Portland rocks!

What I didn't mention before is that Chris and I are beating around moving to Portland. The other options we were thinking about doing with the next couple years of our life all fell through, so now we figure we can go anywhere we find jobs, and we've been really interested in the PDX. Especially after visiting and getting a sense of the area, it seems like a reasonable possibility, provided we can find jobs there. So... there will be lots of prayer in the next couple months, and nothing is for certain, but that's what we're thinking.

So... some things we really loved about Portland... for one thing, people are nice. Friendly, helpful, polite, whatever... they were NICE. People working in stores, at restaurants, wherever. I found myself really surprised by that, and then I realized that I'm used to employees treating me like a nuisance they have to deal with so they can get back to doing nothing. I'm used to people mumbling at me so that I don't even understand what they're asking, or talking to their coworkers instead of helping me (except for the woman at World Market who is always super-excited about the sales, or the owner of Zunzi's who treats every customer like a rockstar). But I didn't experience that in Portland, which was pretty amazing.

Another great thing about Portlanders - they YEILD TO PEDESTRIANS! No kidding... if you're standing at a crosswalk, cards STOP for you. Rarely do they speed past, or slow down and wave at you to run across before they get there, they come to a complete stop. We even had cars stop for us at places that didn't even have a crosswalk. More than once a car would just stop, and we'd be confused about why they were stopping until they motioned to us to cross the street. We were SO CONFUSED. It was like being in a different COUNTRY or something. Pretty fantastic.

And of course there's all the yummy organic and vegetarian food options... all the organic local beers... all the flowers and happy plants, all the yarn stores and crazy hippie stores... so much FUN! And best of all, I didn't have pollen allergies while I was there, despite all the blooming stuff... but the second I got back to Savannah my eyes started watering.

AND along with being very bike-friendly and bus-friendly, Portland has cool things like car shares... which I think is just the greatest idea ever. Chris and I REALLY want to stop being so dependent on our vehicle for everything. For one thing, I would get a lot more exercise if I could bike or walk where I needed to go more often.

Granted, we didn't experience much of rainy Portland. It sprinkled a couple days we were there, but in general it was mild weather and clear skies, great for going to Japanese Gardens and the Columbia River Gorge. I'm not sure how I'd handle 3 months of rain and gray skies, but... at least it doesn't get super cold very often.

Well, this was more rambling than I expected, so I'll stop for now. Off to be productive again.