In the Fall of 2017, I abruptly quit my job, packed all of possessions into my car, and set off for Portland. When I arrived, the living situation I expected to be in place fell through, leaving me to live in my car, parked in a WalMart parking lot. Shortly after - during a trip to the coast to store non-essentials in a friend's storage unit - I wrecked that car, destroying my only place to live. My family came to my aid and Western Unioned me some cash, which I used to buy an old Lincoln Continental - my new home for much of the winter.
Eventually, we found an apartment to live in and I got a job (for which I was vastly overqualified) at a local grocery store. However, because Hildur had been evicted in the past, we could not actually sign the lease, resulting in a hasty departure for the basement apartment of a quaint elderly couple which notably did not include network access.
Portland, Oregon
The culture of Portland turned out to be utterly perplexing for me and the complete opposite of what I was seeking from it - young people interested in contributing to an online magazine specifically focused on New Culture. I found the phrase "where young people go to retire" distressingly apt.
See: "The White Island"
The climate of the Northwest proved to be much more of a factor than I expected/could have imagined. It'd never occurred to me how irritating precipitation might be if it were spread out over weeks and months of drizzle at most; if it were unrelentingly ambient.