Finally back home to Seattle. Home this time being a Hacker House in Wallingford, which turns out to be a fairly nice area between the hipster lounge that is Ballard and Fremont and the University of Washington. It’s an annoying 10 minute walk anywhere, but past that I don’t have any complaints. The common room of the house has a bunch of nice desks, and it overlooks Lake Union.

On the walk over towards Fremont is the famed Fremont Troll. Under the bridge of course, because that’s where trolls live.

Not far from there is Stoneway Cafe, the place that I made my working home for when I wanted someplace close by that got me out of the house. They have good vegetarian lunches and reasonably priced craft beers, so it’s a winner in my book. Then again, this part of Seattle has no shortage of vegetarian options, which is quite the contrast from Mexico and Central America. They have a lot of live music too, which is fine I guess.

I’ve done a lot of walking. I walked all the way around Green Lake, which ended up being almost 10 miles. I also went running in the Washington Park Arboretum. There’s a pretty nice trail most of the way there, plenty of places to run in this area. And there’s always Gas Works Park, which is a great place to look at the city and catch a sunset. So really just trying to pick up normal lifestyle habits again.

Food is very expensive here. Even for America. But Trader Joe’s is a bit better, and it’s not too far of a walk.

I had coffee at Milstead & Co a couple times. It’s more artisan coffee (they use thermometers and such for the perfect brew) for my liking, and not a good place to sit around and work for too long. While I’m on coffee shops, Caffe Ladro was a good place to work from, as is Starbucks (not sure if you’ve heard of it).

The Fremont Brewery is a few minutes from where I live too, so that’s easy. But no wifi there, which is sad.

I ate breakfast at Voula’s Offshore Cafe, which apparently was featured in Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. I sat at the old-timey bar area and watched the hash brown guy work for like an hour, which was pretty impressive. It was a ton of food and quite expensive, but it was a nice welcome back to the states.

Other than that, I just did some normal Seattle stuff again. Wandered downtown and went to the library a lot, and visited the Pike Place market a couple times as well.

Oh, and Top Pot is a big thing here, and it was National Donut Day. So while it’s not really on my diet (or anyone’s), I did partake a little bit. And really, this top pot had a really nice interior and great place to work up on the second floor.

On my last night there, the Hacker House was unavailable, so I moved downtown to a hostel. The guy did a big inspiring speech about how this was the fun hostel, and if you weren’t a fun, social person then he had some other recommendations for you. He was saying it rhetorically, but I was tempted. But anyways, a quality place for a good price right in the middle of the city, so it was fine with me.

And then a long overnight flight across the country, and I was finally back in NY after about 5 months of traveling.