These People are Weird, But I Like it Anyway

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So I flew into Portland on Tuesday and spent most of Wednsday there too. It's an awsome city. Probablly the coolest city I've ever been too. It was very compact and busy like New York, but it was very laid back and natural at the same time. oregon is really beautiful I'm in Eugene now which is in the Willamette River valley, which reminds me of the Hill Country, except with douglas fir trees. There are a lot of oak trees, sweet gums and rhododendrons here and I didn't expect that. Eugene isn't what I was expecting, and initially I was pretty disappointed, but it is starting to grow on me, and I really love the school here. They have some pretty rivers that run by campus and we went walking out there today and we were going to go swimming but we didn't feel like walking back to the river after we walked to the apartment to get swim suits. Jamie said we were crazy because the river is supposedly really dirty. It looked clean to me though and there were some other people swimming in it. I'm sure we would have been fine. There are a lot of hippies here and I suprised Scott by going with him to eat at a vegan restaurant with him. It actually wasn't too bad but I'll stick to my animal products (and wheat, I had pancakes made with sesame flour) We went to some kind of co-op organic grocery store and that was interesting but I didn't buy anything. I did however buy some organic homemade tortillas in Portland, and there were the best tortillas I've ever had. I also went to the Goodwill in Portland, and they actually had stuff that people would want. They had a lot of really nice designer clothes, and really cheap sporting goods. I bought a pair of ski goggles for $2. I figure I can use them in the Himalayas. I also bought some Lonley planet guides for trekking in Nepal and another for India and they were only $1. Well tomorrow it's off to Communist China, oh that reminds me, there is a communist bakery here. So I will write again from Beijing, and I'll try to post some pictures from Oregon.
http://www.travelblog.org/gmaps/map_23j.html

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