Home aWAy from Home. My love letter to Seattle.

My first time visiting the US was pretty surreal. You know, growing up watching a lot of Western movies and television shows, I was really excited to come to this country. I must admit that American culture really influenced me. Of course, it was nothing like in the movies when I first visited here back in 2014. My sister moved to Seattle in early 2014 and has been living here ever since. She has her own family here now. She is mom to a dog called Bruno and got married after finding love here. I visited first back in 2014. My first trip outside India. It was a culture shock to me initially. But then I got used to it. The people here are absolutely amazing. Then most people in America are like that which I learnt later when I lived in the East coast for a few months.

First time here, I did mostly the touristy stuff like visiting the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, taking an Argosy Cruise and so on. Living in downtown helped a lot as I could just go out and roam around on my own. The first trip was definitely memorable and I felt that I had more trips coming up. Until then, I had no definitive plans for my future. I was still in my 2nd year of medical school back in India and I was just visiting anyway. But I thought maybe living here wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Then I slowly started planning for my “future” which meant doing nothing really productive other than just browsing the internet for hours and hours.

Fast forward to 2019, I still keep visiting Seattle because of family but I know for sure that family isn’t the only reason why I keep coming back to this city. I think that there is a little part of me that has fell in love with this city which I find it very scary because I know for a fact that the chances of me ever living here are next to none. But I know for a fact that as long as my family lives here, I’ll keep coming back and I’m pretty chuffed about it.

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Seattle is known for its picturesque natural beauty. No wonder people here love to do outdoorsy stuff even though it rains for more than half of the time. Some people call the weather here dark and gloomy but I just love the weather here. It’s so beautiful when it rains here. Maybe it’s just me but I’ll take the rain all day over bright scorching sunlight. This city is a proper sports city. They have an American football team, a football team (yes FOOTBALL !!) and a baseball team as well. And their fans are absolutely amazing. I have been to a few Sounders’ games and I feel that that their fans are the loudest in the country.

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Now we can’t talk about Seattle and not mention technology. Amazon was actually founded here and Microsoft has it’s HQ in nearby Redmond. And the airplane manufacture Boeing has it’s HQ in Renton as well. And did you know that Starbucks was founded here and the first ever Starbucks in the world is actually at Pike Place and yes, there is a HUGE line (usually 30-45 mins wait time) to enter the coffee shop.

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I wanted to dedicate my first post to this Seattle because this is where I got this idea of starting a blog. Seattle will probably always be my second favourite city in the world. My favourite city will and forever always be my hometown of Vizag, in South India. You haven’t seen the last of me Seattle. I will keep coming back because you have always been so welcoming to me and millions of other visitors. Thank you for being a special place to me forever and always.

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