In many ways Seattle is a combination of San Francisco and Portland. It has some skyscrapers (like San Francisco), but it feels a bit more suburban (like Portland). It also has good restaurants and beautiful nature around it (like both of the cities), and a reputation for heavy coffee consumption (like Portland). In fact, several famous coffee companies (like Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, Tully's) were founded in Seattle.
If only the weather were better there, it would be a very nice place to live. However, Seattle averages only 71 sunny days a year, so I don't think we will move there any time soon :) The bad weather did not seem to discourage students from hanging out at the Alki Park Beach, which has a similar vibe to the Pacific Beach (PB) in San Diego. For us, it was too cold, so instead of hanging out at the beach, we went to a nearby restaurant for a nice Thai meal.
After the dinner we went back to the beach to take some photos of downtown Seattle. It was slowly starting to get dark, so my hope was to capture a few good shots of Seattle both during and after the sunset. This turn out to be a several-hour-long photographic assignment and despite wearing a jacket and having eaten a generous meal, I was still freezing cold. But I think the pictures were worth it.
A few shots of Seattle Skyline, shot over a span of four hours:
