Hello, Wisconsin!

San Francisco was fine. At this point in my life I have seen enough major Western cities to experience them as a fundamentally comfortable and known quantity. I feel at home right away with well-developed mass transit, over-crowded sidewalks, Chinatowns, people on the streets at all times, tremendous diversity, Neiman Marcus, FCUK, and the Disney store (even though I have never shopped at any of them). Incidentally, Seattle was one of the more surprising cities in that it didn't remind so much of Paris and Chicago and New York and Moscow but instead really felt a great deal like Portland.
So, the strangest thing about my trip was that when I thought about going home, I initially failed to recognize that HOME is Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was disappointed each and every time I realized that I would be returning to Milwaukee.
On the flight back, I was sitting near a gentleman who was returning from a business trip to Arizona. As we were landing, he glanced out the window at the snow on the ground and the bungalows and said, "Lovely Milwaukee." I looked at him, trying to gauge the sincerity in his voice but, as I had only spent about 20 minutes speaking with him, I couldn't tell if he meant it. I smiled and replied, "Hello, Wisconsin."
It's not that Milwaukee is terrible. It really is much nicer than I thought it would be. However, something isn't right. Maybe it's that there really isn't a vibrant city center, or that most people who live here are from here. I need to figure it out so next time we move to a place with more long-term potential.