After living here for a full year, I know what I like and what I don't like about living in Seattle. Fortunately, I like what I like a lot more than I dislike what I dislike. Here are the three things I like most about living here, in order:

1. 
   Livable Urbanity - There are shops and restaurants in our neighborhood and we live close to other lively inner-city neighborhoods. There are plenty of shops, restaurants, and residences within walking distance, which means that there's plenty to see and do and other people out seeing and doing. A lot of other stuff is just a bus-ride away. There are many historic or otherwise interesting buildings nearby and a lot of public art, especially downtown. All of this contributes to making Seattle a walkable city. It has been great being able to walk to the park or to shop or see a movie and living here has convinced me that I would never choose to live in a car-dependent area again.


2. Outdoors - The natural beauty here is incredible. On clear days you can see mountains to the east and west, including the most prominent peak in North America. We have three national parks within a few hours' drive. The city is surrounded by plenty of hiking and other outdoor opportunities around mountains, streams, and old-growth forest and within the city are several big parks with plenty of walking/hiking trails.


3. Weather - Aside from winter, the weather here has been a great fit for me: I don't like hot weather and don't mind cool weather and rain. There are a lot of refreshingly cool days, which are great for going outside with a jacket. A few summer days were too hot, but the weather was mostly ideal with temperatures in the 70s and clear skies. There are very few days that are too inhospitable for me to want to spend time outside, with the exception of winter, which I discuss in greater detail below.

Here are the things I don't like, in order:

1. Not being able to watch Cowboys games - This was probably the single most annoying thing about living here over the past year. Some of the games were broadcast at 10:00, which is early and during church. Only about 1/3 of the games were broadcast locally, so for all the rest of the games we had to go to a sports bar. It got better as we got more used to it, but it still sucked not being able to watch the games in the comfort of home.


2. Winter - Working indoors all day without windows, with the sun rising around 8 and setting around 4:30, was tough. The sun came out, but I didn't get to see it much. On top of that, snowfall and ice shut down the city for several days (which is somewhat rare, I'm told) and almost canceled our flight to Texas for Christmas. I'd say the nice summer makes up for the uncomfortable winter, which is why I'm really looking forward to the end of winter.


3. Roads and how people drive on them - The thing that first greeted us when we arrived in Washington was the rough sound of the highways followed shortly by clumps of slow drivers, predominantly in the left lane. The roads in the city are worse, with potholes practically everywhere, fortunately the drivers aren't as obnoxious as on the freeway. Traffic is supposedly bad here, too, but I'm affected by traffic much less than I was when I lived in Dallas. Good thing we don't drive much.

Overall, I'm happy to be living here. The livable urbanity and outdoors are two strong assets of the Pacific Northwest that are hard to find together elsewhere in the country and make up for the relatively insignificant complaints I have about living in Seattle.