hey there tildes. i’m moving out of texas in august no matter what and am trying to decide between chicago and portland. i was wondering if anyone here has lived in either (or both) locations and could help me decide by sharing their experiences.

i’m currently in texas and by the time i move, i will have only been here 1 year but this was always supposed to be a temporary stop for a job (that is very much not working out due to the owner of the company — i’ve posted about it a few months ago and struggle with it in my mind to this day).

i’ve moved around a bit, both in the same cities and across several states, over the past 5 years. im tired of moving and starting over, so im really going to focus on making the next place work for at least 5 years. the world is too chaotic for me to pretend to see farther out than that.

i had been reading and watching a lot of videos about chicago over the past month or two and now wondering if i should give it a try? i just assumed i would move back to portland by default because i liked it well enough and now im not sure if i should fall back to something familiar or try again somewhere else.

just want to say that i know moving wont magically make my life great and i know i will have to put in a lot of work to make everything work regardless. greener grass and all that.

portland

i’ve lived in portland before (2 years) and visited many, many times in the 7 years before moving there. i liked it for the most part.

things i didn’t like (mostly my opinion/experience)

• PNW gray, dreary weather for many months. im prone to bouts of severe depression and it’s a lot of work to keep healthy during the dark months. was in for seattle for 7 years prior to living in portland so i was maxed out with the gray perhaps.
• cost of living is kind of high for the size of city and offerings
• it’s a very slow, sleepy city that feels more like a very big town than a small city. sometimes i liked this about the city (less traffic, crowds) and sometimes i didnt (less “things going on”, especially later at night)
• the sheer amount of unsheltered people and seemingly no solution or even progress. when i lived there, it was really, really bad (2021-2023) and i’ve read that it’s actually gotten worse since ive left. it’s heartbreaking.

things i did like

• green year round, even if it’s gray and winter. beautiful outdoors/hiking, swimming in the river
• proximity to seattle (i have friends there)
• much more agreeable politics for me (Leftists everywhere)
• great food options, fun bars, interesting shops
• very bike friendly (newly into biking, was not when i lived there)
• decent public transit
• relatively friendly people though i did struggle with making deeper connections
• very positive towards folks who are queer or generally nontraditional. that’s important to me
• seems like a lot of creative folk live here

chicago

i’ve never been to chicago. i’ll visit in june to check it out. i also don’t know anyone there. this isn’t a huge deal since i have done this kind of move (only visiting right before moving and not knowing anyone) i guess 3 times now.

reasons i think i will like it

• liberal city
• great public transit
• big, dense city
• diversity
• seemingly decent cost of living
• people say midwesterners are friendly (?)
• job opportunities just by the fact that it’s such a huge city

things that are/may be negative

• brutal winters. i am not used to real winters. seattle/portland had very mild winters and even denver’s were honestly not bad at all. i hear lots of talk about chicago winters.
• crime. no, i don’t think i will be regularly mugged or killed like the US media makes it sometimes seem, but compared to everywhere i’ve lived before, it’s has a higher violent crime rate.
• friends/community. i’m in my mid 30s and it’s harder to make friends the old i get and that’s sort of my number one goal each time i move to a new city. also never really had “community” and would really like to have that in my life.
• politics. i know that portland is generally much more left and chicago is more generic democrat. this isn’t the end of the world and i don’t expect everyone to be as far left as i am but i want to be able to live in the same reality as my community.

huge wall of text, i know, so thanks for those that read it. i’m not great at organizing my thoughts in these posts, but i’m just tryin’ to figure stuff out!

if anyone has anything they want to share based on my likes/dislikes and your experience, please do! i really enjoy reading what the folks here have to say about things.

NOTE: I do not want comments bemoaning the current state of US politics on this post. Rest assured that I am well aware of all that. Focusing on that will not help me in my current situation and will only serve to depress me. Please respect my wishes on this.

So others here might remember that about a year ago I posted about how I was getting divorced. While nothing's happened on paper yet, my ex and I have lived separately since then. Between taking in-person German language classes and making new online friends, I've been doing a lot of work on myself in the interim, and my mental health has been mostly doing a lot better than it was while I was married, barring a few short-term dips.

Unfortunately, my unemployment ran out, and I'm no closer to getting a job in my field, and not for lack of trying. The German job market sucks absolute ass right now, and while my German language skills have improved a huge amount over the past year, they're not good enough to overcome the average German's preference for a native speaker, which in this job market is enough. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I'm broke and there's no clear solution here in Germany for that for me.

Luckily for me, I'm still quite young in the grand scheme of things, and I have parents who love me and are willing to support me in getting back home to the US, alongside letting me live with them in my childhood home until I get a job and can save up enough to get back on my feet and get my own place. The job market in the US is better for me than in Germany (especially given the lack of a language barrier) and I have opportunities for further education and career pivots that wouldn't be possible for me in Germany right now. This, plus the fact that I really want to be there while my sister's young kids grow up, means moving back to the States is probably my best next step, moving forward.

I'm excited to be near my family again and to reconnect with friends in the area, but obviously I'm also pretty anxious about the whole experience. I'd love advice from others who have moved internationally about little things that are easily forgotten or are left out of the usual lists of things to consider during the planning stages. When I first moved to Germany, I was a poor student who just had a few suitcases with me, but now I'm an adult with more stuff I own that I value to some extent. I've already begun the process of slimming down what I plan to bring with me to the essentials and checking which electronics can be safely operated in the US with/without a transformer. But I'm sure there's something I've missed that other people have experience with and I'd love any advice from people who have made similar moves themselves.

Also, any little positives about adult life in the US or bits of advice for once I move back are appreciated. I moved to Germany right after I finished my bachelor's, so I don't have much experience as a "real adult" in the US. So any tips to help smooth along the adjustment process or little bits of advice for someone learning to live as an adult in suburban Ohio would be welcome. And any positivity is extremely appreciated -- it might be a tough ask here on Tildes and I know it can be hard in the current times, but that's exactly why I need what I can get.

I have been overly obsessing about getting a new backpack for the past week without any reasonable way to move forward. I came across this bag because I was searching for something that holds my lunch box and laptop in a tinier volume. Here is what I found from Decathlon UK which not only fits my needs but looks stylish as well! Now, although I can work around with other backpacks for my use case, I really want to get my hands on this one.

Although the same backpack is available in other countries like Ireland, Italy and other EU countries, I have been unable to obtain this on the US site. Writing to the customer care has not been helpful as they asked me to get it from a third-party forwarded from elsewhere.

While I have acquaintances in EU, I wouldn't consider them close enough to have it shipped to the US as a gift (de minimis rule is going away by 29th August, so there will be extra tariffs!). I looked into it getting from a forwarding service and eat the cost, but it is stupid expensive and overall I am looking at about 80-100€. As a student, that is not viable either.

I kinda grew too attached to the idea of using this for my everyday carry for college since I only carry a laptop, a notebook and a lunch box. And I love small backpacks. At this point, I am giving up on getting it :(

Do you have any suggestions on how to get this backpack to the States?

Hello all, as the title implies, I will be attending my first ever large scale protest(USA based) in person.

I’m wondering if people have any advice of what to expect/do and how to stay safe ?

Thank you !

PS - was not sure where to post this.

When is is okay to give up on making a situation work?

I legitimately ask, as I’ve pretty much given up on most “immediate” family in recent months. As an American federal civilian employee, I found the rhetoric of my immediate family crazy enough to warrant cutting them out of my life. I can’t get beyond their clear contempt for my livelihood. Despite conversations regarding how a certain admin’s policies are making my life worse, I have been told constantly not to complain because it could be worse. So I have “given up” and no longer interact with them. There have been further conversations prior to this, but I don’t think it’s necessarily important to the conversation.

I ask this legitimately, as I am feeling guilt over it, despite the fact that I no longer feel dread or anxiety about it. I haven’t visited immediate family in over 2 months now, despite living within walking distance.

At what point should one continue making attempts to repair to maintain relationships, even familial, and when is it okay to end them?

I graduated in the spring and spent the last few months at home with family. I'm hoping to find an apartment/job in a major US city working as a legal assistant or paralegal.

I've never rented before, so I have questions, but due to circumstances related to the ones pushing me away from staying at home any longer, I don't have any parents or older siblings to ask for help, so I'm hoping to crowdsource wisdom here. I have specific questions, but also happy to hear any general advice for someone renting an apartment for the first time.

Some relevant context:

• Studio apartment is nonnegotiable. I don't know anyone I trust enough to be my roommate. If that weren't enough, I'm one of the only people still wearing a mask and trying not to get COVID, so it's gotta be a studio for me to be able to relax.
• I'm looking for a walkable neighborhood and good public transit in addition to affordability, so really looking at Chicago and Philly right now.
• I love to cook, but I know studios often have really lackluster kitchens. Hoping to find one with a usable amount of counterspace.

Those questions I had:

1. If you offer to pay a landlord the cost of the lease in full, is it typical for the landlord to waive the requirement that you provide proof of employment, or if you asked them to waive that, would they be likely to say yes? I would really like to take some time off, and coming home was intended to be that, but toxic family means I've just been stressed the whole time, so being able to get a place without needing a job right off the bat would be a fantastic setup to make sure this new start goes well. (If I save up part-time earnings for the next 2-3 months, I'll have enough to pay a lease on a $1200 studio in full, furnish it with the necessities, and feed myself.)

2. Recently I realized that when apartments are listed as unfurnished, that means no bed or mattress either. (I kind of see now why futons are a thing.) How do people usually address this issue? Do you buy a mattress and bed frame with the expectation that you'll take it with you whenever you move out to the next apartment?

3. Since I don't live in the city I'll be moving to, I most likely won't be able to see the apartment in person before committing. Any particular ideas on how I could handle this or what I should be wary of? I've heard of services where you can pay someone to show up to a tour and video call you so you can follow along (https://www.gandertour.com/). $50 doesn't seem too steep, but I don't know if that specific service is trustworthy, or if there's a cheaper or simpler way to deal with this.

Those are my questions, and like I said above, any advice not 100% related to these questions is welcome too!