8th - 10th Feb.

Lots of places closed in Portland because of the snow - schools, shops, the library.  I asked some people outside a computer repair shop where I might find an internet cafe, a rarity now, and was invited in by Peter, the owner, to use the computer in his office.  Cheers!
Lots of brick buildings here, rather than building with wood on the coast, and the centre is on a walkable scale.  More powdery snow falling, the blizzard passed though.

Light snow still, lots of places still closed - paper signs on the inside of doors saying they're closed because of 'inclement weather'.  Found a great cafe though, on Peter's recommendation, 'Case Study Coffee', watching snowy proceedings out of the big windows.  Seeing as cafe time is one of my favourite occupations I can hardly complain!

Walked across to SE Portland, across one of the bridges, several cross-country skiers out and about in the streets.  Seeking out 'City Repair' community projects, street art and bike shops.  (Apart from liking bike shops, I need a large cardboard bike box, in which to fly home my trusty wheels.)  I wasn't disappointed, some colourful stuff out there, amongst the gritty industrial, and smart residential.  The SE Portland cafe scene is pretty hip, and the tattooed, pierced, androgynous baristas know it.  They are 'Keeping Portland Weird' I suppose, I felt like I was spoiling the ambiance with my drippy waterproofs.

Scored a bike box!  At the only bike shop I found open today - the brightly painted 'City Bikes', with cob sitting bench, mosaic and bike frame awning.  Carried the bike-sized cardboard box for what seemed like miles back to where I'm staying - so glad to have found one.  It is interesting observing people's differing reactions to me in a city environment, when I'm struggling with an unwieldy amount of cardboard, looking scruffy, as opposed to when I'm looking at my best, at ease.  People seem to associate struggle, and lack of attention to appearance, with being in a bad situation, and that creates a certain amount of fear, or mistrust.  If I've approached people along the way, on my trip, I've found that I get the best reaction, when I appear the most confident, orderly, and cheerful.  Especially in a city, looking seriously in need of help, doesn't go down too well.  It really makes me appreciate how difficult it is, for people who are in a bad situation, to get going on a positive track.  I very much doubt if I would have been invited into the computer shop office to use the internet, if I looked in need of a hot shower and some money...but in that case I would have been most in need of a kind favour.

'Freezing rain' is the new topic of weather hysteria in weather reporting, after the most snow in February in 20 years.

I've been reading about Portland's 'City Repair'.  A collective of people, beginning at a residential intersection by one man, who set up a tea station on his corner, and an open invitation for neighbours to stop and chat - re-claiming a public space as a social space, inspired by the European 'piazza', urban spaces for community.  I visited this intersection.  What started as a tea stand, pot lucks and parties, grew into a community, now visible with plant pots, a mosaic wall, wooden structures demarking the 'piazza', a community-built, solar-lit cob notice board box, and a colourful mandala painted over the whole road surface of the intersection.  I had to scrape snow away to see this though!  It also resulted in a new legal right for neighbours in Portland to claim their intersections as public spaces, after the 'unpermitted activities' caught the attention of City Hall, and discussions began. There was a guy at the intersection parking his car.  I asked if it was his intersection, was he local?  He said, 'Yeah, it was started by the guy who lives there', pointing to one of the corner houses, 'there's a lot of petty crime around here, cars being broken into and the like, and he was trying to change that, there's a theory behind it!'.  It certainly seemed that people were taking pride in their community space, and it had turned an impersonal  intersection into an extension of home that felt welcoming, even to me as a passerby.  'City Repair' is now a fairly large bunch of people, across Portland, with a website, not bad from one tea stand.  This is a great example of permaculture principles in an urban setting - building community through positive action.

Other places of note...

- A Buddhist temple, no-one around inside, except several larger than life, golden, fierce-looking figures, piles of fruit, and my main impression was that it smelt funny.

- Buffalo Exchange, a large 2nd hand clothes shop, buy/trade/sell, my favourite kind of shop

- Comic book store, everyone with a quirky doodle and a point to make has their work in here, whether it's in a postcard-sized booklet, on newspaper, or in a doorstop tome.  Good alternative to an art gallery.

- A huge block building downtown, the 'Church of Scientology', with free DVDs on offer.  The 'commandments' were listed, visible in the window display, as well as advertising their 'Drug-free' campaign work.  The 'commandments'...all good stuff, and included in the last one 'to prosper'.  I suppose that explains the huge smart building, and swish welcome desk, someone is definitely prospering!

- Union Gospel Mission, a building with many homeless folk around.  Portland has one of the largest homeless populations in the US, apparently because it has services that other places don't have.

- The public library downtown; with free internet computer time, the library attracts an eclectic mix of people, people who wouldn't be able to afford a phone or laptop, an older generation of information-hungry library users who presumably don't have a personal 'device', and transient folk like myself, also without a 'device'.  For that reason, computing at the library doesn't have the best reputation about the city.  You get an uncomfortable insight into poverty and mental health issues, that the engrossed WIFI laptop users in cafes would rather avoid.

Slushy thaw now.  Flying home tomorrow, at great cost to the environment.  Hopefully I've learnt some things along the way to show for it.