Here we are, more than half way through our stay here in Portland. I have to admit Portland is nothing like I expected. I'm a little disappointed. I'm still having a blast though but I thought a city surrounded by mountains would be more beautiful and less dingy(dirty, badly needs road works...not as scenic as I expected). It has some amazing spots, such as the International Test Rose Garden. So many roses in such a beautiful location on top of a hill.
Right before leaving to Portland, I made a list of things I wanted to do here. This is going along terrible. I hadn't thought about how exploring a new city would be so overwhelming, exhausting and time consuming. That's OK though, I will still be able to cross a few things off my list.
On the first week we walked everywhere and didn't take public transportation at all. It ended up in us walking an average of 20km a day! I'm still completely exhausted from this. But it was worth it. We got to experience the city on a very different level from now that we take the Max everywhere. And by the way, I love the Max! It's easy, breezy and goes everywhere we want to go! And it's super clean too, that's a big difference from the Metro in Paris.
What shocked us most, is the number of homeless people everywhere. Especially downtown. And they're not the average homeless people we have in Paris too. Some of them are young (in their 20's). It is very weird to walk in downtown Portland amongst the business men and women and homeless people. Most cities 'hide' them, Portland doesn't seem to.
And also, in Chicago for example, because it's the city I know best in the US, a very big majority of homeless people are black, and from what I've seen accross the US, it's almost always the case. Except in Portland. Most of them are white.
I'm not drawing any conclusions from this, I'm just stating what I saw.
I took these roses pictures with the manual mode of my camera. I hadn't done that in years and I used to mostly take pictures of concerts in the manual mode, very different... So this happened, I don't know how I did it but I took a bunch in Black and White.
We had a really hard time finding a tattoo artist. Most of them were booked solid for the next couple of month. We finally set our choice on Elli Adams at Esoteric tattoo. Her portfolio was impressive and she's very sweet! We're meeting her later today to check out the sketches she did for us and our tattoo appointment is on saturday. I can't wait to have this last blank space on my upper arm go away!
I brought six rolls of pictures I took on my trip to Corrèze with my grand pa in late august to get them developped here so I wouldn't have to wait when we come back. I found the perfect place I wish I could move to France, it's Citizens Photo. People there are adorable and their work is flawless. I got six films processed with no printing, and a couple processed and printed. Very happy about what they did!
The good thing about Portland is that people are super nice. We talked to so many people, everybody says hi when you cross path on a hike, people come to you and just chat... It's so different from what happens in Paris. Now I see Portland as more of a country town, not a big city. I guess that's why I'm quite dissappointed with the city itself, I thought it would be some kind of smaller Chicago. It's not. I wish that I had realized that before so the first couple of weeks wouldn't have been so rough on my expectations.
It's funny because everytime we ask people recommandation on what to visit or where to eat, half of them recommand that we go to a French bakery or German bar. No, I want to experience the typical American thing! :) Well, maybe not the beer. I love beer but it seems that people here love it bitter, like very bitter, and I (we, Greg and I) don't.
I'm doing my yearly treatment of Mexican and diner food. I love those so much and we don't have much of them in France. So it's taco, taco, taco, BLT, cobb salad and milkshakes. Good thing we walk plenty.
Another place I really liked in Portland was downtown 23rd. What is pretty cool about Portland is that it doesn't have a lot of huge brand stores, like Gap, Old Navy, stuff like that. You have to go to malls to find them. People tend to prefer shops owned and ran by local business persons. Which is really cool. But I have a few habits, like buy a bunch of Lush shampoos (even if you can find those in France) or check out the latest collection at Free People. I know it's silly and kind of condescending bratty behaviour. It's just that I love to do my shopping here because fashion and cosmetics are so different from the French ones and I love to use those back home. They're like souvenirs when I go back.
Well, 23rd had a lot of my favorite shops! I was able to get my shampoos, yay! And the street itself is so pretty! It's actually how I pictured Portland would be. Some kind of mountain resort I guess with all the shops I like all over the place.
We had the best milkshakes ever on 23rd at Moonstruck Café.
I think Portland is growing on me. I don't think I would ever plan another 1month trip here but it's not that bad. Chicago is still very much my number one city. How I miss the lake!!!
But that's a lesson. I need a lake or the sea for my next vacation and I'd also like to visit a bigger city than Portland. I guess I'm a city girl in the end. A snob one too.
Even though Portland doesn't have all the things I wanted to see or expected to see (the Japenese Gardens are closed for renovation!!! the one thing I really wanted to see and that's half of the reason why I wanted to come here in the first place. But that's my fault, we should have checked it first because it closed a week after our arrival), I think it is a very pleasant city to live in. Public transportation is awesome, you can find plenty of good places to eat and drink, you can hike, people grow their own vegetables everywhere in their yards (how awesome is that!!!)... It's just that a month here on vacation is a little too long, or a lot too long.
But I'm still elated I'm here.
