Quick! Portland.
Round up the usual adjectives and you get
"sustainability"
"green"
"great transportation"
They're all true but Portland goes beyond green to colorful rose gardens, classic and eclectic architecture, and warm communities.
I'd like to share my evening's journey through photographs, delving deeper into the natural and man-made worlds.
I drove to Lake Oswega, a community about 15 miles from downtown Portland. I'd heard it was very nice.
Depends on how you define very.
I'd say it was nice and quiet, and pretty and upscale. Like the sort of place plastic surgeons might find clients. It felt too manicured for my taste.
Like a pretty figurine I'd be afraid to touch, Lake Oswega felt distant, as opposed to inviting. It could be too outside of my budget and therefore the discomfort analogy. Though I saw a lot of For Sale signs on houses there. Maybe it's out of residents' budgets too.
I preferred communities I found closer to downtown Portland, like Hillsdale and Multnomah Village. They felt warm and inviting, artistic and solid.
I very much liked all of downtown Portland and appreciated the eclectic beautiful feel to the Pearl District, home to famous Powell's books. Across the street from Powell's I found a friendly joint called Rocco's that makes vegan pizza with fresh vegetables and basil. Sold by the slice. Delicious.
I stayed in the heart of downtown near everything, and I appreciated being able to walk everywhere.
Unlike Los Angeles, Portland is a walking town.
And what they call traffic, should be renamed Don't worry, you'll be home soon. So far everywhere has been easy to get to. Parking has been available, and lines in stores and restaurants have been small to non-existent.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, the Pearl District's Whole Foods was five times the size of ours in Westwood Village where people (17 million people in Los Angeles County) bump into each other with the regularity of car accidents on the freeways but here I hardly saw any people on a Sunday afternoon. Lines? What's a line?
People are friendly and down-to-earth.
Quality of life indeed exists in Portland.
More later.
