I landed at SeaTac (Seattle-Tacoma) airport on a cold (possibly rainy) day in December 2015. This was the first time I had travelled outside India and the first place I came to in the United States. I spent the next week battling jetlag and being amazed at all the crazy things, I thought, people do here. My brother and sister-in-law showed me the city attractions – Space Needle, Woodland Zoo, Chihuly Glass Museum, Seattle Aquarium and Golden Garden Beach. We left after a week to go visit my relatives in Washington DC and eventually to Florida to get me settled for grad school. Trips to Seattle never stopped though. I was back here in December 2016 celebrating Christmas and New Year and then in the summer of 2017 as an Amazon intern. Each visit led me to explore the city more, learn about different neighbourhoods and even some bus routes. I finally moved to Seattle in March 2018 to work for Amazon as a full-time job. It’s been almost five years and Seattle never ceases to surprise me.
One of the first things I learnt about Seattle when I started living here was this term called “Seattle freeze”. I didn’t think much of it when I moved here initially, but over the next few months, I experienced it. It’s this feeling of loneliness due to having trouble making friends. It feels as if people aren’t interested in meeting and connecting. I’m not surprised that there is a wiki page about it. When I did eventually end up making friends, I was told other people also felt the same way when they moved here. I don’t know if the weather is a contributing factor to this phenomenon, but I could understand if it was. The dark, gloomy, and short days in the winter did induce laziness in me.
There are only two kinds of people in Seattle – those who like the weather and those who have learnt to live with it. If you are wondering what about the ones who don’t like it, they probably move out of the city. With around 8 months of cold and 2-3 months of summer, it is unbalanced for sure. I remember trying to walk 15 minutes from my brother’s house to Northgate mall on a cold windy day in December 2016. It was such a chilling wind that I had trouble keeping my eyes open as they would start to water. I grew up in Delhi, so I am not a stranger to cold, but this was on a different level. Seattle winter days are much shorter, and it’s pitch dark by 5 pm. If you look outside, it will feel like 10 pm. There are heaters everywhere inside – restaurants, malls, hotels, homes etc. although that’s common everywhere in the US. I was waiting for a bus on another windy day where it felt like wearing jeans had no effect whatsoever on the body. It was as if the wind cut right through it. I can’t say it was pleasant, but it did teach me to layer up whenever going outside.
The summers are when you really see people in Seattle. Every park is crowded with people sunbathing, enjoying a picnic, or taking a dip in the water. All the hikes are super crowded during weekends with no parking available even at 9 am. It’s as if Seattle hibernates for 8 to 9 months and is active for the rest of the time. That’s probably why companies do summer internships where the interns come and see Seattle in all its glory and might think that’s how it is for the rest of the year. I’m sure it comes as a shock when they decide to move here and then find out that the rest of the year is a stark contrast to the beautiful summer.
Seattle has a decent public transportation system with the city investing more in it over the past couple of years as it grows. Pre-Covid, specific routes from downtown would get so busy in the summer because of all the Amazon interns that came. In 2017, Seattle Times called it the Amazon effect when additional buses had to be added to support the usage. I used the bus as my primary mode of transport as well while I was interning here. Buses have dedicated lanes, even on highways, which makes it possible to travel 6 miles in 20 to 30 minutes during peak hours when a car would take anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour. The bus system also connects to the nearby cities of Bellevue and Redmond but that does take longer compared to a car. Seattle also has a subway system called the Link light rail which makes it very convenient and cheap to go to the airport in a timely fashion. They are also expanding to Bellevue and Redmond whose expected opening in mid-2023 got delayed partly due to the pandemic. I spent a lot of my time travelling in the Delhi metro and am a huge fan of metros, so I am excited to see the link light rail expand. It’s been a journey exploring the streets of this city I call home now.
Leave a Reply