Monday, January 10, 2011

Tuscaloosa and Chattanooga

I've always loved dreaming about new places to live. Even as a kid, I wondered why we stayed in the same house and never moved. On our first date, I remember really connecting with Paul when we discussed our dreams to live internationally and do humanitarian aid work somewhere. Somehow, six and a half years after that chat, I have my doubts as to whether that will ever happen.
I like where we live, don't get me wrong, but I still get those urges to pick up and go somewhere and just start fresh. And seriously, it's been almost four years since I've even seen an ocean...but who's counting?
So last night, Paul and I were checking out this quiz that finds the ideal spots in the U.S. where you'd be the happiest. It asks all sorts of questions from climate preferences to ideology and hobbies. Paul and I took our quizzes separately, just to be sure we were answering truthfully, and interestingly enough, 9 out of the 24 spots it listed for each of us were the same. In no particular order, the nine in common were:

St. George, UT
Tacoma, WA
Olympia, WA
Kent, WA
Bellingham, WA
Billings, MT
Seattle, WA
Provo-Orem, UT
Ft. Collins, CO

See any interesting trends? I have this suspicion that neither one of us are cut out to be mid-westerners. The rest of Paul's were mostly in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states, but the rest of mine...
...were all in the Southern States, and I mean the DEEP South. Deep as in Biloxi, Mississippi and Savannah Georgia. Weird. It must have been me itching to get out of this cold, cold winter that landed me there. :) Maybe I should start faking a Southern accent. 

5 comments:

Jenny said...

Ah, give Fort Collins a chance! It's a great place to grow up!

merathon said...

that's funny that there's such a Washington theme! maybe paul should start checking out jobs there...

i have to say that i absolutely LOVE savannah-- patrick and i went there for a vacation before we had kids and i've wanted to go back ever since!

Momo Cannon said...

Interesting -- I like those western states the best!

Rachel Sorber said...

Hmmmm. No Swiss cities on there? I'd be interested in an international quiz...

Marliese said...

That is funny...a southern girl, eh? I can see it.

But I am actually coming to love the Midwest myself. I like the pace of it al--the moderately populated cities, less crowds and traffic, and lots of church-going folk.

Interesting to see where people end up in life.