Yesterday, in Portland OR, friends Meg and Ted showed me around the city. We visited a farmers' market, had lunch at a food cart pod where the Korean tacos, and the Thai noodles, were scrumptious, shopped at The Real Mother Goose- a veritable wonderland of beautiful crafts, visited the Nike Tower and had dinner at Ping, a pan-Asian restaurant that, deservedly, gets rave reviews from many - including me.
We spent last weekend at Meg and Ted's beach house in Oceanside,OR where we walked on the beach as the waves of the Pacific Ocean washed onto the shore, visited and bought lovely things to eat and to wear at the Tillamook Farmers' Market, visited a lighthouse, had cappuccino at a coffee place by the beach, and saw cheese being made at the Tillamook Cheese factory.
Portland is a lovely city. It's small by NYC standards AND it's clean, manageable, has good public transportation and lots of good food, restaurants and street food carts. As in Seattle, people are concerned about the environment and take measures to preserve it. The people I met were friendly, hospitable, helpful and pleasant. The lifestyle seems very pleasant and the vibe is mellow yet interesting. The weather was lovely during my stay - sunny, warm but not hot,there was little, if any, detectable humidity.
Portland and Seattle seem like lovely places to live. For a "dyed in the wool" New Yorker of my ilk, the only thing missing is the "gorgeous mosaic" that results from the amazing racial, ethnic, religious, cultural... diversity that one finds in the crazy, densely populated, frenetic city that I call home. I had a wonderful time in SF and Portland. My friends there are awesome and.... being back home is good. :)
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