Sep 10 2007
More New Mainers
We continue to meet new Mainers up here. She was considering offering tutoring in French and so took a look at Craig’s List to see what might be out there. While perusing the listings, she came across a listing offering tutoring from a woman whose background was surprising similar to hers–a degree from SUNY Albany and time studying in France (Paris vs. Tours). And she’d just moved to Portland to boot. She emailed this other woman to see if we might get together for drinks.
We got a call back Saturday evening and agreed to meet at Wine Bar in Old Port at around 9:00. We got there at just about 9:00 after finding a surprisingly good parking spot on Commercial St. Things really quiet down after Labor Day I guess. We had no idea what our counterparts for the evening looked like (She had neglected to get any kind of details about appearance or apparel), but a quick phone call informed that we’d ended up sitting right behind them.
What followed was a lovely two-hour chat about life in Portland and teaching (it turns out that both of our companions for the evening were teachers). I avoided most of the talk about teaching, but we very much enjoyed discussing our new city. It turns out that this other couple had just moved up here one week ago, and they’d also come for no particular reason other than liking Portland. We had lots of restaurant and pub recommendations for them. She and I were pleased to hear that it sounded like we’d been in Portland for a year. Not quite…but we’ve certainly tried hard to explore our city since we’ve gotten here. Much of that exploration has been chronicled here, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it. Thanks, J & B, for a lovely evening. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
We also have dinner plans to meet with the publisher of The Monocle and his wife for Thursday night. That will make three couples we’ve met up here through the Internet. Pretty good for six weeks I’d say.