Temporary Living

It's hard to believe, but I have been out in Portland for three months. Three months and I haven't really blogged about the neighborhood in which I live! Now, I'm not going to give you the exact location because I don't want the crazy fan (yes this was supposed to be singular) to start stalking me.

Portland as a city is divided into five sections and a downtown area. The mighty Willamette River divides the city into west and east sides. Meanwhile, Burnside St. divides the city into north and south sections. So, you have a northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast, and to be difficult a north Portland area. The downtown area is part of the northwest and southwest sections and bordered by I-5 and I-405.

My apartment is in Northwest Portland, just outside of the downtown area - the Alphabet Historic District to be exact. Now before you get all, "Wow! He's a high roller in Portland!" I have a studio apartment in a 100 year old (fairly boring) building. No AC and oil lamps (okay kidding about the lamps). And I am right on Burnside, so I live in a noisy border territory. The sun reflects off of the building across the street...

WAIT! You haven't told us about the Alphabet Historic District! Well okay! Here goes: starting from burnside going to the north each street is in alphabetical order named after the original founders of Portland ... most of the north half of Portland is in alphabetical order for street names, just this area has been marked for preservation ... it makes it easy to know if you are heading in the correct direction because if you know you just passed Couch (pronounced cooooch) and Davis you know you are heading the right direction for Johnson ... however, you don't know if that is 4 blocks or 8 blocks away (actually 6) ... there are a lot of neat turn of the 20th century (or older) houses and buildings in this area ... unfortunately, many of them have been turned into apartment for punks like me (my building looks like an old business building turned into an apartment - remodeled in 1984) ... other than some of the main roads it is a fairly quiet section of Portland - a great place to walk around.

So that is at least the area in which I live. I'll let this information sink in and talk a bit more about the ... um ... uniqueness, tomorrow.