Seattle

tldr; it’s always sunny in Seattle.

We were lucky to get to spend lots of time in Seattle. We spent two work weeks there, working from parks, trying out new restaurants, and exploring the city. On the weekends, we explored Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks.

We tried out a few different places to sleep in the city. One of our favorites was a quiet and pretty dark spot right outside of a Crossfit gym. It was walking distance to a Safeway with a clean bathroom and a short drive to Washington Park Arboretum, where we spent our days working. This sleeping spot also came built in with an alarm clock. The crossfit classes started at 6:30AM every morning so right around 6 o’clock, we’d start to hear loud hype music playing as people got ready to work out. We’d take this as our cue to head off to the park for our workday.

We loved working from this park. It was pretty quiet, had several picnic tables in the shade, a bathroom nearby, and lots of nice paths to walk on. One afternoon, we walked all the way up to the top of the park, where we found that it opened up to beautiful view of the water, where people and their dogs jumped in the lake and swam. There were also lots of fresh blackberries along the path that I picked and snacked on.

After work, we did lots of different things. A couple days, we met up with Brooke and Paulo in Redmond, where they were staying with Paulo’s brother. We played some games with them, Choi and Paulo played soccer, and we went out to dinner. We checked out an outdoor man-made bouldering spot near a university. One day, Michaela, one of my friends from my study abroad program that I haven’t seen in years, met us at the park and we went on a walk to catch up with her. We tried out Korean, Thai, and other restaurants in town and made migas in the van. We bouldered and I did a yoga class at Seattle Bouldering Project one afternoon.

One evening, we visited another amazing park, Gas Works Park. It’s the site of an old gasification plant and some of the huge rusted equipment remains in the park, some of it remodeled and incorporated into a playground for kids, while others of it just stands as it once did. The old rusty plant makes a really interesting contrast to the lush green grass and the views of the water, where sailboats coasted around and people paddle boarded and kayaked. There were tons of people at the park doing all kinds of different things. There were lots of couples, friends, and families camped out on picnic blankets. There was a man surrounded by tons and tons of Canadian geese. There was another guy playing music, a mixture of rapping and playing the saxophone. There was a huge group of people doing acro-yoga. Our favorite group, though, was a group of mostly middle-aged people playing in what seemed to be a drum line. They were really good and were having so much fun playing for everyone in the park to enjoy.