Au revoir Portland!!

After a hectic week we left Portland. The city of roses, the weird Portland with non fluoride water, bike lanes, ponderosa pines, maple trees and cute little downtown landscape. The town where people smile to each other, where drivers let you pass when you need to and veterinarians give better follow up service to pets than to humans.  I will miss your trees, your houses in the middle of the woods and your parks, your smelly old buildings, your scary art scene with funky paintings and your  obsession of combining second round movies, beer and pizza, clever!.

Good bye to the suburbs too! The big cars, clean streets, happy families and pets.  The 26 high way at 5:00 pm.. Not so much ,but it is always peak hour somewhere in the world. I'll miss the entrance to the tunnel towards downtown, the scenery of walker road and scholls ferry road, the hill toward our home which I finally was able to run without stopping. 

We said goodbye to our apartment after three years of creating memories, bye to the belongings that are replaceable but that also remind us of moments of our life: the blankets that I made for my daughter, the teddy bears that people gave her, the little kitchen where she pretended to make soup for her "nounours" (teddy bear), the bike that the thief didn't stole, the grill that made Sean the master of salmon cooking, the table that Abi decorated, the futon that offered rest to our guests, the shelves full of Sean's books that ended up  all inside a little drive. Good bye stuff !

 I hadn't realized that for some of the friends it is not a "see you later" but a real "good bye".  I like to think that people that have so much in common with you and whose  bonds became so strong it doesn't really matter how far you go from each other, life always find a place and a moment to cross paths with those friends. At least that makes the farewell less painful :)


by Karen G. Rodriguez Montiel