Portland

"I am anticipating being able to fall into more of a routine so that I will be able to blog on a more regular basis."

Ha! So much for that theory :)

Anyway, I am now in Portland with today left to go before I head back home tomorrow. I am very much looking forward to shuffling back to Buffalo. While Portland is a nice place, I don't think that I would like to live here.

There are a lot of appealing things about the city - but a lot of things I don't like, too. It's very clean here. There are city workers pushing trash cans and brooms all over. The public transportation here is great. It's very easy to get around the city and I like using the system. But that being said, if you need to drive anywhere the rail/bus system doesn't go, driving isn't so fun. At least not for me. A lot of people use foot power around here. At home, that isn't the case - I'm terrified that I'm going to hit someone because I'm not used to keeping an eye out for so many pedestrians.

People like to ride bicycles in Portland. I would venture to say that there must be one biker for every four or five cars on the road. That's a lot! And I think that it's kind of neat seeing them all using hand signals when turning. We've all learned how to use them, but that would be the day I would see a bicyclist using hand signals back home.

It's very green here. But that's it. Just green. And not many variations of green. My eyes are very tired (or bored?) of green - even tho' it's my favorite color. Maybe it's just the time of year that I'm here, but there doesn't seem to be much other color around. It's kind of boring.

The city itself is obviously a growing, thriving place. There is tons of construction going on all over. The look of the city is pretty - lots of little stores line the streets. It seems that there is a specialty store for everything here along with a million places to eat - lots with little tables set out on patios or on the sidewalk. Again, it looks pretty, but for me not very practical. I am not a big fan of little specialty stores. Whenever I've gone into one, I feel like I am intruding on someone's private property and feel very uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that if I needed to get five different items, I would have to go to five different places (at least). And who knows how far away they would be from one another. Maybe it's because of what I'm used to, but I prefer one-stop shopping. In and out, no one to bother me - all done in one shot. That's the way I like to shop.

And for Portland to be touted as such a green city to be in, I am very surprised at the number of smokers here. There are a lot.

I've done the tourist stops and without a car, there isn't much left to do. Except shop, if I were so inclined. I don't like to shop.

I did get to see Buffalo beat Portland in their match in the 2008 World Championships. Buffalo played great. I hope they were good enough to make it to the finals. I'm pretty sure that their match against Portland will be the last show I'll see tho'.