Portland!

Ah, and here it is: the post where (almost a month later... but somehow in blog-time that's okay) I get to tell you that on day 11 we made it to Portland safe and, well, sound. Cranky, cagey, without a voice but with failing brakes, but other than that... sound. :)

The above picture is the house-behind-a-house where Celeste and I are staying, sort of like a studio, thanks to friends here in SW Portland. For the next 3 days I proceeded to take pictures of EVERYTHING... so for this post I just cherry-picked the highlights for you (hi, mom!) of our introductory weekend. Maria said that we still seemed to be in motion and truer words are rarely spoken. I'm pretty sure for the remainder of the time Phil stayed with us to "relax" after racing cross-country to get here: neither one of us for several days were quite aware how to react or cope with having stopped.

My sister scooped us up that first day we arrived, fed us a breathtaking late lunch at Marcos in Multnomah Village here in SW, afterwards letting us fall promptly and heavily asleep.
Yes, I slept for 12 hours.
okay, more like 16.
The next day we did things like join our hosts M and S for the Saturday farmer's/ art market downtown, go for a hike through the trails, community gardens and woods of the neighborhood, unpack the car (can I even express how good that felt?) sleep more, and meet Celeste's other friends here who live in SE:

(this little lady knows what's up)

If you don't find me at the beach, I'm probably in a bookstore... so the obvious thing to do was visit Powell's. And, because all of my friends are booksellers too, the obvious thing was for P and I to take pictures there.

On went these little excursions, on went the incredibly scrumptious meals (the headaches realized I wasn't on the road trip anymore and did, eventually, come back... but not before just one more bite of these Belgian waffles... oh my goodness...) the cold medicine and the gallons of coffee.

This is pretty much how it felt to step off of the road of such a wild, intense experience as moving across America. Everything looked surreal and achingly beautiful; smells were rich, tastes were as though they were just invented, my senses were on overdrive.

A great introduction to a new place, to be so wide-eyed, but it carried with it that emotional edginess of laughing/crying too... and there was plenty of both. Remember C and I had been packing and moving for weeks before we left PA, then the whirlwind week on the Cape/ seeing my friends in Boston, which I didn't post about since I had no internet or camera of my own back then. The whole thing together was over a month of rush-rush-rush! I'm glad that extreme is starting to settle down, to be honest. I'll be really glad when take-out goes back to an extravagance and I have a kitchen to cook in after a long day at work with thoughts of the weekend. You know, for example.

At Thai Spice on our second or third night after arriving we were greeted by a huge rainbow that stretched over the tree line and the shops in The Village. I almost don't know what was more beautiful, the food or the rainbow!


Just goes to show what a riot of sensational experiences those first introductory days were here, whoo!