Hi everyone! Happy summer!!!!!
Hope you are loving it. Summer is the best. I live for summer. I have had some requests for a blog so, I am aiming to please. Everyone is dying to hear what it's like in Maine! ;)
I've been here about 3 months now & so far it is really great! As you may know, I moved here from Oregon to go to school to become a nurse practitioner. I started school in May, my summer schedule is pretty light & my classes & classmates are great. It has been interesting having the mindset of a chiropractor & now learning all this crazy stuff like pharmacology, how to give injections, set up IV bags, etc... The mentality is fairly different for me & no one really seems to question the efficacy of western medicine. This is interesting to me but, I am open minded and like learning stuff & expanding my views. I'm glad I have all the background knowledge I do, it's quite helpful & gives me an interesting perspective. My schedule is going to get a lot more intense in September when I start clinicals, in my bright blue scrubs. I have always wanted to wear scrubs, next time I will stage a good photo in those beauties. I was worried I'd be a really elderly in my classes but, there are several ladies who are around my same age. In my program there are about 20 of us, only one male.
Portland is a really awesome small city. I stayed with my old pal Melissa & her fam for a while before moving into my own place in the downtown zone. Summer is the time to be on the coast of Maine, I get the sense that everyone is all frenetic about it because winter is going to suck really hard. Or I could be wrong, I mean, I must be wrong. Hoping on global warming to help me out here. :) I'm planning to take up an obsession with cross country skiing to help me with the winter blues I'm already imagining... Oh my, best to enjoy the lovely summer while it's here rather than think about that. I've been going to the beach a bunch, these Maine beaches & the coastline are absolutely gorgeous! Maine is the summer vacay place for a lot of people, I feel lucky to be in such a beautiful place. The Mainers are pretty nice so far, they remind me of midwesterners but with a different accent & saying WICKED a bunch. People really do say that, it's like the hella of the east. Maine is not known to be culturally diverse, meaning a lot of white folks but, there are some large immigrant populations here in town so, that is interesting. I wound up living in a slightly seedy, more diverse neighborhood. It feels fairly urban but, not at all unsafe.
Here are some pics, some are on the older side but they made the cut. Seems like I haven't been focusing on photos too much here in Maine, I will have to do better with that.
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| these flowers @ the grand lake farmer's market in Oakland |
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| cannot resist flower photos |
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| Boo-ya! Besties in SF :) |
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| oh San Francisco, so colorful, so victorian.. |
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| visited my pals Penny, Mark & Quinn in Oregon before blasting across the country. miss you guys! |
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| Como Conservatory, St. Paul MN |
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| mom requested we do a "selfie", which I think she learned about watching too much Ellen. haha (teasing) |
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| this cat! yay, got my sweet kitty back |
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| Crescent Beach, 15 min from Portland |
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| new nursing duds, i was psyched to get an ugly/cute pair of white clogs |
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| ah yes, this one's for you Kelly, soaking up some beach time for you over here... |
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| haha, these are some of my buddies that I hang out with in lab at school. we've got mannequins for everything imaginable. |
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| these dudes are freaky |
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| my other new buddies, Melissa's kiddos |
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| pier @ Old Orchard Beach |
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| a classic little carnival |
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| downtown Portland |
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| view from a nice park to hang out at in Portland, the eastern promenade |
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| visited some lovely botanical gardens, thus all these flowers... |
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| 4th of July was a fun scene, a billion people sitting on the lawn of the promenade watching fireworks coordinated to live symphony music. go USA! |
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| this one's for you mom, nothing more adorable than this cat. |
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| live music downtown |
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| rode the bike to Portland Head Light, real pretty out here |
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| I went on a sailing mission with Melissa the other weekend, it was super duper awesome! |
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| Melissa @ the tiller |
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| i was happy |
There you go! A lot of these pics are instagrammed, sorry if you've seen them all, it's all I've got at the moment. This is about the full report on Portland, I am enjoying myself. I've made 3-5 friends & am keeping busy with school, fitness, yoga, bike riding, beaching, making kombucha, reading game of thrones, my usual stuff, etc. I am hoping to go up to Acadia National Park one of these weekends but have not been prioritizing that well enough. Also, I would really like to do a b-pack trip on the AT (appalachian trail) & ping Mt. Kathadin. I will get around to it. I have a 2 week break from school coming up & I am taking myself to Italy. I am REALLY excited. I've been missing it ever since I left. I will definitely keep you posted on that.
Thanks for reading & catching up, stay in touch :)
xo
A
