Orientatition

It’s almost impossible to believe that we’ve only been here in Portland for one week! It feels like we’ve been averaging 3+ activities per day, with lots of delightful family time and yet somehow also plenty of space for me and Ellie to explore the area for ourselves. Herny and Di live in a great walkable neighborhood, with easy access to shops, a library (we’ve already read and returned our first batch of books!), and parks, not to mention hundreds of cafes and restaurants.

It was Andrew’s birthday on the weekend, which we celebrated with breakfast and pickleball in the park, supper with Aunt Denise and her husband Rick, rollerskating to organ music, then (the next day) a visit to the rose parade, supper at a Mexican place, and Salt and Straw Icecream to round it all out. The rose parade was highly entertaining – multiple hours of Portland’s finest; floats, old cars, marching bands, dancers, clowns, and even a fire-truck/ bagpipe band combo worked their way past waving crowds. It makes me so happy to see these little groups get their moment in the sun, each performance undoubtedly the climax of months of frantic preparation.

On Thursday I took leave from the madding Ker crowd and met up with a friend that lives here in Portland. Rather than cram in a hasty coffee meeting, we decided to spend most of the day just hanging out. We walked through different parks, ate lunch and dinner at splendid restaurants, and saw some delightful spots like the Japanese Gardens (pictured) which featured an incredible exhibition of glass artworks.

I’d love to write more about all of our experiences, but for now this brief overview will have to suffice! We’re slowly ticking off admin chores and settling in, so hopefully in the weeks to come things will calm down enough that the ratio of new things : blog posts will drop to a more manageable level 🙂 In the meantime know that we are well – if tired – and extremely happy with our new home city.

Best,

J