Seattle University
- Local Atmosphere

5 Fun Facts about Seattle:
• Seattle has been consistently ranked as one of the most literate cities in the country. It tied with Minneapolis in 2008 in the Central Connecticut State University survey, and has long dueled with that city for first place.
• The Pike Place Market is the oldest continuously operating public farmers market in the country, having first opened its stalls in 1907.
• The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (now officially the ‘Albert D. Rosellini Bridge – Evergreen Point’, but everyone still uses the old name) is the world’s longest floating bridge, at 7,578 feet (2,310 meters).
• The Seattle International Film Festival, which runs every year from mid-May to mid-June, is the single largest film festival in the United States.
• Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain, originally got its start in Pike Place Market

Famous People from Seattle:
Carol Channing
Alex Haley
Frank Murkowski
William Nye (“Bill Nye the Science Guy”)
Theodore Roethke
Dan Savage
Mia Zapata

Local Slang:
Granola – Similar to the hippie mentality, it is a special strain, found only in the Northwest.
The ID – The International District. Originally just “Chinatown,” it has acquired its new name to reflect the ethnic diversity of its inhabitants, which are made up of almost every ethnicity from Asia. It contains a number of excellent shops and restaurants, as well as the famous Uwajimaya grocery store.
Liquid sunshine – Rain, showers, downpour, sprinkle, drizzle.
“The Mountain is out” – Referring to Mount Rainier and when it can actually be seen through the clouds. Every true Seattleite knows which way to turn to look for it, regardless of where they’re standing.
The People’s Republic of Fremont (aka ‘The Center of the Universe’) – A Nickname of the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, located across the Lake Washington Ship Canal from Queen Anne. Still a center of the counter-culture despite recent gentrification, it includes such oddities as a statue of Vladimir Lenin originally from Slovakia and the Fremont Troll, a statue of a troll crushing an actual Volkswagen Beetle (it’s rumored there’s treasure of some sort inside the Beetle).
Sunbreaks – Intermissions between cloud-cover.
The Viaduct – The Alaska Way Viaduct, an elevated roadway that runs along Elliot Bay through the Industrial District and Downtown Seattle. Frequently called an “eyesore” and a “death-trap,” experts have given it a 1 in 20 chance of being badly damaged by an earthquake within just one decade. It’s replacement has been a long-standing source of controversy in Seattle politics.