Every year, Portland sets up a giant Christmas tree in Pioneer Square in the city center. It looks so cheerful and festive! It’s not quite as good as a Weihnachtsmarkt, but we have Saturday market, an outdoor, weekend market near Skidmore Fountain, for that. Too bad they don’t serve currywurst and glühwein.
A view of pioneer square on my commute home.
We’ve been keeping plenty busy for the past few weeks attending holiday parties and music performances, exercising (climbing for Nancy, running for Hendrik), playing board games, exploring Portland, and doing our Christmas shopping. The farthest we made it from the city center in our exploration was the Columbia River Gorge, where we went hiking with Hendrik’s parents and their dogs. The route used to be part of the old highway, which has now been turned into an awesome bicycle and pedestrian path. We’ll have to try cycling part of it this summer. Maybe it will be almost as good as Fietsparadijs Limburg!
Hiking in the Columbia River Gorge.
We’ve also been helping Amy with her grad school essays. Fortunately she’s an excellent writer so all I really have to do is make a few comments here and there based on my infinite expertise on grad school admissions committees, which I clearly obtained by going to grad school once. Her essays certainly won’t be cookie-cutter given how her academic interests have evolved from large-predator wildlife ecology to artificial intelligence. I hope the computer science departments are open-minded enough to give a biology major with work experience in software a chance because she is brilliant and will knock their stodgy, professorial, argyle socks off.
Last weekend we went to the Portland Symphonic Choir performance “Wintersong”. There were some of the standard Christmas pieces, as well as a few more esoteric and interesting ones, including some Latvian carols. We particularly enjoyed a Hebridean carol played on a hammer dulcimer. The choir was excellent and was accompanied by a range of brass instruments, a piano, an organ, and the aforementioned hammer dulcimer. Afterwards we enjoyed tri-tip steak grilled by friends.
Hendrik
The Broadway Bridge is the easiest for me to remember and identify. Maybe it is because it is on Broadway, or because Hendrik’s family uses it the most, or because it is bright “Golden Gate” red. Whatever makes it memorable, it is our bridge of the day.
My view of the Broadway Bridge at sunrise on my commute to work as the MAX blue line goes across the Steel Bridge (up next). Bonus points if you can identify the Fremont Bridge arch in the photo background.
The Broadway Bridge is a Rall-type double bascule bridge, which is apparently quite rare these days due to its complicated mechanical mechanisms. Essentially it is just a fancy draw bridge and “double” means there are two leaves that open. The Rall-type mechanism involves a combined rotating and sliding motion of the leaves and counterweights to open the bridge. I must admit I don’t quite understand it so I’ll have to find time to observe the bridge opening and closing to see if it makes more sense.
Interestingly, it takes more than twice as long for this bridge to open and close than the others in Portland according to the Multnomah County website (which has some additional fascinating bridge facts), so I guess you don’t want to get stuck waiting for river traffic if you go over this one. You could be waiting more than 20 minutes. On the bright side, the Broadway Bridge is tall enough to accommodate most shipping barges while still remaining open to cars, bicycles, and my favorite, the streetcar!
The restaurants are not all that different but the pace of the meal and the attentiveness of the wait-staff is. It is so strange to have someone checking on me every few minutes. The food is ready so fast. People here eat too fast. It only takes 45 minutes between walking in and out of the restaurant. I’m used to spending at least two hours, probably longer! Before we moved, I was a fast eater; now I’m always the last one done. They bring the check before you ask for it. How is anyone supposed to relax? Usually Hendrik had to spend at least 20 minutes trying to get the attention of the wait-staff so he could ask for the check. Then you have to tip the wait-staff because they don’t make a living wage here. Ridiculous! Now I see why Europeans just don’t get it and get a bad reputation for not tipping enough. On the bright side, water here is free and they don’t try to serve that awful bubbly mineral water! I had gotten in the habit of ordering beer at every meal since it was typically cheaper than water. It will be healthier now that I’ll stop doing that.
Our per diem for meals ended so we cooked for the first time since we moved. We made chicken tagine, a delicious Moroccan stew, served over cous cous. Or at least it was an approximation of tagine since I don’t have a proper tagine vessel and I have no idea how to prepare it in a way remotely ressembling the traditional fashion. We served it with a dab of goat cheese on top and we all thought it was delicious! I forgot to take a picture so you’ll just have to Google it though and assume mine looked that photogenic.
We’ve been keeping ourselves plenty busy with work and house-hunting, but last weekend we took a short break and went to the beach! Hendrik’s parents’ friends kindly let us stay at their lovely beach house in Oceanside, OR. To get there, we drove through Tillamook State Forest and the town of Tillamook where they make delicious cheddar cheese. The cows looked happy so we stopped at the grocery store and picked up some blueberry Tillamook ice cream to enjoy. Saturday at the coast was mostly rainy but the weather lured us out for a walk on the beach with a brief bout of sunshine, only to start pouring once we walked nearly to the next town.
Basking in the almost sunshine before the rain.
On Sunday, we enjoyed reliable sunshine and brunch at the local cafe, The Blue Agate. We also got to see one of the highest tides of the year and I found a (nearly complete) sand dollar!
Walking along the road instead of the beach during high tide to keep our feet dry.
Don’t put your feet on the seats! I’ve seen this written on every train, bus, and tram in every country I’ve ever been to in Europe. Why? Because it is uncivilized. I’ve also seen conductors yell at people to stop doing it. These people are inevitably American tourists. Now that I’m back and commuting by public transit, I see it whenever the MAX or streetcar is empty enough for people to have space to do this. It is so annoying to see people put their dirty shoes on a seat on which I will inevitably sit. Trains don’t clean themselves! That’s it for my public transit woes today. More repat-rants to come.
Our two months of temporary housing ended this week and we still haven’t found a house so we are staying with Hendrik’s parents for now. Fortunately they have a large house with lots of space and a bonus: two dogs for us to pet.
My commute to work is longer now but it is a realistic test for what it will be like if we find a house in a neighborhood where Hendrik wants to live. He has his heart set on the East side and Nike is in a suburb to the West.
Now I understand why the Dutch people thought moving should be easy. If you have your parents around to help with everything, feed you home cooked meals, run errands for you, let you borrow the car, let you stay with them, go house hunting with you, receive your mail and packages before you have an address, and generally support you in whatever you need, then it sure is a lot easier and less stressful. Also the part where we already have SSNs, bank accounts, credit histories, know how things work, and the real kicker, know the language, all make it infinitely easier. I cannot overstate what a difference there is between our two international moves. I am happy that this one has a much softer landing.
EisenOrem Adventures 