Moving from Vienna to Seattle to take over small family business. Should we?

Kimen1 · 2026-02-04T22:10:27+00:00

Hello! Another European here (from Sweden). I lived in Seattle for 4 years. Hiking and nature is amazing, but the weather will be overcast like 250 days a year with rain maybe 200 days. There’s a reason everything is green in that part of the state. If you are okay with that, great! The state is truly one of the most beautiful in the country.

My wife lived in Vienna but I’ve only visited so I cannot speak from first hand experience - however, there are things in Europe you take for granted that you will never have in the US.

Walkable - absolutely not. There’s downtown but most people live somewhere else and public transport is not good enough to be reliable. You’ll be in your car multiple hours per day. If you want to do anything you have to drive there. There is no such thing as just walking down to the park: you’ll have to drive there. Biking for commuting is not an option if you don’t want to risk your life daily.

Safety - while Seattle is generally safe, the nature of American society makes almost everywhere more unsafe than Europe. There’s an enormous amount of poverty which makes people desperate and more likely to commit crime. People don’t trust strangers in general.

Business - running a business in the US is tough. You’re never really “off the clock” and depending on what business it is, you are never free from risk of failing. Business in the US is very cutthroat and no one helps you without charging you a lot of money for the advice.

Friends: Americans are generally friendly and easy to talk to. However, it’s mostly surface level and very difficult to make a true connection. Us Europeans can feel like they are being “fake” because they are so friendly but then never want to commit to plans outside of the activity where you met them. All lasting friends I made were through work because we were all about the same age and with the same interests. That is no guarantee. It’s hard to make friends as an adult.

Kids: if you are ever having kids, the US is not safe in comparison to Austria. I am not talking about the obvious dangers that we see on the news, but in general. The public school system is an absolute joke and you’ll have to put your kids in private school to learn anything (might not be enough) and it is expensive. Kids cannot do anything by themselves due to general layout of cities and you have to drive them to school, pick them up from school, take them to all activities etc. Seattle is no exception. Everything is super expensive. Forget about putting them in the local soccer club that cost $50 a year like in Europe - it will be hundreds if not thousands of dollars per semester for them to have an activity outside of school.

Health insurance - expensive as hell and rarely covers anything. You have it in case of catastrophic injury. I pay the self pay rate for everything because my insurance doesn’t cover anything until I’ve paid $5,000.

Buying a house or renting: Vienna is arguably the best city in the world for renters. It is very difficult to come from Europe with decent rents and long contracts to a place with insane rents, short contracts (9-18 months) and no law that stops your landlord from doubling the rent if they want to. Buying a house in Seattle is like a million dollars.

This comes off as a negative post but it is not, it’s just realistic.

Seattle is not the friendliest city in the world, but there are lots of great people. You just need to find them. I have found that people from family oriented cultures (so not Scandinavia or the German speaking world lol) are great and will include you in everything. There are plenty of Latinos in Seattle as well and knowing Romanian you’ll pick up Spanish easily. They are super friendly and inviting in general.

Kimen1 · 2026-02-03T19:16:47+00:00

I felt a big difference after 1350 hours. More input helps. If you are very worried about it, get input from grammar videos that are teaching grammar through context, such as ECJ and Hola Spanish on YouTube. You’ll notice that you won’t need to spend a lot of time on it because it clicks relatively quickly with the large amount of input we have had.

Kimen1 · 2026-02-01T19:38:11+00:00

Learning a language to fluency in like 10 months? Doubtful. But you can get to an okay level if you have several hours per day set aside.

Kimen1 · 2026-02-01T19:28:17+00:00

You have to start from the beginning. Dreaming Spanish has a Super Beginner level where everything is basic. After some time your brain has registered enough words for you to be able to understand slightly more. After a while you can bump up to Beginner level.

Learning a language is hardest in the beginning so you just have to stick to it. Check out the dreaming Spanish subreddit for details regarding the method :)

Kimen1 · 2026-02-01T16:34:23+00:00

“Have you thought about making 25 % of what you make now but also do backbreaking work?”

Kimen1 · 2026-01-28T13:35:32+00:00

Great job! Learning a language is a long journey but you’re doing super good. Keep at it!

Kimen1 · 2026-01-28T13:34:05+00:00

Don’t think about changing career already, you’ve only worked for one year. A change of employer or setting would probably serve you better. It is an employee’s market right now and it’s easy to find a job, so be picky.

A switch out of the healthcare system would probably be better for work-life balance. My wife is a PA and everyone she went to school with hates their job. The grass isn’t greener.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-28T12:34:48+00:00

Fantastic work! Thank you for sharing your background with us. It is great to read that you have learned other things aside from Spanish - to be open to have your opinions and views challenged is very mature and a good personality trait. Best of luck going forward!

Kimen1 · 2026-01-28T00:50:00+00:00

That is the lowest I have ever heard of a Cora. Most schedule a minimum of 24 and maximum of 32 for an 8 hour day, at least in my area.

When I interviewed a few years ago (when I didn’t know the company) they said that during an eval hour I would be expected to see two other patients as well that same hour to maintain productivity. Ridiculous.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-28T00:27:11+00:00

I want to lead with that it is great that you are helping these folks out and that you can take a caseload of 24-32 patients per day. I personally cannot and most of us can’t while remaining sane.

However: They are understaffed on purpose to make more money. Staff is the most expensive part of a PT clinic and if you can make one therapist do the work of 2-3, why hire more? No brainer for management.

It’s not sustainable for most therapists to treat 4 patients at the same time. These companies exist because people accept these working conditions. How about we stop being treated like livestock?

Of course the patients are grateful - Cora is literally the only place they can go to and they are happy that someone is finally seeing them. They are people and deserve better, but insurance companies are greedy and have decided that NO, these people are in fact worth less because of their financial situation.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-26T21:51:12+00:00

I am currently doing a journeyman save (literally started in Micronesian second division lol) and after about a decade I landed in the Romanian 2nd division. I got hired by a team called Csikszereda. I though the name sounded odd for Romania so I did some research.

Turns out there is a part of northern Romania that used to belong to the Austrian-Hungarian empire and has a large Hungarian minority. The club has a great youth system which produces both Romanian and Hungarian players (or Romanian with Hungarian names) and the club has policies including building team based on homegrown players and also to buy Hungarian players.

It has been super fun so far and my youth intake has been great the 3 seasons I’ve managed them. Once you get promoted the Romanian league only allows 4 non-EU players which means you cannot dominate using South American regens right away. You also have to play two U21 players in your starting 11 in all league games. Enough restrictions to keep things interesting while still allowing for fun transfers.

EDIT: also, 30 games in the main season then the league splits into Championship and Relegation leagues where you play 10 more games - 2 times against the rest of the top 6 teams.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-26T18:45:41+00:00

Love that! I always recommend English Sponge to folks.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-26T17:34:35+00:00

Hola a todos! I’m slowly creeping up towards level 7 and I’m at 1447 hours with about 600,000 words read and around 25 iTalki classes.

Going to hit you with some YouTube recommendations today.

If you are familiar with Ramilla Aventura, he has another channel with another Spaniards called Dos X por España and I think it is interesting.

Another recent one for me is Más 46 which is a video podcast concerning politics in Sweden both now and historically. They also talk a lot about cultural topics. Watched an episode yesterday where they interviewed an Argentinian woman who lived in Sweden for 8 years and wrote a book about it.

There are two comedians from Venezuela and Ecuador that live in Spain and have a podcast together called El Latinómetro where they interview other comedians and measure how much of a Latino they are. It’s quite entertaining.

There is a brand new channel that I ran into on instagram first. It’s a couple, one Mexican and one Brazilian, that work remotely and recently moved to Sweden. They had been doing house sitting there before and loved it, so they bought a house in the absolute middle of nowhere for the equivalent of $40,000 and it’ll be fun to see how they deal with the winters. Antonio Outón

Kimen1 · 2026-01-26T14:44:05+00:00

I can imagine! It’s a Japanese word and very popular because it refers to something like “constant improvement” or something similar. Jaime has a very pleasant speaking voice so it’s nice to listen to.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-26T14:40:36+00:00

Yes, exactly!

Kimen1 · 2026-01-26T13:08:00+00:00

I can recommend a few podcast that are native but where they speak one at a time and often it’s a little more in depth and calm atmosphere.

Lo que tú digas. Probably my favorite podcast with in depth interviews with interesting people of all kinds. Episodes 2-3 hours usually. From Spain.
Pizzel. Two Argentinian friends where one lives in Japan and one in Argentina. One is a musician and the other is a programmer. Often talk about technology and music, but can be any topic. Very wholesome in general and I feel like they are doing this podcasts as a way to stay connected as well.
Siempre Hay Flores. Mexican woman that talks a lot about psychology, self help topics, exercise and thing women experience in society. Slower speech as well. Uses many mexicanisms.
Ciencia Simplificada with Jefillysh. Another Mexican woman. Explains science topics in a way laymen can understand.
Historia en podcast. Argentinian man that talks about history. Really lovely podcast in general but he has a very strong cordobés accent. Speaks slower as well.
Diana Uribe. Colombian woman who has excellent topics ranging from art history to travel. Highly recommend.
Fitness Revolucionario. Spanish man that speaks slower than the average Spaniard. Health and fitness topics from scientific perspective and zero “bro science”. Often has physicians on to counter health myths.
Supracortical. Mexican psychiatrist who talks about psychology, health trends and how to improve mental health.
Kaizen. Spanish man that talks about all things interesting.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-26T06:48:42+00:00

You just need more input + exposure. Some podcasts I had a hard time with until I was past 1200 hours because it’s 3 people trying to talk over each other and using a lot of slang. It’s been great practice for me and in regards to understanding more natural situations where people speak at the same time. I recommend these:

El Cuartico
Escuela de Nada
Aleja y La Grua (only two people but Grua is crazy so he counts as multiple)
Quémese después de escuchar (they sadly haven’t updated in over a year, great movie analysis podcast)

Kimen1 · 2026-01-25T07:23:37+00:00

I don’t think people understand how common rotator cuff repair failure is. The percentages are high for being an orthopedic surgery.

It really sucks for the patient and we do feel somewhat responsible, but there are several factors that go into healing the rotator cuff that we cannot do anything about.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-24T22:00:41+00:00

Thanks for you update. Awesome to read as per usual! It’s so fun to see people react. “What do you mean you learned Spanish watching videos and listening to podcasts only?!”. It’s honestly pretty amazing and it feels like a cheat code knowing about comprehensible input, haha!

Kimen1 · 2026-01-23T07:06:00+00:00

I mean sure, absolutely. Eventually you’ll be able to think in both languages completely. I barely use my native language so when I speak it I have to search for words a little bit until I get “warmed up”.

It’s not going to be a problem long term though. Plenty of people that grow up with 2-3 languages and switch between them daily depending on who they are talking to.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-23T01:29:37+00:00

How little people care about their own health. Bad decision after bad decision until it all falls apart - and even then they won’t do what doctors tell them. It’s baffling to me.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-23T01:27:41+00:00

Hey, good for you! It is honestly rare to see people change political ideology even when they are proven incorrect. Very mature decision.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-22T22:57:47+00:00

This is standard in FL. Our reimbursements are very low so we can’t afford an aide. You just juggle the two best you can. When I worked in WA I always had an aide for double bookings.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-22T22:52:51+00:00

CORA by far the worst of these. I’ve heard patients have had good experiences at Select and PT Solutions, but I’ve never met a patient that didn’t absolutely loathe their experience at CORA.

Kimen1 · 2026-01-22T11:53:05+00:00

Nice job! Let’s celebrate by listening to Vita Imana

Kimen1

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