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we're in Portland!
Mar. 18th, 2010 02:43 pmIt's Spring Break, woooo! It's a pretty crazy adventure we're on. So adventurous, that right now we're at a coffee shop in Portland. It's beautiful and sunshiny.
We're staying at Jeff and Beth's house -- it's really nice of them to let us stay there. In return, we're taking care of their adorable dog Molly and their pile o' cats. Quite a deal! We've been walking all over the place, finding friends expectedly and unexpectedly, and eating delicious food. It's really great to be here! We'll be here until Saturday.
To get here, though -- on Saturday, we drove to Chicago to hang out with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lindseykuper's family, which is always pleasant. There was an interesting emergency that prompted the visit -- Lindsey's mom needed campaign photos, because there's going to be a special election for her County Treasurer position...
Also, Mayaleadsynth showed us both the movie that she helped make (she did the audio) and the recording studio where she works. A professional recording studio is a beautiful thing! And the movie was pretty great. And full of naked people -- this is expected, since it's about a nudist resort.
On Monday, we got on the Amtrak in Chicago, and on Wednesday morning we got off in Portland. I was pretty glad to get off. It's probably more comfortable than you would expect -- but 46 hours on a train is a long time. It also turns out to be a pretty good environment for getting a lot of work done; we had some interesting conversations with the other passengers too. We spoke to a mechanical engineer who told us about how bad the engineering practice was at his job, and his son who was on his way for college visits. Another interesting couple, also on their way to Portland, talked with us about the difficulties of translation -- he's a Lutheran pastor who occasionally debates about Koine Greek and Aramaic (particular words in really old texts apparently don't have clear meanings, and it's really hard to find out what they might be! He said "oh man, in your case, you can go talk to people who actually speak the language!"), and she's a cheerful somewhat-goth massage therapist who sometimes has trouble explaining her vegetarianism at church potlucks. (but she's found scriptural backup, apparently. Even if she was originally inspired by Moby.)
We're staying at Jeff and Beth's house -- it's really nice of them to let us stay there. In return, we're taking care of their adorable dog Molly and their pile o' cats. Quite a deal! We've been walking all over the place, finding friends expectedly and unexpectedly, and eating delicious food. It's really great to be here! We'll be here until Saturday.
To get here, though -- on Saturday, we drove to Chicago to hang out with
lindseykuper's family, which is always pleasant. There was an interesting emergency that prompted the visit -- Lindsey's mom needed campaign photos, because there's going to be a special election for her County Treasurer position...Also, Maya
leadsynth showed us both the movie that she helped make (she did the audio) and the recording studio where she works. A professional recording studio is a beautiful thing! And the movie was pretty great. And full of naked people -- this is expected, since it's about a nudist resort.On Monday, we got on the Amtrak in Chicago, and on Wednesday morning we got off in Portland. I was pretty glad to get off. It's probably more comfortable than you would expect -- but 46 hours on a train is a long time. It also turns out to be a pretty good environment for getting a lot of work done; we had some interesting conversations with the other passengers too. We spoke to a mechanical engineer who told us about how bad the engineering practice was at his job, and his son who was on his way for college visits. Another interesting couple, also on their way to Portland, talked with us about the difficulties of translation -- he's a Lutheran pastor who occasionally debates about Koine Greek and Aramaic (particular words in really old texts apparently don't have clear meanings, and it's really hard to find out what they might be! He said "oh man, in your case, you can go talk to people who actually speak the language!"), and she's a cheerful somewhat-goth massage therapist who sometimes has trouble explaining her vegetarianism at church potlucks. (but she's found scriptural backup, apparently. Even if she was originally inspired by Moby.)
