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What can you guys tell me about Seattle, Washington? (1 Viewer)

Gachi

Gachi

Footballguy
I've been a Texan my entire life and up until recently I could never see myself living anywhere else. The thought of living thousands of miles away from my family is kind of scary, I don't know how people do it. But sometimes change is good, no? I've been looking at Seattle and I'm seeing a lot of good things about it (growing city, good economy, liberal, big on local business, etc). 

Realistically, moving and relocating is a long ways off, 5+ years at least. I have aspirations of going to medical school. But I've just been thinking about possible places I could relocate to once I'm done with all the schooling and training. Medical education in Texas is very cheap compared to other states (20k vs 45k+), so of course I'd want to remain in Texas. But afterwards I could apply for a residency in Seattle or the surrounding areas. 

Anyways, any info on Seattle would be greatly appreciated. 

I'm from a small Texas town so I'm sure there would be somewhat of a culture shock (people here have confederate flag license plates).

 
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Make sure you can live with constant clouds, rain and generally gloomy weather. Seriously. I also live in Texas and know several folks from here that tried Seattle. With all it had going for it, they couldn't wait to gt out of there. They tended to suffer general depression brought about by the constant gloomy weather. Just one thing to consider.

 
Beer, food, coffee, outdoors are all outstanding. Culturally similar to Austin. It is expensive and traffic sucks. Winter weather is wet, cool and dark. Spring and fall are great. Summers are amazing. Will want to leave the confederate flag and truck nuts at home.

I travel a ton for work and am always glad to get back to Seattle.

 
The General said:
Beer, food, coffee, outdoors are all outstanding. Culturally similar to Austin. It is expensive and traffic sucks. Winter weather is wet, cool and dark. Spring and fall are great. Summers are amazing. Will want to leave the confederate flag and truck nuts at home.

I travel a ton for work and am always glad to get back to Seattle.
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Great place to pass through on  the way back to Spokane!

 
Seriously, if you can stand the rain during the winter, Seattle is great. My second favorite city. I like Vancouver, B.C. better.

 
You should visit (about a week) sometime in December-January.   Everyone loves the NW in the summer, but the nonstop rain in the winter can drive some people nuts.

One big difference between Seattle and Austin is the Seattle freeze.   It can be tough to make new friends here.

And yeah, I can't remember the last time I saw a confederate flag in Seattle.

 
Its on my shortlist of retirement destinations.  I'll take damp and high 40's vs freezing temps in the NE.  Such a nice range between the highs in summer vs highs in winter.   You get a little bit of the 4 seasons without going too far into either end of summer or winter.

 
NutterButter said:
Its on my shortlist of retirement destinations.  I'll take damp and high 40's vs freezing temps in the NE.  Such a nice range between the highs in summer vs highs in winter.   You get a little bit of the 4 seasons without going too far into either end of summer or winter.
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A lot of people move to Anacortes, Port Townsend, or Sequim for retirement.  Much cheaper than Seattle, no traffic, and better weather.   

 
They will get an earthquake/Tsunami of BIBLICAL proportion sooner then later.  I wouldn't move there for that reason alone.  

 
proninja said:
Ok, all shtick aside, Seattle's weather isn't perfect, but I'd take it over most places in the country. We don't have awful hot summers. It doesn't freeze for months at a time. Sure, it's gray and drizzly in the winter, but summers are pretty much perfect (it's currently 71 degrees, 9:15 at night, and not a cloud in the sky) and the fall and the spring aren't bad. We basically don't have any awful weather, but we have some spectacular weather. 

Cost of living is a lot higher than Texas, but once you're done with your residency you'll be able to afford life here. 
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COL is another thing, in Texas 200-300k can buy you your dream house on a pretty nice piece of land. In other parts of the country that is basically nonexistent. 

However, it would be nice to not be drenched in sweat as soon as I step foot outside the house. 

Harsh winters I absolutely will not stand for. I don't know how mid-westerners and those on the east coast can do it. 

 
Gachi said:
COL is another thing, in Texas 200-300k can buy you your dream house on a pretty nice piece of land. In other parts of the country that is basically nonexistent. 

However, it would be nice to not be drenched in sweat as soon as I step foot outside the house. 

Harsh winters I absolutely will not stand for. I don't know how mid-westerners and those on the east coast can do it. 
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I wouldn't call Seattle winters harsh - just wet.

 
I grew up in Seattle and lived 7 years in Texas (as well as three in Chicago that I would rather forget). So I am uniquely qualified to answer your questions. Fire away.

 
Mediocre food at best, but great summers and snow once every four winters or so.

Solid liberal base, obviously, but they won't bash you for being conservative unlike other liberal strongholds.

 
If you are planning to walk about downtown, practice saying this: "Yes, I have a few minutes to save the environment, but I don't have a few minutes for you."

 
My cousin just moved there at the beginning of the year.  He is marred 33, with a 3yo.  They are always sending snapchats and it looks cool.  Plenty of parks for the kid, beach areas to walk on, and markets.  Culturally it looks great.  The weather sucks at times, but others it's beautiful.  He said the rain is a drizzle and never hard.  It's just annoying.   And apparently it's not cool to have an umbrella.  He lives just north of the Space Needle and is paying 2x what his mortgage was in FL, but his place is sick.

 
Gachi said:
COL is another thing, in Texas 200-300k can buy you your dream house on a pretty nice piece of land. In other parts of the country that is basically nonexistent. 

However, it would be nice to not be drenched in sweat as soon as I step foot outside the house. 

Harsh winters I absolutely will not stand for. I don't know how mid-westerners and those on the east coast can do it. 
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Because we aren't ####### :shrug:

 
The General said:
Beer, food, coffee, outdoors are all outstanding. Culturally similar to Austin. It is expensive and traffic sucks. Winter weather is wet, cool and dark. Spring and fall are great. Summers are amazing. Will want to leave the confederate flag and truck nuts at home.

I travel a ton for work and am always glad to get back to Seattle.
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proninja said:
Ok, all shtick aside, Seattle's weather isn't perfect, but I'd take it over most places in the country. We don't have awful hot summers. It doesn't freeze for months at a time. Sure, it's gray and drizzly in the winter, but summers are pretty much perfect (it's currently 71 degrees, 9:15 at night, and not a cloud in the sky) and the fall and the spring aren't bad. We basically don't have any awful weather, but we have some spectacular weather. 

Cost of living is a lot higher than Texas, but once you're done with your residency you'll be able to afford life here. 
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bananafish said:
Seattle and the Pacific Northwest in general (including Vancouver) is fantastic. Great people, great culture, great scenery and close ties to Asia which should keep the economy humming. I didn't mind the rain so much--it's really mostly drizzle--the darkness was the worst part of the winter for me. Get to work at 7 and it's dark out. Leave work at 5 and it's dark out. Dark dark dark. It's good for writing poetry and drinking coffee or doing heroin. 

Six years in Seattle and I never owned an umbrella until I moved to New York.

But when the sun finally comes out in May or whenever and all that rain from the winter has something to do with the aid of photosynthesis, man the place explodes with growth and blooming, like nothing I've ever seen. Everybody is smiling and birds are chirping and bees are buzzing and everything is just about perfect in the Emerald City.

Me and the girlfriend are thinking about driving up there this summer at my insistence. One of the few places I would consider moving to other than Southern California. If I moved back I would probably get one of those lamps that helps with seasonal affective disorder though.
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All this.

I think the only big issue for you would be cost of living.  It's going to be much higher than anywhere in Texas, let alone a small town.  I love the weather - the winter doesn't get me down as it rarely rains more than a drizzle, and I love that it never gets too cold or too hot here.  The scenery is unbelievably gorgeous everywhere.  Great food, ridiculously great beer and wine, liberal attitude, insane amount of stuff to do right on your doorstep, booming economy.  If you're not already an outdoors person, you will be; if you already are, then this is the place for you.  As someone mentioned, people are nice/friendly but not super-warm - I guess that might also be a culture shock.

After moving around a lot, there's no way I'm moving from this area.  I even got my mom and stepfather, in their early 70s and lived in Indiana their entire lives, to move out here, and they love it.

 
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proninja said:
 but summers are pretty much perfect (it's currently 71 degrees, 9:15 at night, and not a cloud in the sky)
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bananafish said:
But when the sun finally comes out in May or whenever.....
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I wish you guys would tell mother nature that it's July already.  There has only been 2, maybe 3 weekends so far this year where it hasn't been raining.  Sure, it's great outside right now, but, I'm stuck at the office.  Let me check the forecast, yep, rain again this weekend.  

 
I've lived in the Pacific Northwest twice; once in Vancouver and now again in Seattle.  The first time I absolutely hated the rain.  Then I moved to Southern Louisiana for a few years, now it's not so bad relatively.  There is no way I'm retiring here though.  It's dark and rainy for months, seriously 8 months straight sometimes.  I'd much rather live in a place where there are all 4 seasons.  A place like Denver can have some bad winter storms, but guess what, the sun comes out the next day.  Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Northern Texas and Northern Florida are all on my retirement list ahead of this place.  Maybe even some places I'm less familiar with like the Dakotas.

Other drawbacks:  

Traffic, absolutely horrible and unless you're rich you are going to have a long commute if you work in the metro area.  They really need light rail in this city, good thing it's only about 40 years out and WSDOT is one of the worst DOTs I've ever seen.  It's only going to get worse over the next 10 years.  

Only 2 out of 4 pro sports teams.

It's too big, which is the root cause of the traffic problem.  Think triple the size of Denver and its It's expansion rate is huge right now; Delta is making a hub at Seatac, Amazon hiring 3,500 more employees and Expedia moving it's base of operations here.  If you don't like people don't move here.  

Pros:

Liberal, weed, tons of arts and festivals.

There is some great food available here.  Awesome restaurants and a billion micro-brews.  As others have said something like real Mexican can be hard to find, but, that's true just about anywhere north of New Mexico/Texas.

Plenty of places to experience outdoors, in just about every direction.  Camping, fishing, hiking, water sports, small town country, 4 wheeling, etc. all withing driving distance.

 
tonydead said:
I wish you guys would tell mother nature that it's July already.  There has only been 2, maybe 3 weekends so far this year where it hasn't been raining.  Sure, it's great outside right now, but, I'm stuck at the office.  Let me check the forecast, yep, rain again this weekend.  
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April, May and June have been much drier than normal. 2016 Seattle Rainfall vs. Normal.

It also has been warmer than average over that timeframe.

 
NutterButter said:
What's with this fixation on mexican food
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It's weird, I've had to travel and move quite a bit for my career.  Just about any large city you can find several places for good Italian, Chinese, Indian, whatever.  That's not the case for Mexican.   Once you've had real Mexican food you realize how many bad Mexican food restaurants are in existence and how rare they are to find the further north you go.  

 
proninja said:
Mediocre food seems like a weird critique given to someone coming from a small Texas town, unless there's a small Texas town that Michelin visits I'm unaware of. 
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Even small town Texas Mexican food puts Seattle's best efforts to shame.  Speaking strictly Mexican food of course, a staple of our diets here in TX.

I don't really have any comments on Seattle's restaurant scene.. has been good/fine but nothing memorable per say outside of childhood memories of fish and chips on the ferries.

 
NutterButter said:
What's with this fixation on mexican food
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Mexican food in Portland is atrocious.  I've quit trying.  Yes, there's some decent spots and some food carts are alright, but I'm from Texas and I do miss good Tex-Mex joints.  I have a really stupid theory on this, but I don't know how else to explain it because there are many Mexicans here that own and run these Mexican restaurants.  The recipes don't change.  They didn't forget how to cook.  My tin foil hat explanation?  It's the water.  Cooking with it up here changes the taste vs cooking it in Texas.  That's stupid and wrong and would be disproven in seconds, but damn it, I don't know what else it is.  

And the other thing - the giant Mexican food places that draw good crowds despite their awful food have the dumbest names in the world.  Si Senor and Muchos Gracias....would you open a restaurant in Mexico and call it "YES SIR" or "Thank You Much!".  No.  What the hell, man?  

 
matuski said:
Even small town Texas Mexican food puts Seattle's best efforts to shame.  
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I've found one Taco joint in Federal Way:  1) Choose quesadillas, taco, or burrito.  2) Choose how many. 3) Choose your meat.  Then you get the red and green sauce in ketchup bottles.  Green hotter than the red.  Spicy beef with green comes pretty close.  I can't imagine many people have the palliate for that around here, I'm always by far the whitest guy in the place.  

 
Food in the Pac NW is excellent.  Complaining about it is really silly.  Portland and Seattle both have come a long way in 20 years I've been here.  There's so much going on up here with the explosion of food carts where survival of the fittest means the pretenders can't cut it.  You gotta draw them in or you'll be done in a hurry.  So many bright young minds creating innovative and delicious dishes with availability to some of the freshest ingredients in the country.  

Worst case for me is I waltz into a local grocery store and buy fresh rockfish or salmon fished out locally and priced sensibly and I cook it up on the grill.  That's hard to beat.

 
Gachi said:
I've been a Texan my entire life and up until recently I could never see myself living anywhere else. The thought of living thousands of miles away from my family is kind of scary, I don't know how people do it. But sometimes change is good, no? I've been looking at Seattle and I'm seeing a lot of good things about it (growing city, good economy, liberal, big on local business, etc). 

Realistically, moving and relocating is a long ways off, 5+ years at least. I have aspirations of going to medical school. But I've just been thinking about possible places I could relocate to once I'm done with all the schooling and training. Medical education in Texas is very cheap compared to other states (20k vs 45k+), so of course I'd want to remain in Texas. But afterwards I could apply for a residency in Seattle or the surrounding areas. 

Anyways, any info on Seattle would be greatly appreciated. 

I'm from a small Texas town so I'm sure there would be somewhat of a culture shock (people here have confederate flag license plates).
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I moved from Dallas to Portland 20 years ago this year and it was one of the best things to ever happen to me.  My whole family moved up in time, which shocked me because my father was a proud Texan who swore he'd never leave.  He's gone back to Dallas all of one time since 2006.  He loves it here too.

There's an adjustment period you'll have to go through.  Took me about 2 years but once I got made it that long there was no going back.  I'd never live anywhere else.

 
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