My Portland Bucketlist

photo cred: Brian (Thanks for letting me use your pic, bae!)

Having lived in Portland for five months already, I realized there is still a lot of this city to explore.  It's not the biggest city in the country, but it's the biggest one I've ever lived in!  I thought that once I moved here, I would explore as much as I could as soon as I could, but time gets away from you and then you're sitting there thinking, "Oh, wow, I still haven't checked this place out or tried this one restaurant, and when am I going to have the time to do all this now?!"  Even if you've lived somewhere all your life, it's nice to take some time to be a tourist in your own town, and now it's my turn to see what the City of Roses has to offer.

1. Go to VooDoo Donuts.  Okay, I know that it just screams "TOURIST" if you go to VD, but hey, I like donuts, so I gotta try it.  I feel like you haven't really lived in Portland until you've been to VooDoo Donuts.  It's practically a rite of passage you have to do once you move here.

2. Go to the Rose Garden.  Portland isn't called the City of Roses for nothing!  I've passed through it once before on my way to the Japanese Gardens when I visited Brian back in March, but the roses weren't in bloom, so I'm not really sure that counts.  I want to go when there's roses everywhere and it's (hopefully!) warm so I can go around and smell all the lovely flowers and take all the pictures.

3. Go to a Timbers game.  I haven't been the one to go to a lot of sporting events, but I want to?  I love the full experience of being in the thick of it all:  being immersed in all that energy and spirit and beer and foooood. Crossing my fingers that there'll be good wine, too.

4. Tour the Shanghai tunnels. This will definitely be a huge milestone for me because I don't do scary.  But lately Brian and I have been watching Ghost Adventures and now I feel like I'm up to it.  I'm going to make myself do it and it'll be alright because I'll have friends with me and we won't run into any ghosts. Nope.  Zak Bagans, give me strength!

5. Hike at Mt. Hood.  I love love love mountains.  I grew up in a valley, so it's nice to have moved somewhere where a gigantic piece of geographical beauty is visible from my drive home from work.  It reminds me of home a little bit, but our mountains just seem like great, big, rolling hills in comparison.

photo cred: Brian again

6. Go see Multnomah Falls and the Gorge.  My boyfriend's been to the falls and he said it's beautiful.  I had the opportunity to see it when we were making the final stretch of our road trip across the country, but dumb me didn't look in time, so I missed it.  We drove alongside the Gorge as we were making our way through northern Oregon, and it was so picturesque and beautiful that I absolutely have to go back and visit!

Hopefully I'll finish this all within the next year (and hopefully before my one year anniversary of moving to Portland hits!)  If you're from the area or have visited before, let me know what to add!

Quote of the day: "I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list."