It’s raining today. Again. This probably the most frustrating June I’ve ever experienced in Seattle: despite it being almost the Fourth of July, the weather is still gray, the skies open just for the rain, and the temperature remains close to fifty. It’s not June—it’s like, June-uary.
Actually, if I have to be honest, I’ve never really minded the rather monotone set of seasons that characterize the weather here. The cold mist that hovers over the Puget Sound for most of the year drives a lot of the culture that Seattle is famous for. You’d love a warm coffeeshop too if the backs of your jeans were wet up to your knees all the time; and you’d probably read more books if outside maintained that perfect white reading light for most of the year; and I bet you’d also find flannel a lot more appealing if your weather wasn’t always so…decisive.
Of course I miss the snow and the colors of New England in the fall, but it just makes sense.
Oddly enough, from the research I’ve been doing about Sweden, it appears that Gothenburg might be very similar to the Pacific Northwest. Like Seattle, Gothenburg is a major port city on the western side of the country, close to the Gulf Stream, and thus has more temperate weather than other cities in Sweden. It’s a wired city, quite literally: in addition to having free WiFi in nearly everywhere, there’s apparently a pretty big coffee culture in Gothenburg. And paired with Sweden’s famous pro-environmentalist attitude and Europe’s practically unanimous love for bicycles, it’s easy to see how the whole place could seem eerily familiar to any Seattleite.
Hmmm. So much for culture shock.
No comments:
Post a Comment