The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Net Worth Update, Spending, Travel
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2022 is half over…which is strange since my brain still seems stuck in 2020. Oh well. This month we headed back to the States for the first time in several months only for the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade and take us back 50 years…Welcome back to America I guess.

In the meantime, here are some steps you can take to protect yourself in this new world. Anyway, after feeling another blow to my hope for the future of the US, I tried shifting my emotions towards gratitude and what I can do to make a better world going forward.

Part of that gratitude is the fact that I am a resident of Washington State, which in this fight has declared that they (along with CA and OR) will be an abortion safe haven for people from other states that have made it illegal.

However, overall coming back to Seattle has helped me remember that there is good in the world. There are still many kind people who want to make it better. Hugging my loved ones here (many of whom I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic started) has helped me center myself and heal. So let’s get into what I did this month in the closest thing to a “home” that I have.

We Moved Back to Seattle, WA!

After 2 years away from Seattle, we moved back (for 5 weeks)! We previously lived here for 5 years (after planning on 4). I fell in love with the city over a weekend and then moved here from NYC despite my partner never having been anywhere on the west coast except the polar opposite of San Diego.

When I landed in Seattle this time, it hit me that I’d missed this city A LOT. I didn’t realize that until that moment. It’s such a gorgeous and loving place – surrounded by water, mountains and trees, and full of kind people.

We stayed with a friend who was an ex-colleague of mine and then got an Airbnb in our old neighborhood of Queen Anne. I attended the wedding of one of my best friends, which was wonderful to be a part of. I had a great time and realized there are a lot of people I love being around that I hadn’t seen in forever, and now they’re doctors and have kids and mortgages and shit. It’s wild and seeing all those changes made me want to make an effort to see them more.

Another new thing that happened this month was that we lived with indoor dogs for the first time: 3 of them! Figuring out how to live around dogs was something new for me and now I have way too many photos of a tiny Weiner dog snuggled in my partner’s lap.

I Learned Spanish

Outside of exploring my previous stomping grounds, I’ve been continuing my goal of going from 0% to fluent in Spanish in 2022. I tested out of another section of Duolingo and skipped 30 lessons. And that was after I did this:

So overall, my Spanish lessons in México seem to have taught me as much as 90 lessons total of Duolingo. Not bad at all 🙂 .

Something else I did to see how I have improved in the last month was looking through the list of words we learned in class. I had previously organized them based on if I knew them or not and during this pass, I knew most of the words I had previously placed in the “do not know” column! Progress!!

This month I taught myself the Past Imperfect, Simple Future and Conditional tenses and have used them all in conversation. I did this with (of course) another spreadsheet! Doing so helped me to see the patterns between them all and learn them more easily while also visualizing irregularities in my mind’s eye. Only a few months ago all these tenses felt insurmountable so I am VERY proud of myself for learning these at my own pace, which was still faster than I expected.

One new thing that I have started is a new Duolingo streak and within it, I have been testing my different tenses. I found this helpful to write them out in addition to speaking in them. Once I maxed out all the tenses, I’ve been using Duolingo Stories to test myself with context instead of random drills that didn’t seem very helpful to me in the past.

Speaking

I spent one week in Phoenix, AZ this month to see a Backstreet Boys concert and the friend I did that with is the same badass Spanish speaking ER nurse that helped me learn how to inject a needle over videochat. Well, while we were there, we visited her family, who are from Nicaragua, and I actually understood when they spoke rapid fire Spanish and I spoke back!!! I was literally shocked that I could do this, but this was another example that showed me all this work is paying off.

I also continued having my weekly call with my Argentinian friend in Spanish. However, we’re going to be switching to speaking in Spanish half the time and English the other half because we discovered her English was getting worse because speaking with me was the only practice she gets to speak English regularly. Woah! It was wild to hear that someone who is completely fluent in another language still benefits from that kind of standard practice.

I also have continued having my weekly calls with my Mom in Spanish, which of course is different from speaking to a native speaker, but I’m just impressed that we can speak for 30 minutes or an hour in another language after only a few months of study. We help each other and teach each other words we recently learned in our everyday life. It’s great having a buddy on this journey. However, I also made an embarrassing mistake during one of these conversations that I’ll detail in the Learning section below 🙂 .

Writing

Outside of typing into Duolingo, my main practice with Spanish writing is with my Mom – we text constantly throughout the day, every day and we’re still texting only in Spanish.

Listening

My listening practice in Spanish has diversified. I’ve started listening to a Spanish podcast in addition to listening to my Spanish speaking FilmTubers.

I’ve also started accidentally getting Spanish practice while out and about by: Eavesdropping (aka escuchar escondidas)! I’ve never been able to accidentally listen in to other conversations in another language, but I found myself accidentally doing so this month.

Also, I was shocked that I understood about as much Spanish airport announcements as I do in English (which is about 75% lol) and found myself in line for the plane before most people at my boarding gate, only to realize that’s because I got up during the Spanish announcement instead of English like most of the people going to the states. Wild!

I’ve also started to understand when books I’m reading in English have a character speaking Spanish. It used to look as incomprehensible to me as Croatian (for example – take me back to Dubrovnik please). I also now understand when a character is speaking Spanish in shows like Westworld (without reading the subtitles) and Barry (which often didn’t include subtitles).

My biggest practice though was continuing my goal of watching 4 hours of movies or TV shows a week in Spanish. Here’s what I watched:

Películas (Movies) En Español

  1. Long Shot (Casi Imposible)
  2. Men In Black (Hombres de Negro)
  3. Jaws (Tiburón)
  4. Encanto
  5. Jurassic World (Mundo Jurásico)
  6. Jurassic Park (Parque Jurásico)
  7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Olvidando a Sarah Marshall)

Series de Televisión (TV Shows) En Español

  1. Snapped (Crímenes de Pasión)

Overall it looks like this approach has been working well for me and it’s fun – so I’m going to keep at it!

Revelations

I’ve had a lot of revelations during this Spanish speaking journey. So many over these past few months that I might do a whole post about them – TBD on that 🙂 . Anyway, here’s what I realized this month:

One of the reasons I was bad at learning Italian and French is that I was scared of making mistakes. I would formulate a sentence in my head before saying it, which isn’t conducive to a regular conversation. Well, this month I realized that I OFTEN make mistakes when speaking in English that I either correct or realize way after the fact and this is the only language I’ve been fluent in during my adult life. It’s totally fine and normal to make mistakes! And apparently I already do it all the time 🙂

People who are completely fluent in English as a second language make mistakes, but we move on just like with a native English speaker. It’s not a big deal, the message gets across. My friend from Ukraine has been in the US for 25 years speaking English and recently said “rumble” when she meant “rubble” – NBD. Hearing these things just further hit home that everyone (including myself) makes language mistakes all the time in every language, it’s not the end of the world.

I used to berate myself if I didn’t understand what someone said to me in French or Italian while walking along the street for example, but I realized during this month’s travels, that I often don’t understand people talking to me in English if I’m not ready for the interaction. A flight attendant for example spoke to me spontaneously in English and I asked them to repeat themselves and they did.

No big deal, but for some reason, I didn’t think this was acceptable in second languages (WHY?!?!) I felt bad asking someone to repeat themselves when I speak Spanish, but now I don’t. I do this all the fucking time in English – why should I have other standards for a new language I’m learning? Ugh – I’m so silly sometimes 🙂 .

Related to the above, I was worried when I had a quick interaction at the mercado in México and mostly relied on hand gestures and context clues to figure out what was going on because my brain only realized what someone was saying after I had walked away. Well, I realized this month that I do the SAME EXACT THING in English. I usually either don’t properly hear or don’t internalize what people are saying in these really fast interactions and I fall back on canned responses. Since I do the same thing in English so I shouldn’t feel self-conscious about it happening in other languages.

Reading these revelations back, I think the main lesson here is that I need to chill the fuck out and put my perfectionist tendencies away 🙂 .

I Hung Out With People!

And for once I don’t mean all virtually 🙂 . As I mentioned, I spent a week in Phoenix with my friend of 16 years and after that, I went to a wedding in Seattle. I also saw many of my friends while in Seattle, such as the amazing Michelle from Frugality and Freedom that I met through this wonderful finance community.

I also continued all my regular activities, such as the Spanish practice calls I mentioned above and my Weekly Movie Night (which has turned into 1/2 Movies and 1/2 watching Westworld Season 4!) However, one of our regular movies was Encanto, which I had seen before in English. Well I decided to watch it in Spanish this time and inspired my fellow movie night friends to watch it in the languages they were learning as well (Spanish and Italian). Movie night is going international!

Some other movies we watched together were:

  1. Everything Everywhere All At Once (which I HIGHLY recommend)
  2. The French Dispatch
  3. The Fifth Element

If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

I Read 5 Books

This month I read:

  1. It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
  2. Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places by Jeff Speck
  3. The Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
  4. The Dragon’s Bride by Katee Robert
  5. The Lost Sisters by Holly Black

Reading continues to be amazing. I am so happy I can spend so much time doing what I love (learning about the world through words and exploring new worlds through authors). Now I just need to learn not to start a fiction book at 8pm at night because if it’s fantastic, I WILL stay up all night to read it all. Oops 🙂 . If you’re curious about my ratings of these books, I have a Goodreads account you can check out here.

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

  1. Slow Travel Review: Mérida, México – The Land Of Color & Nature
  2. Nomad Coffee Supplies: How To Make Great Caffeine Anywhere
  3. How To Easily Meet Entry Testing Requirements: A BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag At-Home Test Review
  4. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap

Outside of all that, a post my Mom wrote for Late Starter Fi has been updated with her latest goings on since that piece was written in 2019. Check that out if you’d like here.

In the vein of weird new shit that’s happened to me, a hotel management company reached out asking me to stay at one of their hotels and review it. It’s kind of silly though because the hotels they manage are not in major cities and I’m not going out of my way to stay at a random mid-tier hotel 🙂 . It was cool to be asked though – the email would have made Young Purple (who wanted to be a travel/food reviewer) jump for joy.

Physical

Sleep

Sleeping has been going really well since I’ve been back in Seattle! It was a little weird while I was in Phoenix because my friend’s house was quite noisy even throughout the night with babies and a barking dog and I didn’t want to put in my earplugs in case she needed my help for something, so I sacrificed some shut eye, but I’ve more than caught up on it now 🙂 . Another awesome benefit of retirement.

In Seattle, I’ve been sleeping throughout the night, going to bed when I’m tired, and continuing my Méxican tradition of embracing siestas! It’s been absolutely amazing to be able to have a quick nap after running all over the city with friends before awakening before dinner and doing it all again 🙂 .

Food

There was no keto in sight this month. There were too many delicious things to eat at that very food focused wedding, and I have no regrets. When I do have a meal at home, I try to keep it low-carb if possible, but overall, I’m not limiting myself. I calorie counted for 3/4 of this month to try and stay within a maintenance calorie window, but dropped that for the final week after finding it impossible to log things like a food filled wedding 🙂 . No worries – I already have a plan to start counting again next month and getting back to keto when we leave Seattle. It’s all about balance over here 🙂 .

Exercise

After 4 months or 1/3 of a year doing at least 20 Squats 6 days a week, I finally got bored 🙂 . This was on top of my new exercise of the month (planks in April, bicycle crunches in May) and running, so I decided to switch it up a bit in June. I decreased to 10 squats per day and found that despite all this continuous squatting, it was still challenging each time. I think going forward, I’m going to drop this goal since I’ve gotten bored of it and move on to something else.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous monthly posts this year, I have been choosing a new additional exercise each month and this month I chose Push Ups! However, I had a rude awakening on Day 1. It turns out that after a few years of not doing it, I lost the ability to do a push up. I don’t know why I thought I would have retained that ability without practice, but here we are.

So I decided to work up to a push up with knee push ups only to discover: I couldn’t do that either! Oh boy. So I finally did wall push ups that first day and luckily a day later I started to do a few kneeling push ups and kept that up until I was able to do one ‘real’ push up by the end of the month. Wow. That was a big difference from my last two challenges, which were easier than anticipated. I guess that means I need to keep working on my arms since they’re kind of being forgotten since I’ve gotten into running.

Speaking of Running, it’s back! After being over getting up at 6am to run before it became too hot in México, I’m working back up to my 3x/week goal. This month I usually did 1-2 times a week for various reasons, but I’m back at it! Seattle is also quite hilly, which has added a new challenge to all this, but I’m excited to be running again and exploring my old city in a new way.

Next month I think I’m going to work on actually running 3x every week (aka hitting that goal) as well as going to Zumba and obviously walking all over the place as my main mode of transport as I always do.

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

Seattle, WA

I know a bunch of random facts about Seattle after living here for half a decade, but there was still so much to learn! Here are things I learned this month:

  • Pike Place Market opened in 1907 and is the oldest continuously operating farmer’s market in the country
  • In Seattle Bertha Knight Landes became the first female mayor in America in 1926
  • It may not seem like the best place to be during a natural disaster, but the Space Needle has a foundation that goes 30 feet underground so that it can withstand a 9.1 magnitude earthquake and up to 200 mph winds
  • I’ve seen so many tourists waiting in giant lines to see the “original Starbucks” in Pike Place Market, but apparently the first true Starbucks was located at 2000 Western Avenue. Oops 🙂
  • Glaciers formed the current geography of Seattle by receding and leaving giant mounds of rock debris, which became Queen Anne Hill (where we lived!), Cherry Hill, First Hill, Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill
  • Seattle residents buy more sunglasses than any other city in the world despite the rain. One reason to account for this may be how active these peeps are no matter the weather with all their running, hiking, kayaking, biking etc
  • Seattle has the biggest houseboat population in the nation with 500+ houseboats on Lake Union and other bodies of water in Puget Sound
  • The 520 Floating Bridge that connects Seattle to Bellevue is apparently the world’s longest floating bridge and is 7,710-feet-long
  • The busiest ferry terminal in the US is Seattle’s Pier 52
  • Seattle was first settled by the Denny Party in 1851 at what is now Alki Point in West Seattle, which I recently visited:

Spanish Language

Here are some things I learned about Spanish this month (all of which are embarrassing):

I was about to write to my Mom when she was sad trying to say, “I hug you” (te abrazo), but what I actually wrote was “te embarazo” which actually means “I impregnate you.” Thank goodness I double checked before sending! Similarly, the word for “pregnant” is “embarazada,” which sounds similar to embarrassed to me. When I am embarrassed (like in that moment) I say “tengo pena” (I have grief/I am ashamed) instead to hopefully avoid future embarrassment.

This month I learned that the word for “straw” in Spanish is different in every country and in some countries, the word that’s used for straw in other countries means “penis”…so it’s basically a landmine of a word and as you can imagine, miming the action would not help in this situation 🙂 . I’m going to use the Mexican Spanish “popote” and hope for the best or maybe just point and say “that” (ese/esa).

Astronomy

I’d forgotten that despite the light pollution, stars can be seen in Seattle 🙂 . It’s been nice to look up during the few hours of darkness in the summer here and see those lights twinkling back at me. I didn’t learn any new constellations this month or see any astronomical wonders – just some lovely twinkling stars 🙂 . Maybe I should be more intentional in that realm next month.

Birds

During my entire time in Seattle I was ignorant of birds – except Bald Eagles. I would freak out every time I saw one even though they’re actually fairly common in these parts (that just shows how little I had been paying attention 🙂 ). So it’s been super fun to come back and notice all the birds I took for granted and (kindly) asked to “shut the fuck up” when they would awaken me at 4am while I was working 😉 . Here are the birds I saw this month in Seattle:

Bewick’s Wren, Anna’s Hummingbird, Chipping Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Rufous Hummingbird, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Song Sparrow, Northern Flicker, Orange-crowned Warbler, Vaux’s Swift, American Crow, Spotted Towhee, Black-capped Chickadee, Stellar’s Jay

And in Phoenix, AZ:

Gambel’s Quail, White-throated Swift, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Lesser Nighthawk, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Rosy-faced Lovebird

Look at this cute Rosy-faced Lovebird! (Source)

Flora

One of the things I love most about Seattle is how green and lush it is. There are beautiful plants and trees everywhere you look. This month here are some that I saw in Seattle:

Walnut tree, Hazelnut tree, Fig tree, Silver ragwort, Georgia peach pie, Pansies, Shrubby cinquefoil, Sea thrift, Garden roses, Sage, Perforate St John’s-wort, Heuchera sanguinea, Calceolaria integrifolia, Astilbe Arendsii, Longbract spiderwort

And here were some standouts from Phoenix, AZ:

Peacock Flower, Oleander, Foothills Palo Verde

Fauna

The animals I’ve seen out and about have been abundant as well and included:

Pygmy Rabbit, Eastern Cottontail, Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, Eastern Gray Squirrel and California Darner Dragonfly

Fun fact: There are 407 dragonfly species in North America and 71 are common in the state of Washington

Random

Here is a random thing I learned this month:

  • I learned this from a book I’m reading called Exercised: “In the 18th century it was fashionable to lift church bells that were silenced (made “dumb”) by having their clappers removed, hence the term “dumbbells“”
  • There is a coffee substitute made of malted barley, chicory and rye called Pero. I tried it with cream and sugar and it was pretty good though it tasted nothing like coffee (which was a plus for me 😉 ) 

Creativity

Creativity has been lacking a bit this month. I’m wondering if I should create a chart of it similar to my Sleep one above to help me identify patterns. Without that kind of clear trend data, I suspect my lack of creativity is a result of a lack of time (I know – please hold your snickering for the end 🙂 ).

I’ve written on here before about how I think my creativity comes from stillness and observation or “doing nothing” as someone might call it 🙂 . Well, there has been very little doing nothing lately. Between moving from México, running around Phoenix and now seeing people all over Seattle, my ‘me’ time has been a lot less than usual.

This is compounded by all the things I’ve been doing on top of travel and social time: learning Spanish daily, exercising daily, and reading more than a book a week. So once we leave Seattle, I’m intentionally building in some down time to recover and rebuild my creative reserves.

Emotional

My emotions have been challenging this month between the supreme court decision and general bullshit going on in the world. To combat that, I’ve been intentionally stopping myself if I start doomscrolling and not engaging with people who are just trying to pick fights on social media. If someone has constructive feedback, I’ll happily listen, but I’ve been ignoring the rest. It’s not worth it.

So that’s how I’ve been removing negatives, but on the side of adding positives, I’ve kept up my calming ritual of listening to music including the weekly new music provided by Spotify’s Discover Weekly and Release Radar. My partner also introduced me to an awesome Italian band that plays dark Nordic music. It’s been matching my mood lately 🙂 .

I’ve also continued to go to my tried and true favorite subreddit to make me smile: /r/aww. That always helps lift my spirits a little. And if bigger lifting is needed, I turn to my loved ones for a hug.

Money

Well, I experienced price shock for the first time in my life 🙂 . Spending my early adulthood living in NYC basically guaranteed that everywhere else I would go would seem cheap. Seattle was that way. Now that I came back to Seattle from living in México for 9 weeks, I was surprised by the prices (though to be fair, they have increased with inflation) and had to recalibrate.

I’ve still not been looking at my budget and buying whatever I want, but it’s possible that will have a bigger impact in the ‘big city’. I’ll see once we leave Seattle and I’ve added up all the costs, but right now I’m feeling fine about it.

Net worth wise this is basically what’s been up:

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in June! Overall I’m so grateful I have the time and energy to fill my life with things that bring me joy and growth. I’m feeling great about my retirement and excited to see what’s next. Until next time!

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly

  1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
  2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
  3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
  4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
  5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
  6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
  7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
  8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
  9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
  10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
  11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
  12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly

  1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
  2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
  3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
  4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
  5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
  6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
  7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
  8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
  9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
  10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
  11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
  12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap
  13. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
  14. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
  15. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
  16. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
  17. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap

How was your month?

13 thoughts on “The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap”

  1. Yeah, the market is going nuts at the moment. There’s a reason why the saying “may you live in interesting times” is a curse. Hang in there and keep enjoying time with your family and friends. Connections are what’s most important.

    Reply

  2. Hi Purple, how do you cope mentally when your net worth takes a 20% slide ?
    I’m in the same boat having mainly invested in U.S trackers., even though I’m from the U.K.
    I’m going to retire this year and I’m trying to brazen it out, I don’t want all this doom and gloom to disrupt my plans too much because like you! I have been on a countdown for the last 10 years.

    Reply

    1. Exposure therapy 🙂 . I’ve seen it happen before and will see it happen again. Since I started investing in 2015 I’ve intentionally looked at my portfolio every day (though this habit has slipped in retirement the underlying point has luckily stayed). Watching my portfolio jump around while the numbers got bigger and bigger as I added more money has allowed it to not have an emotional effect on me. If that changes I’ll let y’all know, but it currently doesn’t effect my life and won’t until my current cash runs out. I was surprised when I didn’t bat an eye in March 2020 when the market went down like 30% in a month, 6 months before my planned retirement date.

      Good luck with your retirement! I hope you find a way to cope with the market turmoil mentally/emotionally. Different things work for different people. For example, looking at the market has always made my Mom (also an early retiree) anxious so her solution is to literally never look 🙂 . And that’s worked out for her. She’s going to celebrate 8 years of retirement soon.

      Reply

  3. If it makes you feel any better, one time in church we were singing a song in Spanish, and I was trying to sing “I want” (yo quiero). What actually came out of my mouth, very loudly, was “yo queso” (I cheese).

    In my defense, if there is one to be had: this occurred before any of the commercials with the chihuahua constantly saying “Yo quiero Taco Bell.” Although at Taco Bell, “yo queso” might actually work…

    Reply

    1. Haha that does make me feel better – thank you! Though I also think me saying “I cheese” is not a lie 🙂 . I do love my cheese so much it’s probably in my veins.

      Reply

  4. A well balanced life indeed, enjoy being back in Seattle.

    As a fellow Library enthusiast, I’m putting the Seattle Central one on my list. If you’re looking for other impressive libraries, Austin, Nashville, and Phoenix South Central are also amazing.

    Reply

  5. What neighborhood would you recommend for a late 30s single woman of color to live, meet new people, and do recreational activities without a car?

    How exactly did you meet new people and try new things without a car? Like what would you say are the top 3 things you did or places you went to make friends in Seattle?

    Reply

    1. I’d say any neighborhood near downtown (for example Queen Anne or Cap Hill). If you’re around downtown it’s all walkable and buses are plentiful. It’s also easy to walk or grab a bus to the train.

      I made friends through:
      1. Work
      2. Past friends that moved to Seattle
      3. The Internet 🙂

      Most of my friends either worked at a company I did (though I didn’t work with them directly), moved to Seattle after I knew them or I met them through this very blog or general Personal Finance twitter. I’m not great at starting friendships with strangers out in the wild, but if you are there are plenty of opportunities for that as well. Free fitness classes, friendly people at bars, game nights in board game shops etc.

      I’m not sure I can speak to not having a car just because I’ve never had the alternative in my adult life 🙂 . I find it super easy and if I don’t feel like waiting for the bus or walking I grab a Lyft – they’re relatively inexpensive in Seattle. If I want to do a camping trip or something farther than a bus can take me I rent a car. I hope that helps!

      Reply

  6. As a former Seattle resident, I can tell you the real reason why we buy more sunglasses than any other city: we can’t find them when we need them because the last time we wore them was 9 months ago!

    Reply

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