Love your article - I am a kindred spirit who long ago settled in San Francisco and I miss my old multicultural vagabond life in Rome, London, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney and New York. I speak 4 languages and I have often felt deeply wounded when some barely educated blue collar guy suggests "all that is snobby shit - we have season 49ers tickets". Maybe he's right. Probably not. I wouldn't swap any of my journey to this point.

I do concede that 50% of the expats in my former universe were terrible snobs. I tried not to be. I played rugby, dated locals, spoke French fluently and avoided the Brits and Americans who were monolingual.

I suspect you will be just fine in Portland and that you'll meet many people from faraway lands, and that one day you may once again take flight and go live in an interesting place. Don't forget that today's economic powerhouses are not very interesting places: Dubai, Shanghai and Jakarta today are no match for Hong Kong or Tokyo 15 years ago.