After nearly three weeks, it's time to note a few glaring differences between Portland and the D.C. metro area. There are bound to be more, but these are for starters:
- Bikers. They are plentiful here and drivers respect them. Rarely did I respect bikers riding alongside me back east. Also my east coast driving style may or may not be considered dickish. I still have Maryland plates so I feel that absolves me.
- I have not had a bad meal yet. There is somewhere to eat on every corner of every thoroughfare. Do they cook with love? I don't know, probably. But the portions are generous and despite the love of eating healthy, you can get quite full and satisfied without too much effort. I look forward to trying more and more food trucks and restaurants as I attempt to look more and more like Louie Anderson.
- When servers run through their list of beers that you can order it takes like seven or eight beers before they even mention Bud products. It's awesome. Good, hearty, tasty beers. More please.
- Pick a bridge any bridge. There are several bridges you can use to drive over the Willamette to West Portland. I still don't know which is the best one to use nor do I have a sense of where anything is in relation to a bridge. I'm hoping to sort this out by 2015.
- Weather. When it's sunny and nice here, it stays sunny and nice all day. There's no evening storm because it's so damn humid the skies have to open up and piss over all your evening plans. It stays mild all day long. I can go running here (let's be honest, it's legitimate lumbering) at 3pm and not die of heat stroke. Just lack of fitness.
- There are lots of neighborhoods in Portland proper. Turn down the road from any main drag and it feels very residential. It's an interesting blend. You never live too far from anywhere, which leads me too...
- Everywhere in Portland is 15 minutes away. It's a small city despite a river splitting it down the middle. No matter where I need to go, I can get there in 15 minutes barring traffic. It's pretty great. I used to have to plan to leave anywhere 45 minutes ahead of time to get anywhere back east.
Listen, I'm still used to everything back east as positive as some of these differences are. I used to relish the humidity. Alas, I will have to adjust. And I am. These are things that any out-of-towner would notice pretty quickly. I just wish I knew where I was going all the time. WHY DON'T I?
Quickly, as the World Cup is in full force, Portland is bustling with people who care. I care because I love America. These people care because they love soccer. They are the self-anointed "Soccer City USA". They do love their Timbers after all. Anyway, I went down the street to catch the U.S. game and it was packed. Keep in mind the game was on at 3pm here. I know people everywhere get into the World Cup but I guess I was surprised to see a bar filled with people at 2pm on a Monday. Portland is the perfect recipe for such a scenario. In a city where no one works and everyone is obsessed with soccer, it doesn't matter when an event is going on. People will tune in. Yes, there appear to be a lot of purposefully underemployed people in Portland. They de-emphasize jobs here. It's a breath of fresh air in terms of conversation pieces. But I think many are staving artists and writers doing shift work in order to pay for an occasional craft beer and a vegan wrap. I'm not into that so much, but it was cool to have a crowd really into a sporting event. I wasn't entirely sure I would get that out here. Also, totally random: I met four people from the Montgomery County. Fucking small world, I'm telling you.
Okay, I'm off to watch a movie at some place called Cinetopia. Sounds epic.
No comments:
Post a Comment