Seattle always feels like home, even from lovely Portland

We spent last weekend up in Seattle visiting my family there, and as usual, despite our growing love for and fascination with Portland, as former Seattleites we came away wondering (as we almost always do) whether or not in some ways we should have just taken the leap and moved back to Seattle. Now before I offend my Portland friends and readers, in fairness, we definitely haven't given Portland a chance yet, and we are very excited to do so. But whenever we visit, our heart always yearns for our old home.

Quick summary: We spent Friday working on my parents' place, getting the backyard into shape to have 21 yards of bark blown in. It was a lot of work, particularly because we were all fighting colds, but we made good progress.

Saturday, we took the day off and headed to many of our old Seattle spots.

Wallingford has got to be one of our favorite Seattle destinations. We stopped into Kids on 45th, one of our top children's second-hand (and new) stores, and April loaded up on some much needed baby clothes for Rima. Wallingford is growing again, some for better, some for worse. Ah, change. We were quite disappointed to see that Beso del Sol was closed - it had the best Latin Jazz and dance of any restaurant in Seattle that we know of. If you want to see what it really means to lead when dancing, Beso del Sol was the place to observe.

While April dug around for knickers and tiny pink outfits for our little girl, I drove around Greenlake with the kids sleeping peacefully, all the while dreaming of what it might be like to have access to such a beautiful location as Greenlake. There is such a hum of activity combined with natural beauty, all topped off with a strong sense of urban sophistication. Greenlake is hard to beat rain or shine, and at 77 degrees with blue skies and sleeping children, it is difficult to imagine any place that could match it for what it is.

Afterward, we headed off to Besalu, our absolute favorite Parisian cafe in Seattle (actually in Ballard). We have another haunt, but Besalu is the default, and will be getting a review shortly on IMissParis.blogspot.com, one of my new blogs. Sufficed to say, it never disappoints.

Next, it was off to Gasworks Park, one of our favorite landmarks in Seattle. And it was the perfect day for it. Warm and breezy, complete with seaplanes and sailboats filling the water. The skyline was crystal clear, and you felt like you could literally see for miles in every direction. Kids playing with kites, rolling down the hills, and climbing all around the old machinery made it very picturesque. In fact, I think I'm going to use one of the photos for the header image of this blog for a while. Pretty incredible. It also included a resident Junkie pronouncing that the war must end, and that we should all stop what we are about to do (which he apparently was able to divine). Ah, what would Seattle be without one or two sunbathing heroin addicts?

All in all, a really enjoyable weekend. And it has left us with a lot of questions about where we are, and where we're going. Basically, the questions are whether or not this feeling is just a romanticized view of Portland's northerly sister because of our experiences there, or whether the universe is trying to tell us something about where we belong. Hard to say at this point - but we know its too early to tell.

Daily we are increasingly getting sucked into the things that Portland has to offer, and appreciating its qualities more and more. Seattle is bigger and more diverse, but Portland is quirky and tight-knit, which is also really important in our estimation of a community. We shall see. For now, Seattle is mostly just a memory - A vision of loveliness though it sometimes is.