After spending Saturday-Tuesday in Seattle, walking around and exploring the city, I realized how much I like Seattle as well. Since it's a pretty good big city, there are always a lot of people out and there's a lot to do. It seemed like an exciting place to be and I looked forward to many more hours of exploring and enjoying what the city has to offer. Then, we spent Wednesday in Portland, which I had liked more than Seattle. But, this time I realized that Portland didn't have a lot of those same things that I enjoyed when I was in Seattle. Portland, being a small city, lacked the architecture, the foot traffic, and the potential for exploring that Seattle had. Portland did seem to have better natural beauty within the city limits, and it does have better parks, but it just didn't interest me as much this time as it did the last time I visited.

The contrast between Seattle and Portland always reminds me of the contrast between Dallas and Fort Worth, as those are the two cities I'm most familiar with. Even though the cities are very different in a lot of ways, Seattle reminds me of Dallas in size and Portland reminds me of Fort Worth in size. I grew up in Fort Worth and it's a big enough city for most things, but now that I've lived in Dallas, Fort Worth just seems so small. For example, I'd rather have the choice of going to one of Dallas' three independent theaters than have to go to Fort Worth's half a theater. And that's what I like about big cities, there are so many options, you don't have to go to the same places all the time, and there's so much to see and do. As cool as Portland is in a lot of ways, it just seemed that it would get dull to me more quickly. Plus, while a lot of people would just consider Portland to be a cooler place, with its art galleries and counter culture, I'm a mainstream enough person (for better or worse) that I really don't see a reason to consider that kind of stuff very much. Throughout the day in Portland I was almost afraid that I would get what I wished for and I kept trying to convince myself of things I liked about Portland - the light rail, the walkability, the parks (and the cheaper rent rates) - but I still realized that Seattle would be a better place to live in a lot of ways. So, anyway, we'll see how things go, but I think I've changed bandwagons.