We slept pretty well considering the snoring boys we shared a dorm room with. There are mostly boys staying here, which is such a bummer but we're dealing. We are meeting people from all over here, Alaska, Maine, and England.
This morning we hiked up to Tabor Park which is East of our hostel. The whole city is divided into neighborhoods and sits on a grid system similar to New York but on a much smaller scale. The neighborhood we're staying in is kind of like the Williamsburg of new york, its full of funky mountain hipsters (except they aren't pretentious). The morning was rainy but we loved exploring south east portland, the neighborhoods are full of flower gardens, adorable little houses, and extremely friendly people. We chatted with someone in every store we went into or every place we stopped and asked them about things from the weather to where to go and what to see
Later in the day we walked across the Hawthorne bridge that separates the East side of the city from the West. Everyone here cycles ! (Tomorrow we rent bikes) The city was much smaller than we thought ( but we were comparing everything to NYC, silly girls) Walked , thru downtown where they were having a native american powwow. A guy there explained to us what was happening on these indian reservations and that they are similar to a third world country. He said the department of government that deals with the reservations is more corrupt than most others. At the marina we met Terry amongst the mama and baby geese. He had been taking one particular baby goose home every night to sleep with him because it had lost it's mother, Terry has been spending years with geese studying their language and taking care of the orphans.
On our walk back home we inhaled delicious burgers, and chatted about future business plans. Portland is amazing and is our favorite city we've seen so far. It is also our first real destination.
