then I had an ambitious goal to go to the LDS temple there, and things got weird. The driver I got had Buddhist-type music playing, which is theoretically calming, but when he turned around to ask me where to go once he had already navigated us to the highway, what inner peace I had got a serious beating. Eventually, after 5 or 6 episodes of him turning around, handing me his phone with the map pulled up, and asking what he should do next, I gathered that he probably couldn't read a map. Or understand the complex directions his map app voiced aloud. Or understand primary-level English--which included my instructions. Or drive smoothly; his accelerations, decelerations, lane changes, and turns were all staccato. I weighed my options. I could try to get out and get a different Uber driver, but we were on a highway, and that seemed like a bad idea. Or I could ask him to take me back, but I didn't actually know how to arrange for that. It seemed like there was a decent chance of crashing, and I could just play out in my mind the sequence of events: how my husband would sue Uber, and Uber would punt it over to this driver here, and he would lose his job, and he would have a hard time finding a new job, and my co-workers would wonder what the heck happened. So instead, I "translated" his phone's directions to monosyllabic words and exaggerated hand gestures until I finally reached my destination.
It was really hard to convince myself to call for an Uber back; I finally reasoned that walking or biking along 10 miles of a highway bridge was a whole lot less safe than calling for another Uber.
Other highlights of the trip include:
-randomly being in the same city at the same time as friends from California
-staying with friends on my last night in Seattle
-random weird places to eat
I have heard that your Uber trip after the temple activity was also “interesting.”
ReplyDeleteGlad you survived!
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