Portland (West Coast)

Right after I left Seattle by train (great deal at $30 btw) I went down to Portland Oregon. My second visit to this town, I love it even more. It has a very warm & welcoming vibe. It's very artsy, very natural, very weird. Like they say, "Keep Portland Weird". Did you know that for any new improvements or projects, the city requires a percentage of the cost be attributed to public art? It's a great idea & really keeps Portland looking interesting.

I wish I had more time to spend here. Three days is hardly enough but I got a great feel for the city. The Metro there has to be praised. It's so awesome! It would be faster for sure to have a car, but the buses, street cars & Max system are amazing. Especially downtown where they are free, all the time. A day pass at $5 is hard to pass up if you are traveling in & out of downtown a lot, which we did. We stayed at the Portland Paramount Hotel which I rather liked and is located in the SW section. It was very close to all Metro, and is located at the top of the South Park Blocks, where there is a small Farmer's Market. Also, to be said about the Metro system is that they are all connected with GPS so you can call or text the number posted at each stop to find out the real time arrival of the next bus or train. Pretty cool!

It rained almost all of our second day there, which unfortunately for us was the day we went to the Hoyt Arboretum & hiked outside in the woods. It was still beautiful & we hiked up to Pittock Mansion, which is an incredible house - take the tour! A lovely volunteer tour guide gave a wonderfully detailed & interesting story of the house, and luckily for my friend & I, gave us pathetic girls a ride home when she saw us on the street in the pouring rain. A downside of it raining that day was not being able to see the views of Mt. Hood & Mt. Saint Helen's. If you ever get the chance to go, go!