Portland, Portlandia, The Rose City. I was here. All day long, I was here, in Portland, the Rose City, and once again she made me proud to be an Oregonian.

It was amazing day in the city, even when we stepped out of the Smith Memorial Student Union Building and felt as if we had entered a recreation of the movie The Birds, it was still amazing. The onslaught of ravens was short lived and until I began writing this they had drifted from my consciousness. It was the only piece of the day that was a bit odd, the rest was wonderful.

People were friendly, the food was delicious, and the transportation system in Portland was not the one I had imagined, the one that is depicted on the news. I was so pleasantly surprised at how clean the trolley and the MAX were, and how normal the people looked that shared this mode of transportation with me throughout the day. It wasn’t scary, not even in the evening as we made our way toward our final destination for the night. What a great way to explore the city.

It was my first experience with the MAX, but it will not be my last.

Oh, and the young men in the photo, I have no idea who they are, but wanted to capture them on ‘film’, so I did.