Really far. On November 26, 2012, we packed up my boyfriend's car and moved from San Antonio, TX all the way to Portland, OR. The trip took three days. We traveled through western Texas, New Mexico, the corner of Colorado, Utah, Idaho and, finally, Oregon. We saw some beautiful country. Each state is just a little different from one another and greatly different from my native Iowa. It always seemed that there were mountains visible wherever we were. We were worried about driving through the Rockies this time of year, but lucked out. There was only snow a few places and really only on the eastern sides of slopes or the very tops of mountains. Overall, it was a pleasant, if long, drive. The only scary part was an area called "The Cabbage" just before reaching The Dalles in Oregon. Six miles of hairpin turns on six percent slopes. My boyfriend drove. I closed my eyes at times. We survived!
We've had a couple months to settle in now. I love our neighborhood. I can walk to everywhere I need and take cheap public transportation anywhere else I'd want to go. There are tons of cool little shops nearby and a million new restaurants. One of myy favorite restaurants thus far is Cadillac Cafe near our apartment which makes an amazing pork loin sandwich with apples and bleu cheese. Holy buckets that is a good sandwich! My next favorite restaurant is the Zeus Cafe in downtown. We went there last Friday with a friend of ours and I had a bleu cheese and steak salad (I've been on a bleu cheese kick), my boyfriend had a duck confit pizza (OMG), and our friend had duck with farro risotto that she said was amazing. We split an order of truffle fries with black garlic aeoli. Seriously, aeoli is where it's at. We've been to the Zeus Cafe a few times on a Friday night and have befriended one of the bartenders. I think Zeus Cafe will be our new "place."
One of the best parts of our move is that, of last week, I am employed! Backtracking a little, while in San Antonio I worked training parrots at SeaWorld. It was fun for the most part, but the hours weren't reliable so I was pretty stressed out. I now work full time at a fancy gourmet kitchen shop just a block away. I love working full time. I love working so close to home. I love working with kitchen stuff and am looking forward to learning more!
So far this move has been great!
