A place to hang my hat

I found a place to live! I found a place to live! I'm super excited. I've been corresponding with 6 or so different households over the past few days and they have either had residents that were too old, had too many guys, were not in good locations, or they had too many pets. Until now!

Now! I have found a household, of mostly girls all in their 20s and in a pretty convenient location with only one dog at 808 SE 43rd Ave. It's in the Belmont district which I think is a pretty good place to live. I move in on the 25th. Yay!

Just wanted you all to know things are on their way to being settled.

colorful houses, plants, and intersections without stop signs

For those of you who have never been to this fair city, the city of roses, quick update.

Portland is filled with colorful houses overwhelmingly productive gardens and bunches and bunches of intersections that, as far as I can tell, have not stop signs or traffic signals of any kind.

Here is what I've gathered.

Pink house close to where I'm staying

The tree about town, the Douglas Fur.

Blue house

Intersection with no know traffic guidelines

Somebody's delicious looking green tomato and beautiful garden

orange scooter and house with orange trim

yellow house with beautiful old tree in front

Flowers! Azaleas?

Rain!

Today was a very serious bike riding kind of day.

I hopped on the bike at 8:36 this morning and rode to my couch surfer host's house (arriving at 9:17). I was there to get a little social time in after they got off of their night shifts and also to pick up some stuff I had left there on accident when I moved residences. After that I worked my way back over the next 40 minutes of so to my home base and fixed a little lunch.

From that point, I went on another bike ride over to Burnside St. Where I applied to a few different places (restaurants, a toy shop, a chocolate shop). All of which looked charming and seemed at least a bit interested in hiring me. So that was good news. On my bike ride back it began to rain and I started to feel like a real Portlander, albeit an unprepared one since the most rain protection I had on was a sweater.

Now I'm at home base waiting on the rain to stop so I can go out and buy a back rack for my bicycle. I might have to just don a raincoat and brave the rain though as it shows no sign of stopping in the near future.

rain out of a skylight in the kitchen

New Cities, Jobs, and Homes.

I went to visit a prospective home today. Progress!!

It was a bit spur of the moment seeing as I called the homeowner and he said if I came in half an hour I would have time to see the place before he left for work.

Even though it was rushed, the homeowner seems nice and the room is a good sized room. Maybe too big for someone that doesn't even own a bed. The roommates seemed nice as well and the kitchen didn't look a disaster. There is space for a garden, and strawberries growing out front. There is also a grocery store within a couple of blocks. It is only 2 short blocks from the bus stop as well.

Indeed, I took the bus from where I've been staying and the bus system does seem ideal. It took me about a half an hour on the 72 bus line. That means if I get one of the jobs that I'm applying to in this area I'd have about a half hour bus ride to work or an hour bike ride.

And that brings us to jobs! JOBS, Jobs, jobs. Today I have applied to a grocery store online, several restaurants, a craft supplies store, and a vegan bakery. The day is young but the window for restaurant applications is over so from here on out I've got to apply to other types of jobs. Maybe I'll check out the old idealist.org

Last but not least, cities: Portland seems really nice so far. It's a very neighborhood like place. A lot of houses with porches and residential streets. Not a lot of fast traffic or angry people (not that there are tons of anger people back east). The place that I'm staying has the welcoming smell of lilacs which makes for a good homecoming after all that applying and exploring.

Vegan Vanilla Bean cupcake with Vanilla Ganache Icing.

Checking back in

For a quick update:

I have been staying with my couch surfing hosts in SE Portland for last night and today.Tomorrow I will head over to NE Portland, I think, to stay at another house for a week. After that I will stay in a hostel for a week. Hopefully by then I will have found a place to live more permanently. I have been on the lookout for jobs and homes and things are looking OK.

It is hard for me to express how wonderful people have been in helping me when I didn't know what I was doing or how to do it on my own. Two wonderful Aussie boys named Andrew and Murray that I rode from Chicago to Portland with helped me out so much upon arriving to Portland. Their friend even took me to my couch surfing host's home here in the SE of the city.

Dana, my host, has given me guacamole, breakfast burrito's, and banana bread as well as been a bike tour guide and a friendly conversationalist. She has also shown me some of the stores and such around her part of town. So, I'm becoming a bit more familiar with the city. And Rosie her roommate bough me dinner tonight as a thank you for helping to put her transmission in so that whole experience was pretty awesome.

It's been a good adventure so far and now it's time to buckle down and find some permanent accommodation, such as, a job and a home. Hoping for luck in the days that follow.

Until next time.