Interesting and engaging writing. I had similar history; harsh winters, Norwegian summers and access to computers meant staying in with friends learning every bit about our computer overlords at home and at demo-parties. At age 14 I was interning at a technical university college doing Linux work. Eventually I made it to Silicon Valley, all starry eyed. Because of moronic immigration laws I was never able to try my luck there. The only off-putting things were real estate prices, and all the schmoozing which in the Nordics we call lying. Now I am a corporate drone and have accepted this fate. No more illusions and aspirations of grandeur, only the long hard road awaits. As it happens it is pretty sweet and I'm happy.
Go south to Berlin for a year. Move into a room in a flatshare in the east, go to meetups and you'll find someone who wants to start something with you. Your money will last long there, but your boredom will not.
After graduating from college, I spent a few months in San Francisco. I was not looking for a job, and what I saw (same issues describe in the original article) convinced me that I did not want to work in SF anyway.
After that, I worked for several startups in Paris. Tired of living in France, I joined a startup in … Oslo :) Unfortunately the startup died, and I joined Cisco because several years of startups were enough. I do enjoy Norway actually.
For the record: I am French, but grew up/studied in the countryside and lived in Paris "only" 3 years, for work, after graduation.
What I liked in Paris:
* access to culture, many theaters, cinemas, events, etc.
* huge tech community (tons of meetups)
* relatively cheap food and drinks (but I live in one of the most expensive country now, so feel free to disagree)
What I disliked:
* high rent prices
* housing market flooded with old and flats (and getting older)
* housing price so high that a couple of engineers could not buy anything else than a crappy 40m2
* crazy working hours (with the commute I was often back home only after 8pm), but don't forget that I only worked for early stage startups
Skål mine nordiske venner.
EDIT: Structure
EDIT2: Pics or it didn't happen!?
Me outside a Hewlett Packard campus building I particularly liked: http://i.imgur.com/pWtoVpm.jpg
Our product: http://i.imgur.com/VL1UQVF.jpg
Company story [now defunct]: http://imgur.com/a/6l1kl
[I'll be writing an obituary on it later.]