reflections in focus: Portland!

Portland is like a life size Gilmore Girls. The homes are all cute and unique with great architecture and beautiful flowers. Everybody has bumper stickers and posters and signs supporting their various political/environmental/social concerns plastered on cars, bikes, windows, doors, siding, sidewalks... etc etc. All the stores are little family owned businesses, from Maine Hardware to Paul's food to Yarn on the Brain to the burrito place underneath my worker's center. You see the same people all over the place and they all know each other. The local papers are full of neighborly gossip and there are fun local events in the parks and squares almost every evening. It's fantastic!

So I created this blog to depart from so much writing and be a bit of a visual of my experiences...a summer in pictures!

Day one: We arrived in Portland after 12 hours of traveling and spent the night with a board member, who is probably the sweetest woman ever, in her wicked awesome house.

From the loft above their living room...with a woodburning stove!

This picture doesn't do it justice...they've remodeled most of the inside and it was just so cute! Also, they had chickens in the backyard. fantastic? yes.

That night we got dinner at a great little place called Silly's. Our meals were enormous and delicious and we're planning to go back to try their famous shakes...though probably not the signature peanut butter and bacon. yuck. It was a great intro into the wealth of restaurants in Portland (particularly since my whole job is to be aware of restaurant worker issues!) and Mackenzie and I got to go running in the fabulous sunny weather the next morning before heading into our first day of work!

Day 2: We took a quick tour of Portland.

View from the Casco Bay Bridge.

The Portland Medical Center and Downtown.

Then dropped our bags at our new home! Aren't the flowers just gorgeous?

And met up with our supervisors Genet, Paul, and Tracy. We walked through the farmers market and got lunch at a cute cafe called Mousse.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a little training and then left for a grant dinner with Maine's finest non-profits!

We met up with Ali again and she and Mackenzie discussed the finer points of solving worker injustice and the Employee Free Choice Act.

The cutest couple in the world! They were being recognized for their organizing efforts around healthcare for low income workers in the Portland Area. A dynamic Duo. I hope I'm still so passionate when I'm in my 80s!

A terrible shot of our crew...getting recognized for their work for Southern Maine Workers!

These Mainers...they're serious about being eco-friendly. (that's 'up for liquid waste and down for solids', in case you were wondering)

Finally, we got 'home' and got to unpacking. Our room is pretty cozy, but fits just right for the two of us. We've even got a little bathroom to ourselves!