Moving to Washington

[Brodeur]

The Seattle Thunderbirds play in Kent, so you can definitely get your WHL quota pretty easily. Kent's a solid 30+ minutes south of downtown Seattle, but you can probably find convenient light rail stops so you don't have to drive into town.

Couple of my best friends moved to Seattle for work/school and I've visited them at least once a year. Maybe I've just gotten lucky with my trips, but the weather was gorgeous almost every time. Given a choice, I would prefer it a little colder than too warm.

My old college roommate went up there for grad school. He did mention that they sell UV light bulbs since some folks do get depressed from the lack of sun during the winter months.

There are some easy/cheap flights to California if you need to get a weekend away as well.

 

[Czech Your Math]

The weather has changed in PNW. There used to be a tease in Feb. of an early spring, then mostly back to rain into June. Now spring basically starts in Feb., with usually a month or so in there where it rains a lot, but otherwise a mostly dry climate until about end of October. It can actually get fairly hot (80s, even 90s) in Seattle and esp. Portland. Whether this will continue, I can't say, but it has been this way for the past few years at least. Winters are much shorter, but still dreary (lot of misty mornings, clouds, rain, and shorter daylight hours). However, snow is becoming rarer and it's rarely much below freezing.

As far as the people, they are generally quite nice and fairly intelligent, but can be a bit aloof. Whether the change in weather (and migration from other areas like California) will change this, I don't know, but I think people are still mostly used to holing up for the winter. The big cities are very liberal and can go overboard with political correctness and socialist philosophy, to the lengths that can mostly be found in the biggest metropolises on the west coast and in the northeast. The rural areas can be staunchly conservative with lots of churches and gun racks, but I think that's probably the case across most of the nation.

Don't know Kent well, I don't think it's too bad, but I think Auburn is supposed to be a bit nicer. The areas I would research a bit more before moving to are Sea-Tac area (yikes!), Tacoma, Federal Way, south Seattle and Everett. Not that these are all complete ghettos, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend them to a newcomer. They are a bit, shall we say, flavorful for my taste.

 

[John Price]

Disagree. Tacoma and other surrounding areas are good.

 

[darko]

Seattle is a fantastic city. You're gonna love it.

They don't serve alcohol at strip clubs. How stupid is that?

 

[Czech Your Math]

Disagree. Tacoma and other surrounding areas are good.

They aren't horrible areas, except Sea-Tac, from what little I know.
Would just be a bit more cautious in some of those areas.
It's all relative I guess.

 

[RayP]

They don't serve alcohol at strip clubs. How stupid is that?

Rather be out trying to get P rather than tipping just to look at it.

 

[darko]

Rather be out trying to get P rather than tipping just to look at it.

Agree but every now and then don't mind getting tanked and going for a looksee.

 

[tony d]

I've heard a lot of good things about Seattle, good luck to you in your move.

 

[Panteras]

hey guys, wow thanks a lot for all your responses!

so from what I have read and talked about with colleagues the actual city of Kent is rather industrial specially the area where I'd be working, and has patches which are nice and others which are iffy.

I was looking today and found some gorgeous apartments in the Tacoma area. They seem to have a lot of the newer condos in that whole general area outside of Seattle. Would be about 30min commute which is not bad. I'm used to 45-hour+ commutes here in Miami so whatever..also someone told me about Maple Valley, which is supposed to be highly ranked in standard of living.

the company I work for is paying for all my moving expenses. I told them though that I wanted to drive...I know, crazy lol but hell yeah I've always wanted to do a cross country road trip and this is my opportunity. So I'll just pack like 1 or 2 small suitcases with the essentials and the rest of my stuff I'll have them ship it to me.

I'll ask for a couple of days and combine with the weekend and perhaps labor day and could get a nice roadtrip

they'll also put me in one of those extended stay hotels for up to 3 months if needed, till I find a place to stay.

 

[Langdon Alger]

Make sure to check out this coffee place called Starbucks.

 

[Sniper99]

If you're an NFL fan for the love of God, DONT jump on the Seahawks bandwagon like everyone does there.

 

[Panteras]

where is that coffee place? don't even remotely like handegg, so don't worry I won't jump in the bandwagon