Oregon

Part 10


Goodbye
I have to admit that I am delaying the tenth post of each page on purpose, as it means ending my online journey. I truly enjoyed exploring Oregon and learning about it. I hope I will have the opportunity to visit its beautiful sights one day. Right now it seems as an impossible dream, but I am an optimist. Thank you for being so inspiring Oregon and goodbye for now. L

For the end of this journey I will take a walk around Portland and I invite you all to come with me.
I find the music in this video to be very emotional and I could say it somehow describes my feelings about the end of this online journey.

Part 9


Ducks
It wasn’t my intention at first to write too much about sport. I love playing sport, mostly table tennis (ping pong) these days, but I used to play football and volleyball a lot as a kid. Nowadays, I usually mind sportsmen being paid so much, while all the other professions are understated. However, I consider the sport itself to be very important for developing team spirit, to keep fit and stay healthy.

While searching for Oregon’s most important things in various areas I often came across Ducks. Duck here, Ducks there, Ducks everywhere :) Finally, I had to read more about them and it seems American football is as important in Oregon as soccer is in Serbia. If interested in Serbian sports, please take a look at Serbia page.

To  me, the most interesting video about Ducks was the one I published below. I never knew there was something called ‘a pump-up video’, which are viewed by the entire team prior to locker-room exit on game day. I also wonder should I have created a pump-up video for me and my classmates as we are approaching the grand finale. Here is one pump-up video created for Ducks with some interesting messages.

Part 8


Warning: Get a tissue before watching the following video. Here is how one guy from Portland, Oregon, has recently proposed his girlfriend:

''On Wed. May 23rd I told my girlfriend, Amy, to meet me at my parent's house. When she arrived I had stationed my brother to sit her on the back of a Honda CRV with some headphones on..."






Part 7

University of Oregon

The Universityof Oregon (UO) is a public university in Eugene, Oregon and it was founded in 1876. Eugene reminds me a lot of my home city Kragujevac. They are both university cities with approximately the same population, although my city is a lot bigger, but Eugene has more students. What I especially like about UO is its beautiful campus, parks, great facilities and very well organized outdoor activities. No wonder Eugene is called the best city for arts and outdoor activities. The mascot of the University of Oregon is the fighting duck and its motto is Minds Move the Mass.

Here are two  interesting videos presenting the UO and its campus and you can find a great video on alternative assessment here.

Part 6


Finding Oregon


For this week I have chosen two amazing videos.



Finding Oregon is the compilation of six months of timelapse photography across the state of Oregon, punctuated by a 1600 mile road trip.

Part 5


Portland


Portland is Oregon's most populous city, with approximately 583,776 people. The most common nickname for Portland is The City of Roses and this became the city's official nickname in 2003. Its official bird is Blue Heron.

The Portland Public Schools district consists of about 100 schools and about 53,000 students.. In Portland you may also find one of the biggest book stores ever, that spans an entire city block. There are more than 28 breweries in the city. The major industries are tourism, high-tech (hence the nickname Silicon Forest), health care and manufacturing and the biggest area employers are Intel and Nike. 

Portland is also home to Mill Ends Park, the smallest park in the world. 

One of my friends told me that there is a smell of sea in the air, although Portland is not on the coast, but it’s because the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers is near. I wonder if that is true.

Part 4


Oregon facts and trivia

The small village of Bickelton in Oregon is filled with bluebird houses seen on the posts of every house.

Oregon is home to the world’s shortest river. The D River is only 121 feet long.

In 1905, the largest log cabin in the world was built in Oregon in honor of the Lewis and Clark expedition.


In 1971 Oregon became the first state to ban the use of non-returnable bottles and cans.


More Oregon facts and trivia can be read here.



Part 3


Swimming with sharks

While searching for some interesting Oregon attractions, I came across Oregon Coast Aquarium. 

The Oregon Coast Aquarium is an amazing marine educational attraction nestled on beautiful Yaquina Bay in Newport, Oregon. Not only did I like what I saw on YouTube, but I was also impressed by their website . There is even a page for teacher resources with lots of activities. I didn’t even know that there were so many different types of sharks, but I found it out here.

The Aquarium itself offers various activities, such as exhibits, educational programs, animal encounters and even adopting animals. Of course, the most exciting for me would be this one shown in the video, but I’m not sure if I would dare to try it out.

Part 2

Famous people from Oregon

I was curious about famous people from Oregon. Until yesterday, I had heard of only two of them, Jodi and Celeste, but after a short research I came across many names, mostly unfamiliar to me.  There were a lot of actors, musicians, sportsmen, fashion models, politicians and so on. However, one of the names caught my eye: Matt Groening.

I have seen his name numerous times on TV and it always brought about 25 minutes of a good laugh. Matt Groening is a cartoonist and a creator of The Simpsons.

I’m sure you have all heard of this animated TV show and if not, then I strongly recommend watching it. I’m a huge fan of The Simpsons and they have been very popular here for almost a decade.

And here is what my new favourite search engine Biography.com says about Matt: Matt Groening - biography.

To be continued..


Part 1

Oregon.. hmm.. what do I know about it? It’s an American state.. on the Pacific coast.. I’ve heard about Portland so that’s probably its capital city.. hmm…  what else… actually that’s it.

I like travelling and I like learning about other countries and cultures a lot. So one of my three tasks would be to find out more things about Oregon.

I have to tell you a story first. It was Monday, 9 April, I woke up, took the remote, turned the TV on and what do you know, the first thing I saw was actually Oregon!!!

Ok, let’s clear this out. I am not a superstitious person, at least not too superstitious, but I thought this had to be a sign of something. I am still not sure a sign of what, but at least it inspired me to learn more about this state.

What I saw on TV was actually a documentary about people who survived in some amazing situations. One of the story was about a father and a son from Oregon, who survived a landslide. One minute they were in a car, the next one the hill with the trees and earth carried by the flood was after them!!? The son was actually recording everything and I hope to find the video and show it to you. Fortunately, they both survived .

What I also learned in the documentary was something called a “pineapple express”. No, it’s not a nice cocktail nor it has to do anything with movies, it’s actually related to weather conditions and it brings heavy rains. Find out more here.

Back to Oregon. The largest city is Portland, but the capital city is Salem. Oregon is considered to be the 9^th American State by its area (at least Wikipedia says so) and it has about 4 million people.