some new fun stuff

kirsten

hi! how are you? well...let me tell you how we are. the weather this week has been absolutely perfect. thursday was the best—75, sunny and clear with a slight breeze. perfect. and some of the days it's been a bit hot (today it's 91), but truly, it's been great. so as you might guess, we tried to spend some time outside this week—which sometimes just resulted in walks or lying in a park reading, but on thursday we did do something tourist-y. 

we headed to the vera katz eastbank esplanade, which really is just an urban trail. the special thing about it is that it borders the river (the willamette is the big, main river that goes right through portland) and part of it even floats on the river. plus, it goes north to south so it's big for bikers who are trying to get from one end of the city to another without going on the roads with traffic, etc. 

it's a mile and a half long, and, by the way, is on the east side of the river, which actually means a lot. let's take this moment to give you all a little more information about portland geography. there are five "quad"rants in portland (quad means four, so it really doesn't make any sense, but that's what they call them). the river divides the city east, from west (the river runs north to south) and so there's the northwest quadrant, the southwest quadrant and the northeast quadrant and the southeast quadrant. but to the north, the river heads west a bit, so there's a fifth quadrant called just the north, where the river turns—see the image below!

I mean, I don't think you're stupid, but it confuses me a bit, so if you're actually paying attention to the map and care, know that the dark blue lines are actually roads. that light blue thing is the river I'm talking about. 

Right, so my entire point in saying all this is that you know that the west side of the river is a lot of the typical "downtown" area. it's got a lot of the skyscrapers and office buildings and some restaurants and shops and then portland state university. and then the east and the north quadrant are mostly residential. they're still very much in-town portland, but there are a lot of homes there and then lots of small, quaint shops and restaurants. throughout all five quadrants there are tons of districts and neighborhoods, by the way. I have a feeling we'll get into those more later—maybe we'll do posts of each neighborhood once we get a bit more settled. 

but there's you're overview. and basically that was my long way of saying the esplanade is on the more residential side of the river, and then crosses a bridge (called the Steel Bridge) that is two-level. the upper level is for cars and trucks and the under level is for pedestrians, bikers, roller-bladers, skate boarders, segwayers, etc.—yeah, there really is all that and more. ohhhh, here's a pretty picture (not out, taken offline). --oops, it's small. but maybe you get the idea.

so that bridge, and the esplanade connect for pedestrians and bikers the east and west side. that's it! that entire post to tell you all that! here's the deal —that was thursday and now it's saturday, but i think I'm going to save a few more things because I'm considering a promise to post every day next week and we're going to need some things to say. so I'll hold the rest in and you will find out about our weekend throughout next week—trust me, there's plenty to say!