Planet Granite

There is a climbing gym called Planet Granite just a few blocks from our apartment where I’ve been climbing a few times with friends from grad school who live in Portland now. I’m so happy that I have people to climb with and I even ran in to some of my co-workers there last Thursday so maybe I’ll have more soon. Here’s a pros and cons list for the gym:

Cons:

• A bit expensive
• A little crowded
• Required to belay with grigris
• Soft ratings for routes

Pros:

• Creative, fun routes
• Difficult climbs have features besides crimps
• Easy to get to (for now)
• Clean and well maintained
• Soft ratings for routes

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the gym but whether or not I get an annual pass depends on where we end up living.

Planet Granite, PDX.

Intercultural Consultants and Nike Headquarters

During my second full week of work, I had a meeting with Nike’s intercultural consultant to help me with the process of repatriation. You may laugh. Why would Nancy need help culturally adjusting to the US? As it turns out, one of the most difficult parts of readjusting is that family and friends expect that everything should go back to “normal” immediately and don’t understand when it isn’t that easy. The key advice is to set reasonable expectations about how smoothly things will go, be self-aware, take care of yourself, and try to meet people and build networks. That all sounds straightforward, but also easy to forget to do when you get busy. I am happy they are offering support for the process.

Since my meeting was at the main Nike campus (not where I work), I took some time to explore, learn where buildings are, and enjoy the lovely grounds. It sure beats the views on a chemical plant!

Nike World Headquarters, viewed from the Japanese garden in the middle of campus.

Pumpkin Carving

Last weekend, we took a break from visiting real estate open houses to enjoy a Halloween tradition that we have missed for a while. In fact, I think the last time we carved pumpkins was in Austin, TX in 2013. Due to the hot, humid weather our jack-o’-lanterns immediately turned into giant mold balloons and didn’t even last the three days to Halloween. It would have put anyone off from carving pumpkins, even without moving to Europe where they don’t really do Halloween. This year we only carved one and we are proud of our lovely, orange only-child.

Hendrik and his new scar-faced offspring.

Oregon Ballet Theater

A few weeks ago, we went to see the Oregon Ballet perform dances choreographed to an arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue for two pianos and music by Pink Martini, Portland’s world-famous multilingual little orchestra/band. It was my first time watching modern ballet. Until now, I had only seen the Nutcracker and traditional performances. It was fascinating how different modern ballet is, although just as beautiful and fun to watch. We enjoyed the live music and the costumes were fantastic. Interestingly, Hendrik and I came away with very different impressions of the story they were telling during Rhapsody in Blue. Not only did we fill in the blanks in the storyline differently, we also interpreted the costumes and choreography differently.  And here I thought we were turning into a boring old couple who thinks the same way about everything.

Embarrassing ourselves by taking a theater selfie. At least we don’t talk in the theater. 

Bridgetown Bridges: St. John’s Bridge

Now that we’re nearly caught up, I can introduce my new series, Bridgetown Bridges, so you can learn all of the bridges in Portland along with me. Portland is located on the Willamette River, to the South of the Columbia River. It has tons of bridges, all with different architecture, purposes, stories, and of course names. That’s how it earned the nickname, Bridgetown. As a freshly minted Portlander, I get confused when people talk about all of the different bridges so I’m going to visit each one and learn about it.

Up first: St. John’s Bridge.

St. John’s Bridge.

During our first week here, Hendrik’s parents took us to Cathedral Park to go for a walk, see the bridge, and grab a bite and a beer at the German-themed Occidental Brewing Company.  The tallest bridge in Portland, St. John’s is a suspension bridge with green, Gothic towers. It was designed by David Steinman and Holton Robinson and built during the Great Depression. It was recently renovated (completed in 2006). I think it may be the prettiest bridge in Portland, but we should wait to decide that until we’ve learned about the others. 

Going for a stroll in Cathedral Park, under St. John’s Bridge.

Hendrik’s first day at Umpqua

Hendrik started at Umpqua right after we returned from the wedding. He loves wearing suits to work so it is a good thing he found a job as a fancy banker and not a frumpy data scientist. He works on the 14th floor in a building right on the waterfront in downtown Portland so he gets the best views if he leans out of his cubicle just right. 

So far he likes his co-workers and he is excited that he has a fairly international team, just like he did in the Netherlands. 

Hendrik, the banker, in front of his waterfront office building. 

A Philadelphia Wedding

After my first two days of work, we flew to Philadelphia for Hendrik’s brother’s wedding. 

Gerrit and Val, the newlyweds.

Hendrik was the Best Man so we helped with some of the logistics and some miscellaneous tasks. Hendrik also threw (as I was told) a charming and entirely civilized bachelor party. The wedding and reception were positively lovely. At the reception, we all got to dance to Tassa, a type of drumming common on Trinidad. 

Hendrik, the best Best Man, whispering advice (or causing trouble).

The day after the wedding, we took a bus to Washington D.C. to have brunch with my high school friend, Diane, before flying back to Portland. Hopefully we have some time to relax here before we have any more big adventures. 

Nancy’s first day at Nike

A very excited Nancy started out at Nike with two full days of orientations. The first one is called Running Start (you can already detect the sports themes inherent in the culture there) and took place at the Nike World Headquarters (WHQ) main campus. It had a motivational flavor and involved learning about the past, present, and future of Nike as well as accomplishing practical tasks like getting a badge and learning about benefits.

The second day of orientation was specific to the Nike Air Manufacturing Innovation (Air MI) employees and included learning about the history of Nike Air and getting a tour of the manufacturing facilities.

Luckily for me, the Air MI building is easily accessible by the MAX (metropolitan area express light rail) so I can continue my habit of using public transportation. I gave driving a try on the first day of orientation, but it took me an hour and a half to get home in stop and go traffic so that’s never happening again. Since starting to commute by MAX, I’ve read two full books on my Kindle during my new-found “leisure” time; I’m currently in an Octavia E. Butler phase, reading the Patternist series.

Nancy exiting the MAX on her way to her first day of work at Air MI!

The Pearl

After our first few days in Portland staying with my family, Nancy and I moved into our company-provided furnished apartment downtown in the Pearl District. We’re enjoying the ultra-modern architecture, floor-to-ceiling windows, and central location.

For some reason, apartments in this neighborhood (even supposedly two-bedroom apartments) are semi-loft style, with bedrooms that are not separated from other spaces with doors or full walls. Nonetheless for just the two of us for just a couple of months this is a lot of fun.

Apparently rainbows are a common sight around here – especially when you have a good vantage point:

-Hendrik

Job hunting and House hunting

(Reposted because the original post from October 19 was accidentally deleted).

We stayed with Hendrik’s parents for our first week in Portland and spent our time adjusting to the time zone, enjoying the nice weather, petting the dogs, helping with Wedding stuff for Hendrik’s brother, and most importantly, job hunting and house hunting. Hendrik had some phone interviews on Monday and a 4-hour onsite interview on Tuesday at a bank. From there, we went to hyperspeed. The bank called back on Wednesday and now Hendrik has a job! He is still a banker doing capital planning for Umpqua Bank, a local Oregon bank.

We also started house hunting. So far we’ve only ever rented so we’re pretty clueless and have a lot to learn. Thus, it was good that we had a full week to see a bunch of places and ask our realtor tons of questions. Also, housing prices here are crazy high compared to where I grew up so I have to get used to that too.

Going on a house hunt! Gonna catch a house.