You will have to excuse me for my extended absence, Dear Reader. A bout of the plague has befallen my family, and it is only out of responsibility to you that I have managed to pull myself from my deathbed.

5. Wow, Seattle sounds amazing - close to perfect, actually. Is there anything you don't like about it?

As much as it pains me to pile anything other than praise upon my beloved city, I will admit that there are many things I don't like about Seattle.

Let's start with the traffic. Between all the water (and ensuing bridges) and the roads in desperate need of repair and/or upgrade, it should come as no surprise that traffic can be a real boondoggle around these parts. The length of what should be a short commute can be extended to hours by the smallest of bridge accidents.

I don't like earthquakes. I know, I know, I can hear you asking, Dear Reader, "who does?". Unfortunately they are a fact of life around here - they don't happen all the time, but you know there is always another right around the corner.

I don't like how fake friendly native Seattlites can be. This is a city where no tourist will ever have trouble finding their way around. When a tourist in Seattle stands on a corner with a map looking confused, they won't even have to ask for directions - someone will come up and ask if they need help. But if you find yourself in from out of town and decide to go to a local bar, you will find us stand-offish. If you sit at the bar and try to strike up a conversation with the person next to you, 9 times out of 10 they will be polite, but look at you as though you are kind of strange for talking to them. Rarely will someone start talking to you. For a relatively big city, Seattle holds onto its feeling of a small town, but without all the real friendlyness.

I don't like how long it takes us to decide on anything infrastructure or government-related. We can vote on an issue 3 times and still not know what we're doing. Everything requires years of discussion, resulting in very little action.

I don't like the rift between Western and Eastern Washington.


More in the next few days, Dear Reader. 37 Questions will be moving on to a new topic in the next few weeks, so we'll be moving through the rest of Seattle and Western Washington rather quickly. If you have any last questions about Seattle, please leave a comment on this post. We will do our best to address them before topic change!