First off, for those of you who asked, Ta da! Here I am. Six months as of last week.

As you can see, baby’s growing. I’m still feeling great! Everything is going very well. Lots of baby movement, which is still fun and exciting. A consistently active period includes Sunday morning worship. Last week, I almost had to sit down during one song that had a loud drumbeat. Baby was either terrified or praising God with all his/her strength.

Meanwhile, Josh and I have been blessed to meet more people, especially fellow Mars Hill attenders. And as we interact with local Seattleites, we’ve come across some interesting differences. We present…

Cultural Differences Between the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest.

1) The Unspoken Shoe Rule. In most households, you remove your shoes before walking inside. We figured this out after we were some of the first people to arrive for community group. As the others trailed in, everyone paused in the foyer to take off their shoes. I’ve never been so embarrassed to be sitting in a circle of chairs. It was like Duck, Duck, Goose, only it was Socks, Socks, Socks, Socks, Socks, Socks, RUDE SHOES!
The next week, I learned my lesson and kicked off my slip on shoes as soon as I walked in the door.
And was the only one with bare feet (and embarrassingly chipped toenail polish.)
Exception to the rule- if you’re not wearing socks, you keep the shoes on. (There were two other girls who kept their slip on shoes on the whole time. Where were they the previous week??)
And yes, it’s due to the rain. Since it’s so common to have rain and mud on your shoes, people are in the habit of taking them off regardless of the current weather conditions.

2) Clothing. It can be 50 degrees out, raining, and you’ll see guys walking around in short sleeved shirts and girls wearing flip flops. As I’m wearing a sweater and coat and carrying an umbrella.

3) Political conversations. At first we thought it was due to the election, but that’s over and there’s still a lot of politics being discussed. Most recently, a group of about 15 people launched into a spontaneous debate over the merits of public and private schools.

4) Less sports, more technology. Let’s say there’s a group of 5 guys. Three of them will work for Microsoft. 1 will work for IBM or Expedia. And Josh, the Googler, is the other guy. Most likely, they’re not talking about college football, which is just NOT as big a deal here. I don’t even know the names of University of Washington’s Big Rival. Or if they have one.
Here, if I overhear a group of guys talking, it’s a given that the words, “iPhone,” “app,” and “launched” are going to be in there somewhere.

5) Straight talk. Seattlelites tend to speak their mind more. It’s not offensive, just very straightforward. Hence the political discussions. (If you’ve heard the Mars Hill podcasts, you get an idea based on the preaching style.)
Similarly, I never realized how often I’ll make a general invitation that I don’t follow through on, though I plan to. “Let’s have lunch sometime,” or “We should go out for coffee,” and it never happens. Or it happens weeks later after an email exchange.
Here, it’s more “Let’s have lunch on Thursday. Does noon work for you?” and that’s that.

6) Communal umbrellas. There’s Forum/Avenue style outdoor malls here. How does that work with the massive amounts of rainfall? How about yellow golf umbrellas that magically appear outside your store? Each mall has these umbrellas that you take from the parking lots and leave outside the store. The only downside is that you have to really consider if it’s worth going inside each store, because there’s a chance your umbrella will be gone by the time you come out. Then you have to find an umbrella to steal from a shopper in the next store. I tend to feel pretty guilty participating in “Musical Umbrellas.”

7) Dogs. We’ve already kinda covered this one, if you remember Doogler Day. But wow, people love their dogs here. There’s just so many of them. Remy’s actually a great conversation starter. People on the sidewalk and in the elevator love asking about him and then telling me about their dog. And it’s really common to see dogs tied up outside a Starbucks or restaurant. It’s hard to know who the owner is because everyone smiles and stops to pet them.

So there you have some of the differences we’ve learned so far. Granted, nothing too drastic. =) Hopefully, after things are a bit more settled in the spring, some of our Southern folks can come visit! We’ve been keeping a list of “Places We’d Like to Take People” and then you can experience Seattle for yourself.