Welcome to Oregon! (written Sunday, November 7, 2010)

Hello from Oregon! It’s been a really long time since I posted an update… I was really afraid this was going to happen… so there are a lot of new things to talk about!

So in no particular order:

1. Yes, I’m in OREGON! It’s awesome here… I’m here with my Team, and we’re staying in this little town of 7000 called Silverton. It’s a pretty quaint little place. We love it here!

2. Also, I have a TEAM now! Last time I wrote, I was talking about my Pod, which was a pretty awesome bunch of 8 individuals. My Team has 10 people on it, so it’s a bit bigger than the Pod, but it’s definitely not any less awesome. The picture on the right? That's me and my team right after we built our team box (which we put in our van to hold supplies and stuff).

3.  After two months, we’re finally done with training! I know last time I posted, the Corps Members had just arrived, but we went through a whole month of training with them. I’m really glad to be done with training… it’s nice to not have to spend most of your day in a classroom, haha.

4.  Our first day of work is tomorrow, and we’re doing work at the Oregon Garden, a botanical garden in Silverton, OR. It’s an hour south of Portland. It’s looking like it will be a pretty awesome project!

5.  No longer are we living in the dorm-like buildings in Sacramento… now we’re living in a 4 bedroom, 1 bathroom (eek) house with a kitchen, dining/living room and den. There’s no internet here though, so I have to go to a coffee shop in town (only a 5 min drive) in order to get internet. Minor inconvenience aside, the coffee shop is awesome and I definitely don’t mind going!

I feel like there are a ton of other things to update about, but for now I think this will do. Let’s talk about the town of Silverton!

I was actually a bit apprehensive about living in Silverton at first, only because it is such a small town. There are 7000 people in Silverton, so after Sacramento, this place is TINY! There is one stoplight in town, I think… and when we went on a tour of Silverton our first day here, it took all of 10 minutes to walk around town haha. Coming here, I was pretty worried that there would be nothing to do and that we would be isolated and bored… but that doesn’t seem like it will be the case, which I’m very happy about.

Pretty much everything in Silverton is local and quaint, and it’s pretty awesome even if it’s really small, haha. We’ve eaten at a few restaurants here, and all of them have been pretty fantastic. We had brunch at this place in Silverton called O’Brien’s yesterday morning, and the pancakes were seriously so big that they covered the entire dinner plate they were served on!! The picture on the right is from our brunch there.

I think my favorite thing about Silverton though is the people. Everyone here is so incredibly friendly and easy to talk to. I have had at least two conversations with strangers here in Silverton that were over an hour. It’s awesome! There is this guy Monty who runs this Green store (about sustainability) that has a coffee shop in it (and wireless!) and he is just the most fun guy to talk to. When he talks to you he is always smiling (even his eyes), and it makes it hard for you to do anything but smile, too. People here are so friendly, it’s not to be friendly back. And they seem to love living in Oregon. Which makes it hard to not love spending time here!

So things are pretty awesome up/over here in Oregon. I’ll write more about the Oregon Garden tomorrow once we’ve had our first day of work (a picture of the Amazing Water Garden area of the OG is to the right). I am thinking it will be pretty sweet. I am really excited about this project!

And I’m really excited to work with my team. I think we’ll have a lot of challenges this year but so far I have been very impressed by the people who have stepped up to mentor and lead the rest of the group when they need to. As a Team Leader, my goal is to make sure everyone on my Team is being pushed and is growing and getting as much out of the experience as they can, and that can be a tough responsibility. But so far I’ve been loving being a Field Team Leader, and I am VERY much looking forward to growing and improving my Team and myself these next 9 months!