Visit Over and Looking Back

Yesterday we returned from our visit in Portland. One week seemed about the perfect amount of time. Our time with friends was engaging but not so long as to start tiring of each other. I got to tick off most of the top items on my Visit Portland checklist:

• Get more CDs at Everyday Music - the selection is unrivalled
  
• Shop for books at Powell's ... there's nothing like it up here, and the prices are considerably less
  
• Sample some local brews - this time at Horse Brass - Deschutes Jubel Ale on nitro, the new-to-me Hair of the Dog double IPA, and a malty winter ale from the Widmer Brothers Collaborator series named Sled Crasher
• Shop for music magazines at Rich's Cigars
  
• Acquire some Stumptown coffee beans
• Walk around Downtown, Division, Hawthorne, Belmont

Other highlights included a vegetarian dinner in a small restaurant staffed by volunteer nuns; breakfast at the renowned Petit Provencal; seeing Avatar in 3D; and getting stuck in an unexpected snowstorm that crippled the city yet completely disappeared by the same time next day.

It was great to visit friends. It feels like coming home, hanging around our old neighbourhood, and always sad to leave.

I have a few more pictures to share ...


Sarah and Nika composed a piano piece together. It's fairly simple and repetitive, but honestly enjoyable to listen to, not dissimilar to the music of Phillip Glass.


This is from a New Year's Eve gathering. Nika has just sussed me out and is warning the others: he's taking our picture!

Being the turn of a decade, there's been lots of written reviews of the past ten years, and I realised that a lot of things happened just about ten years ago for us: meeting and wedding Margo, Sarah's arrival, settling in our house, and meeting and making the friends we still enjoy. And driving home, I realised also that, aside from our years in England, I've spent the last twenty years living within a few miles of Interstate 5, and still do.

Looking back on 2009, our year hasn't been too exciting. Mostly we're preparing for events that will likely take place in this new year: studying, working, and saving, and awaiting Margo's graduation, the start of her new career, and moving to a new home and getting properly settled.