CS @ HBS

For some reason every state, city and public bathroom in the US has a nickname. So the “Emerald City” is, apparently, Seattle - the nickname is a result of a contest (!) held in the 80s and refers to the “lush evergreen trees in the surrounding area” (thanks to Wikipedia for that incredibly useful information).

At any rate, this is where I’m going to be for the summer. Landed two days ago (still ridiculously jetlagged) and going to be here till the end of August for my summer internship in a large technology company that sells stuff online.

The same technology company was also nice enough to set me (and the other interns) up in a great apartment complex right in downtown Seattle: Harbor Steps. I think the location couldn’t have been better - 2 minutes walk from Pike Place Market, Seattle Art Museum across the street, 5 minutes walk from the shopping district and tons of restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries and whatnot literally downstairs. Not to mention the waterfront being 2 minutes away (that’s why it’s called Harbor Steps…). I can almost say it’s better than where I used to live in Tel Aviv…

The apartment I have is a fully-furnished one bedroom, which means that when I got here on Saturday this is what welcomed me:

Kitchen + living room:

Living room:

bedroom:

Garden: (well, not really)

My balcony:

I’m on the 15th floor, but apparently it’s not very high compared to everything else here :)

After being here for less than two days, here are my educated observations so far:

Good things about Seattle:

• I order groceries online from Safeway.com, and they have Bamba and Bisly! (they’re also 20% cheaper than peapod.com, which I use in Boston)
• Tons of places with good coffee. Trivia fact of the day: the first Startbucks store was opened in Seattle, in Pike Place Market, in 1971. There’s also “Seattle’s Best Coffee”, another national coffee chain with pretty good coffee. Another fact: Seattle is also nicknamed “Coffee Town”.
• The sun sets around 9-9:30pm. Should be even 10pm later this summer.

Bad things about Seattle:

• The weather is still not as warm as I expected it to be… it’s in the low 20s. It’s supposed to warm up by July, if not I’ll have to buy myself more winter clothes :)

And the HBS angle: there are something like 10 HBS interns in Seattle this fall, most living in Harbor Steps as well, making it a big nice Kibbutz. This Wednesday we have a reception hosted by the HBS Career Services Office, and of course there’s the inevitable Facebook group keeping all of us connected. So you can’t run away from HBS, even in Seattle.

In reality all the MBA interns in Seattle are pretty well connected and I think I’ll be getting to know a lot of new people this summer, which is nice. Even this Saturday we already have an activity organized by Microsoft for all the Seattle MBA interns - it’s a community service event involving some sort of gardening… oh well.

More next time. In the meanwhile I’m going to fight off my nasty jetlag by… sleeping :)