18.3.09

LET IT BE KNOWN.

It looks to be almost certain that on Friday, Portland Oregon will be announced as the site for a new MLS team to play starting in April 2011. That gives me about nine months after graduation to get settled back in Portland to be there in PGE Park just in time for our opening match against the hated Seattle Sounders. Coupled with the ascension of the Blazers in recent years, it's going to be a great couple years for Portland sports. I can't wait to rent an apartment in north portland and bike downtown every day to work, timbers games, coffee shops, house shows, concerts in basements, voodoo doughnuts, and the like. All I have to do is score a sweet job fighting gentrification or promoting alternative transportation; everything about my idealized perfect portland life is falling into place.


I'm still in Cape Town, and the city is still beautiful. I never have time to get in depth about things I'd like to blog about, like how this is a ridiculous place for a city, or how neoliberalism sucks and is transforming the way cities exist in the 21st century (in especially profound ways for cities in the global south), how much people overlook ecology, and the generally problematic exportation and adoration of American suburbs in cities around the world. Nevertheless, I am well, and I have another couple days with my family in the Bokaap before we move out to families in Langa, a township on the periphery of town. I then have a week vacation to myself, and as of right now, I'm thinking I'm going to follow the aforementioned Amanda Garant on the backpacker's express "BazBus", and see how far around the coast I can make it before I have to hightail it back to Cape Town for a flight to Vietnam.

Last night, we celebrated St Patricks Day at a jazz club, and came back to our houses in the Bokaap and watched a fire burn along the edge of Table Mountain, with the city in the foreground covered in smoke. Scary, but beautiful. Photos are following; I'm terrified to take my camera anywhere with the risk of mugging, so I might wait until we get to Langa or perhaps even Vietnam to start extensively uploading photos of penguins, Cape Point, Valhalla Park, and anywhere else my travels take me. Keep in touch dear reader, I am only an email away at ambrown at macalester dot edu, and I would love to hear from you.

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