The smell of the ocean

I'm in Portland Coffee Roasting- low-key coffee shop by the waterfront in Portland. Good coffee - but it's not a polished presentation. Nice - after spending quite a few hours in Boston coffee shops earlier this week. Soft folk music playing. People of all sorts dropping in for lunch. The floor is cracked. The chairs are old and don't match. The ceiling is of pressed tin. Creations of some local artists hang on the walls.

I used to live in this town, before I moved to Russia the first time, 12 years ago. It's a wonderful small city. Large enough to have a cultural life, but small enough to be manageable.

Here are a few shots from the waterfront....

(Yes - that's a piece of the Berlin Wall that rests near one of the wharves.)