Rainfall For All

From Seattle, we took the Amtrak coastal train down to Portland. The ride itself was a beautiful breakin-in for Amtrak newbies.

Portland itself had a great feel to it. The city was super easy to navigate, and public transit could get you anywhere. Although buses and light rails were options, we chose to navigate the streets ourselves and explore via walking. The first day the trek to get to the Greek Fest took us about 3 hours. Sounds as though we hiked a marathon, but in reality the weather was so atrocious, we had to stop off for cover every few blocks. Soaking wet, we arrived at the Greek Fest only to find that this "festival" was as big as 2 or 3 food stands and a shop selling kalamata olives. Don't get me wrong, I love a good kalamata olive, but our destination was a little disappointing. It all proved to be ok, because along the way we met some really great people.

One thing I found to be interesting, in Oregon it is legal to gamble, in the name of the lottery. You still never win, but instead of losing your money to some sort of casino, they continuously remind you that your hard earned money is being reinvested back into their economy to do things like plant trees or save wildlife. (I think that was maybe just the strategic angle that they took so that fools like me would continuously "reinvest") All in all the trip was fun. The parts of the city we saw (missed some "must-sees" due to "don't-go-outside" kind of weather) were really appealing. The city itself is larger than I anticipated, and could easily go unnoticed due to the very "neighborhoody" vibe it gives off.

In conclusion, I really think I would relocate to the pacific northwest if it didn't include so much precipitation in life.