PORTLAND DOESN'T REQUIRE A PASSPORT. That's the only reason it's not on the list. That, and if I was including US cities I needed to get to and visit people in the list would be infinitely long (well... at least four or five cities longer).

I worry that if I expand my vacation to places outside of a specific city I will get distracted and never come back again. Like, if I went out to see castles and history and vineyards and TV show sets I'd just kind of forget about my return flight and next thing I'd know it'd be about three months later, I'd be hitchhiking around Holland or something, and I'd also have accidentally become a citizen of Luxembourg after a brief Las Vegas-style fling during the fifth week of my vacation. Whereas if I limit myself to the city limits I can do a lot of walking around and seeing things people don't ever remember to tell you to see.

I think I've ruled Tokyo out at this point, because it'd be too expensive, I'd be really overwhelmed, and you'd hate me. I'm not sure if I'll ever not be torn between London and Paris, though. I know I'd probably have an easy time in London, I'd enjoy the accents, and it'd be a good place to start since I'm an inexperienced tourist and I'll (most likely) be traveling alone. But there's no way I could be in England and not go to Stratford-upon-Avon, and that throws me into the whole infinite distraction problem, especially since Oxford is along the way. And Paris... the food would be better, I could help young hooligans throw Smart cars into the Seine, and I did manage to remember on my own that "Help!" is "Au secours!" so I'd probably be okay there, too (though the morning conversations I keep imagining with café owners are frustratingly brief and entirely about how "Il fait chaud" or "Je suis americaine, mais ici je pretends que je suis canadienne. Puis-je avoir un croissant?" or my old standby "J'ai un couteau, j'ai un couteau, regardez mon bon manteau!" (the latter being particularly unsuited to airports). I should've known better than to devote my French skills to nonsense all through high school and college).

And here I've just realized how stupid-close London and Paris are, because Marseilles is actually farther from Paris than London. It's a shame three days in each wouldn't be nearly enough.

I think it's Trip to the Library for Tour Guides time!