Jared: Bellingham thoughts

Well I'm here in Bellingham, and let me tell you, it's a completely different world from Spokane. My apartment is in a historic house that was recently converted from a bed and breakfast to apartments. The kitchen and all of the large common areas are shared. It's very communal.

I went to a nearby grocery store, a community food co-op, to get some lunch. The place was full of dreadlocks. A massive elaborate bike rack waited out front in which you hung your bike from it's back tire. If I ride down there, I'm just going to chain it to a tree (without harming the tree, of course). Solar panels stood on the roof. My first thought: Maybe in some parts of South Hill or Peaceful Valley, but it wouldn't be anywhere else in Spokane.

The people in my building are also very varied. A woman who nobody sees lives down the hall. The rest are college students. A woman with dyed, spiked up hair that's shaved in the back and who stressed how much she loves strip clubs. As I put away dishes in the shared kitchen, I chatted with one student, who more or less acts as the onsite manager. "Mike seems like a nice guy," I said, referring to the building owner, whom I'd just met an hour before. He responded, "Yeah, except he's a capitalist." I gave a strange laugh and was quiet for a minute. "But I guess we're all capitalists," he added.

The town is beautiful, and this is the first time I've lived next to the ocean, which I've wanted to do. I start work on Monday as a growth and development reporter at The Bellingham Herald. I'm really excited to get started there, and to get even more lost on assignment in Bellingham's strange streets than I did in Spokane's North Side.

This will probably be my last post. I'll never forget the amazing summer I had in Spokane. I left with warm memories of the people I worked beside, those I met on assignment and the friends I made outside of work.