At least 4 times walking through Pike’s Market, we were approached by homeless people with a spiel, asking for money. The biggest difference I found here was the way the homeless population interacts with everyone.
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Like most big cities, there is a homeless problem in Seattle.
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At the end of the day, I think the year has finally caught up with me and my body can sense that the end is near and is reacting accordingly. As mentioned before, I didn’t have much energy to get outside and the rain didn’t add much motivation. In general, it worked out because COVID delayed weddings, creating a wedding-palooza that resulted in 3 weddings in 8 days in 3 different locations: 10/22 in Pasadena, 10/23 in Seattle, and 10/30 in San Francisco. Well, one of my good friends Amy was getting married in October so it made the most sense. With that in mind, you might also be asking why I planned to be in Seattle, in one of their worst months for weather. Why are we more willing to work overtime and not take time off? Why do we let our social media feed take the place of in-person experiences? This year has really opened my eyes to these things and made me re-evaluate the things that really matter to make a rich life. It makes me wonder why we prioritize work and not our relationships. It’s this part of this journey that I love the most: seeing old faces and catching up with them. This time around? Turns out there are 6 or 7 people that have moved up there. Prior to 2019, I had one high school friend and one college friend living in Seattle. Between the Link, light rail, and buses, getting from neighborhood to neighbor takes between 10-30 minutes, making exploring super easy. That said, their public transit system is very convenient and ever-expanding. Seattle on its own is a very walkable city which puts it a cut above a lot of the southern cities I’ve been to earlier in the year. Because of my burnout, I didn’t get a chance to try everything on my list but everything I tried was a banger. Even the pre-packed sushi in the supermarket tasted like it came out of a restaurant. Seattle has several vibrant Asian communities and the food was amazing. What else does ocean proximity mean? Great seafood and a very diverse food scene. Feeling the ocean breeze in the air is a benefit that I’ll never take forever granted again in life.
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Being back on the West coast was such a welcomed relief. It’s pretty magical.Īll in all, I feel like my head was in the sand for a lot of the month, but there were still some highlights along the way. For the Christmas lovers out there, they have a store called Kris Kringl that sells Christmas-themed items and Christmas decor year-round. It included a trip with my high school friend Amy to Leavenworth, WA, a Bavarian-themed mountain village about 2 hours outside of Seattle. After her visit to Seattle, it solidified our feelings, our bond, and our desire to build a future together. In Denver, our status was left as a puppy love encounter with an uncertain future. Even though I was worried about her visiting before the summit, her presence was deeply appreciated and needed more than I realized. She visited for 4 days, the weekend before the summit was set to happen. The one exception to that was a visit from Sydney, my new love that I mentioned in Denver’s write-up. I saw a couple of friends the first few days but I was pretty much under a rock until the event passed on October 20th. I didn’t have the energy to explore or to see people. Needless to say, at the end of workdays, I was completely gassed out. I was running point for one of the Signature Events at my day job, StartOut’s Equity Summit: 45 speakers, 10 sponsors, over 400 registrants, 13 coworkers, 6 organizing committee members, 1 event coordinator, and me. After living in 70+ degree weather, Seattle delivered a serious shock to my system with the cold and rain all around me.Īdmittedly, my month in Seattle was never set up for success. I had a small tote with my winter clothes, rain boots, and a long but light raincoat that I lugged around all year solely for the Pacific Northwest, aka Seattle and Portland.
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Outside of hell freezing over when I was in Austin, my plan was working out pretty well. When putting together my itinerary for this – 12 Cities in 12 months – I tried to make sure that two suitcases could handle the climates I’d encounter.