Why Portland...

I was listening to this representative from some place called Portland State babble on about how great his university was. 

"integration into the community. highly respectable. great programs. recognisable"

was what I heard him say.

It intrigued me, no doubt, but I wanted a place I'd love to live in and my sights were set on Chicago or New York or San Fran not some place in...

I squint at the brochure he passed me

...Oregon.

Where is that even? Probably the mid west. Yea. I don't think I can handle that.

"Any questions?"

A few hands shot up asking questions about requirements, scholarships and you know, other boring stuff like that that you can probably find on the website.

Then I raised my hand and said,

"So, what's Portland like? Is it a city? or is it more of a ....town?"

I swear, his eyes lit up.

"I used to live in San Francisco, and I moved to Portland because I loved it more"

Yea right. Get a load of this tall angmo, making stories so I go to his uni.

"I just moved to Portland 2 years ago, and there's nothing I hate about it so far, we have the best food trucks" his colleague interjects.

These people are obviously just pulling my leg.

"There's tonnes to do, we have really good weather. Doesn't go up past 28 degrees, 

doesn't go below 0" Tall angmo continues. 

(he used fahrenheit, but I converted it for us)

"We live an hour away from the snow, but we don't live IN the snow, which is great!" 

overly enthusiastic other colleague continues.

"There's a river that runs right through our city"

Maybe I should ask them about public transport, I bet it sucks.

Once I took public transport in LA and when I told Shaun, he asked me if I wanted to get shanked.

"And public transport is great! There's a train that runs right through our school! So if you live half an hour away you can always just jump on the train and it'll take you straight to campus"

You lieee! Get out of my head!

I'm not very easily convinced so I went home and googled Portland. Not Portland State. Portland.

For every uni that I've wanted to apply to I'd google 

"Why (name of city)..."

and I'll let google fill up the rest for me, just to see what other people think of the place. It's really important to me that I like it there, yes it's to study, but liveability to me is important. Just in case I want to work there, it's going to be hard if I hate the place.

That's how I ruled out Florida. *looks at Jo, who decided we wanted to go there*

I spent an hour looking at Portland, going through their websites, reading articles about this mysterious place and I was like WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE T.T!!!!

I couldn't even decide on one single picture that depicts the wonder of Portland so I'm just gonna go with this one,

So I guess tall angmo and overly enthusiastic colleague weren't pulling my leg after all.

There was even a list in the Guardian of 5 Best Places To Live In the World and guess what?

Portland is number 1!

Amongst the things to like about Portland is, 

1) It's a city, a big city 2) It's very artsy and scenic, very my kind of thing 3)Public transport 4)There's water, mountain, forest oh! and did I mention ALSO city? How to not love this place pls. I even followed their instagram account and there was a hot air balloon festival in the middle of a tulip field. WHAT EVEN? THIS IS NOT REAL.

I thought about this for the longest time, I mean I'm going there to study la, not to walk around the city and look at the art and think about climbing mountains (see how I said think?). 

So I applied and waited.

Waiting is the worst. Srsly. I don't know how many times a day it's normal to check your email over the span of many weeks.

And I got accepted!

 *confetti and marching band behind me while I pump my fist into the air ala Freddie Mercury*

Okay it wasn't really like that. It was more of a sigh of relief and then some panic because now I had to decide if I really wanted to go here and give up my San Fran (or Chicago) dream.

"I hope I get into all the Unis I apply to"

I said when I sent out my applications.

"I hope you don't. Because then you'll have another headache deciding where to go"

Ivan was right, I spent so much of my time narrowing down unis from 50 states to apply to, I was probably going to have another hair pulling session of deciding where I really did want to go...if I did get into the unis that is.

Now I'm still sending applications and I'm like, hey it's okay, maybe I won't get in.

Am I NORMAL?...this is hard.

So here I am looking at Portland once again. I told some of my friends who are in the US ( who aren't in Portland, so not biased) and they were like,

"Yes, Portland is SO YOU. You'd definitely fit in there"

"I can't imagine a better place you'd fit in other than Portland, it's very hipster like you"

(I'm not)

"I HEARD PORTLAND IS GREAT!"

I'm looking at all the wonder that is Portland and wondering if I should really go there.

I'm 60% on Portand. Brain hurts. Chicago is cold right?

Okay let's leave this for another day. I'll update you.

p.s. Yea, it's not in the mid west. It's above California and below Washington. Shut up, I bet you didn't know too.  America is huge yo.

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