I’m excited to finally share some snapshots from my trip to Portland with all of you. This is my second time visiting this wonderful city, and I feel like I’ve fallen even more in love with it. I had such a great experience on my trip that I even got a bit teary-eyed at the airport upon realizing that I was about to leave the city and my friends. You can definitely say that reentering the work life has been quite challenging for me.
I have to say that it was really hard not to post every single picture that I had since I have so many great memories from this past weekend. The funny thing is that I wouldn’t have been able to compile these photos without the help of my bestie Laura. I unfortunately forgot my DSLR at home and, therefore, I had to resort to taking pictures with my iPhone. Laura was kind enough to send me some of the pictures that she took with her camera.
One thing that I really enjoyed about Portland is how many beautiful parks there are and how close you are to nature. Working at a desk job, I constantly spend most of my time sitting in front of a computer; I do the same when I get home. Over the weekend, my friends and I visited both
Laurelhurst Park and
Cathedral City Park, and I realized how nice it was to step away from a computer screen and spend time outdoors hanging out with my friends. It was also nice to see so many people outside with their families and friends, interacting as a community. Living in Los Angeles, it seems like everybody is always in their car and in a hurry to get somewhere. Therefore, it was a nice change to see people making an effort to interact with each other.
During my trip, my friends Kelsey, Laura, Candace, Linda and I went berry picking at
Columbia Farms U-Pick and had a blast! They currently have raspberries and blueberries in season, and we stocked up on both. I definitely want to do some sort of similar activity at home, since it’s so much fun and more affordable than buying berries at the supermarket.
My favorite part about Portland has to be the food and coffee culture. If you know me well enough, you probably already know that I’m constantly hungry and that most of my social life revolves around eating food and drinking coffee. I really enjoyed eating at the many street food vendors around the city. However, my favorite food experience had to be the Portland State University Farmer’s Market. They have so many cool food vendors and live music, and it’s a very lively place to spend the weekend.
As I mentioned before, I love drinking coffee. My friend Candace, whom I visited, and I actually developed a strong friendship because of our love of exploring new coffee shops. My first coffee stop was
Heart Coffee Roasters, where I met my friend Candace after I arrived in Portland. I of course loved the coffee and the minimalistic style of the shop, and I have to say that Heart Coffee Roasters was my favorite coffee shop; I’m such a creature of habit that I visited more than once while I was in town. During my weekend coffee crawl, I also visited
Stumptown Coffee Roasters at the Ace Hotel, and
The Fresh Pot Coffee which also brewed Stumptown. I also really enjoyed getting coffee at
Pearl Bakery because they had amazing pastries!
There were many things about my trip to Portland that made me rethink about where I’m heading in life. My vacation made me realize that I hadn’t been feeling very at ease in a while, and that I need to make it one of my goals to be in an environment or place that makes me feel comfortable and happy. I feel like lately my sole focus in life has been my career. While thinking about my career path, I’ve also been very adamant about leaving Los Angeles. The short time that I spent in Portland made me realize that maybe I could use a change of scenery for a while, and that I can be happy living somewhere else than where I currently am. With that in mind, we’ll see where life takes me.
xoxo,
Helen Grace
Photos by Laura and Me
