I’m back! From a hopefully short-lived extremely busy time at both work and home and everywhere in between. And yes, I have some new exciting information for you. This will likely not be a surprise to most anyone, but Portland has come in as number 10 on Walk Score’s top 10 most walkable cities, with the Pearl, Old Town/Chinatown, and Downtown all being our most walkable neighborhoods. Looking through the other cities, all of the “most walkable neighborhoods” are in downtown areas, which seems to be a “well, duh,” statement to me, since, well… duh. Of course the more urban areas tend to be more “walkable” with the increase in amenities in a small area. Anyhow, iff you haven’t checked out your neighborhood’s Walk Score, fill in your address and compare against your friends’ neighborhoods. My own Center comes in with a score of 80 (with my more immediate area coming in with a 71/100 – very walkable, though for some reason the map does not see some amenities near my place, like the QFC on Burnside, but denotes some businesses incorrectly, like Commercial Refrigeration on Glisan as a restaurant). And in fact, I do tend to walk to a number of places in my ‘hood often. This is a fantastic tool for checking out other possible neighborhoods for relocation (also points out how many bars there are, whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you).

Speaking of bars, the boyfriend and I will be hitting up the Brewers’ Fest tomorrow at opening time. As these type of things tend to grow exponentially each year, I’m excited about trying all of the tasty wares, but I’m not too excited about the possible hours of waiting in line. If things look too bad, we may just head to Belmont Station to attend the tapping there of some kegs not featured at the OBF. Have I mentioned that I’ve been here now a year? My Portlandversary was on 7/15, and I can’t think of another place (within reason) I would rather be. ^_^