Portland Goals

 

In a couple of weeks I'll be on a plane to Portland, OR. I don't even know where to begin or what I want to say about it. After 10 years of travelling mainly to Chicago I have to say I'm confused and scared to discover a whole new city for a month. Mastering public transportation is my number one fear. We get to Portland at night and we'll have to figure out which buses to take to get to the place we rented. We could take a cab but I'm not really into the idea of spending $40 right after we got off the plane. Plus our luggage will be super light at our arrival and not so light on the day we have to leave, so... Taking the bus on the 1st day is a better option.

Anyway, it's not a post about public transportation. :p

I'm always afraid of anything new. It's going to be a whole new city to discover and manage to get around without a map all the time (something I really hate, the map thing). It was easy in Chicago and the parts of the city we were interested in were at a walkable distance from one another. We walked A LOT nonetheless.

Yesterday night I made a list of things I really wanted to do during our 30day stay in Portland. Some of them are pretty easy and/or don't really matter if I can't pull them out but others are really important to me, those are mainly about me going out of my confort zone.

• TAKE (AT LEAST) ONE PICTURE A DAY THAT TAKES ME OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE: I'm bringing my Canon A1, it is a film camera I've been using quite a lot lately and I'm planning on taking loads of pictures with it. It would be nice if I felt a little bit less self conscious about taking certain pictures. I'd like to try my hand at taking self-portraits in public for example. I'd like to take pictures in supermarkets, stores or markets. I always feel embarassed, as if I was intruding on people's life for instance when I'd like to take pictures of market stalls. I somehow feel it's wrong. I need to get over that and probably ask people if it's OK for me to take pics beforehand.

•  VISIT THE JAPANESE GARDENS: That's an easy one and that's the place that sold me Portland. Ten years ago I visited the Huntington Library in Los Angeles and was blown away by the Japanese garden there. It was one of the most beautiful, peaceful and soothing place I have ever seen.

• SEE KAREN LOVELY PERFORM ON SEPT. 26: About 3 years ago my Dad introduced me to the music of this amazing Blues singer, Karen Lovely. She's from Portland, I asked her on FB if she was performing in September and she very kindly replied that indeed she was on Sept 26. It's my Dad's birthday :) He asked me for her autograph :) I hope to get my picture taken with her as well (fangirling...).

• GO TO THE BEACH: I'd like to see the Pacific again. And Greg has never seen it. We'll have to take the bus or carpool which is a whole other adventure and it's pretty cool.  

• GET A NEW TATTOO: Easy one I think but you never know.

• MAKE TEN DRAWINGS: I'm going to bring my drawing kit, I need to have new material for when I come home to make new jewelry. And it's always nice to make this kind of things when you're away from home. It's a nice memory that you can keep.

• MAKE THIRTY BROOCHES: Same thing as the one above.

• WALK A LOT: I need to walk, I need to excercice! I've been stuck on my couch for nearly 8months now.

• KEEP TRACK OF EVERY DAY IN A NOTEBOOK: Last year I wrote down what we did every day in Chicago. It's cool to go through these pages again and relive the moments. And with my bad memory, it's kind of a must do.

• WRITE BLOG POSTS FROM PORTLAND: We bought a laptop a couple of weeks ago mostly because we wanted to use it in Portland. So I'd better do something with it.

• GO TO MARKETS/CRAFT FAIRS/FLEA MARKETS/GARAGE SALES: I don't think I need to explain this.

• TALK TO PEOPLE: A pretty hard one. Most of the time I go to the US with my French family/friends and I don't even try ro talk to other people, not even for a minute. I tried to let go of that a little last year. It's too bad I'm not more outgoing because a lot of people in the US tend to be a lot more friendly than French people. They make it easier to talk.

• SEND POSTCARDS: I always say I will but never do. I'd like to at least send a postcard to my best costumers this year.

• TAKE MORE FILM PICTURES OF US AND THE LITTLE THINGS: Last year I shot about 5 rolls of film in Chicago and only 5 or 6 pics had Greg on them. I have a ton of digital ones, but it's not the same. And for the little things, I'd like to have memories of the drinks we had at bars, the food at restaurants, the flowers we walk by, details... Not just buildings and landscapes.

That's it, that's my list. :)

I'm half excited, half terrified. I'm always dead scared that I won't be able to go. That I didn't fill up the papers right and the plane ticket is no good, things like that... And this time we have a connection from San Francisco to Portland. Connections are a lot of stress too... But I'll feel better when I'm on the plane, and even better when I'm on the American soil.