1 year already that we (my family and I) moved to the Pacific Northwest area, specifically in Seattle area (we are actually in a suburban neighborhood called Kirkland).
The adaptation to this new place is going smoothly, the mentality is quite similar to the one we were used to in Switzerland but friendlier so we did not encounter any cultural clashes, which makes everything much easier. For the kids, it is just a blast: our daughter switched from Swiss German to English with an amazing ease (keep in mind that the family language is French, so having more difficulties wouldn’t have been surprising) and our soon, well he still need to learn to speak.
The lifestyle for families is simply above what we could expect in Switzerland. We are renting a nice little (to the American standard) home with a lovely garden and a broken hot tube. In less than 15 minutes walking, we can either be near lake Washington, in the forest or in Kirkland downtown (that looks much like a vacation village: pubs, restaurants, ice creams …).
Pacific northwest is not know as the most sunny place on earth, we can confirm this fact but it is not that bad as some people like to think. Compared to Switzerland it is not that bad at all:
- more rain falls on the head of people living in Switzerland than people living in Washington: Washington state: 27.66 in versus Switzerland 38.8 in of rain per year
- It rains more often in Washington: on average 147 days in Switzerland and 150 days in Washington State
Nothing to be depressed about J.
Last point, I wanted to share about is work. Working at Microsoft in Switzerland or in Redmond does not really introduce differences in the way or amount of work. It is just so much easier to work from Redmond as so much people and knowledge are here. Then obviously the number of vacation days per year is much lower in the US than it is in Switzerland, I lost 10 days every years by moving to Washington State!
To close this post, I would like to say that I really feel lucky that my wife and my kids agreed on moving to the US and making this experience together!