Xenops wrote:I have been to Seattle many times, but I feel like I've seen all there is to see. Plus, I associate bad memories with it now. Portland I have been to, and I am still considering looking there for jobs, or somewhere in Oregon. I visited SLC recently, and I found it a classy place, but I am not finding jobs with regular day-shift hours. I confess I don't know much about the East Coast as far as current culture, and my OP shows my naïveté, but I think (part) of my reasoning still stands: whether I go to Portland or Boston, I need know if I can move out of my comfortable culture and adjust to a new one, and enjoy it. Plus, I really want to be by the ocean again: I've lived 20 years stranded inland, it's time to be by the sea again (cue Legolas hearing the seagulls).
If you're looking for jobs in Oregon I highly suggest looking in the Portland metro area or in Eugene (but really, just stick with PDX). While I personally don't want to live in Boston, one major thing Boston has going for it is that it is
significantly more ethnically diverse than Portland is - heck Seattle is more ethnically diverse than Portland is.
We do have amazing biking, lots of good food (that is significantly more affordable than Seattle or Boston...or SF or NYC), two rivers (one of which no one who isn't from her pronounces correctly), multiple Asian markets (but no real Chinatown), an amazing bookstore, two awesome soccer teams (the Timbers and the Thorns), expensive housing, lots of gentrification that some people are still in denial about, the ocean, the mountains, and trees - lots of trees.