wishing Aaron a happy birthday in Portland, O-ree-gun

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First of all, HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY AARON!! YOU ARE AN OLD MAN!! HAHA.

We stopped in Portland due to the advice of our friend Sam back at home. I think things have changed since she visited a couple of years ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely city - one of the few places we’ve visited where sporadic green parks and places of solitude actually work, and scores of anti-chain bookstores and coffee shops to keep the likes of us entertained for a few days. It also contains the beautiful Japanese Gardens up on Washington Hill, with beautiful views overlooking downtown Portland and Mt Hood in the distance. The areas of Hawthorne and Belltown were a delight to stroll through; wandering aimlessly by the quaint shops and obscure thrift stores was reminiscent of King St in Sydney or Brunswick St in Melbourne.

But underneath this picturesque greenery-filled city and its cutesy retail outlets and its chirpy okie-dokey-dear-friendliness lie secrets that one has to dig deep to expose. Probably not so much a secret is the large numbers of homeless people, something which we are going to have to get used to being in the Pacific Northwest of the North American continent. There has always been a large number of homeless people in Oregon, but the recession hit here hard and the just-surviving-and-struggling became the homeless. Here, many of them haven’t hit real poverty yet and are still asking for quarters to purchase marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol. But the problem is so profound that homeless people are sleeping in shopping centres and inside well-lit train stations.

Another well-covered secret is the surprising level of homophobia in Portland. Traditionally Portland and indeed Oregon in general has liberal roots, but in recent times the number of anti-gay attacks has increased. The gay community has established itself in the Old Town part of downtown and also south-east in the Hawthorne area, and during the city’s recent pride celebration, numbers of them were urinated on and subsequently arrested for reacting to this.

Add to this Portland’s current mayor who is publicly out. And has also publicly admitted to having a relationship with a minor back when he was running for mayor. This private but very serious affair was kept in the dark so he would not foil his chances at the election stand. Without getting too personal into the politics, it is a shame that this city took one big step forward with his election but he has taken two big steps backwards.
But enough of this secretive doom and gloom, I must end this on a happy note for it is Aaron’s birthday. And I did take him to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And let him photograph me holding up the ticket. And lined up with him for an hour to make sure we got good seats. Oh, the things I do!

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Photos

japanese gardens @ Washington Park
we were lucky to see these flowers in bloom - which only happen 2 weeks during the whole year, apparently

Comments

[Elise]

hehehehehe happy birthday Aaron =)....what a wonderful way to spend your bday ranga!!! What a good sport u are for lineing up for an hour for good seats! How interesting about the History of this place....hmmmmm not happy jan bout the whole mayor bizz, but eh such is life! xXx