SO--- I flew into Portland on Friday the 12th where Josh picked me up and we proceeded to explore the city. (a place to which neither of us have visited)
Portland is unlike any city I have ever been to. Running through the middle of the city is the Willamette River, which is currently undergoing a clean river project, so the water is very clear
and blue. On the west side of the river is a big park which is the home to many different
festivals throughout the year. During this particular weekend the Portland Pride festival was going on and it was really fun! There was a nudist bicycle brigade consisting of about 50 individuals that paraded through the center of the action and I found it very amusing to say the least.
Another cool thing that Portland has to offer is the weekly Saturday Market at which tons of different art vendors set up tents and sell all differ
ent sorts of clothes, sculptures, paintings, instrument
s, jewelry, you name it. It reminded me of Comfest in Columbus. I got a green hat and
a really cool brown tyedye shirt.
Even though I only spent
a few days in the city, there were SO many things that I loved about it.
To name a few...
- It's clean! (in many aspects) The first thing I noticed about the city was the smell. Everything smelled really clean and pure. The city is covered in all sorts of trees and vegetation and parks are ubiquitous. There is also literally no trash on the ground... anywhere. It seems that everyone here is very environmentally conscious (how fitting?) and takes pride in a clean city. I think this is especially interesting because Portland is th
e runaway capital of the world and
is home to a lot of homeless people.
- Almost everyone uses public transit. The city's main form of transportation is the Max -- a light rail which runs all over the city and is cheap (or free in some places) to ride. Even during rush hour the roads were scarce of cars - this probably has a lot to do with the cleanliness of the city. If people chose not to ride the Max, pretty much everyone else was walking, riding a bike, or skateboarding. Awesome!
- Everyone is really friendly. It's the norm
to say hello to strangers in passing, and everywhere we went we talked to people and people talked to us. It's a very warm and welcoming environment.
- Even though its a big city, almost 600,000, it in no way feels like a big city. Everything is really spaced out and nothing is really ever crowded.
After departing Portland, we took the 1.5 hour drive up to Estacada, OR where my internship is based. Even though Portland is surrounded by mountains, driving up into the Cascade mountains took my breath away! The mountains are SO tall and covered in really tall pine trees. The farther we got up the more it felt like we were driving in a cloud. There is a big river, the Clackamas, running through the middle a
nd is occupied by the occasional fisherman or rafter.
I haven't been able to see Mt. Hood yet because its been pretty hazy the last couple days, but I hear that its a spectacle and will be posting a pictur
e of it as soon as I spot it!
There are some little quirks about Oregon that I noticed are very different than Columbus. It is illegal in Oregon to pump your own gas, so at ever gas station stop we would just wait for the attendant to come out and fill 'er up. Oregon also has tons of CLEAN ENERGY! For a large portion of our drive to Pendelton (where we are doing a week of training and is 3 hours away)
wind generators peppered the mountains. For the duration of our drive n
ext to the Columbia river, we also passed two large hydro power plants which were really cool! and big!
Well tomorrow is our first official day of training and I have been informed that the first thing we do is a 5-mile snorkel down the river to spot fish. SO EXCITED! I'll post more after that goes down.
woohoo!
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