For the 20th year in a row, Pioneer Courthouse Square will host the ever popular Noon Tunes Concert Series that will entertain crowds of thousands every Tuesday and Thursday from Noon-1:00pm.
The festival runs through July and August and is completely free!
The Noon Tunes Concert Series showcases the best in regional and local musical talent. If you get there early, you can enjoy a FREE bottle of organic Honest Tea at the concert!
Now go and enjoy some live music!
This Sunday is Independence Day in the U.S.A., so be sure to get out of the house and watch some fireworks! There are 3 places you can go in Portland to see some great displays!
Waterfront Park – Fireworks begin at 10:05 p.m.
At Waterfront Park on the Willamette River, you can enjoy both the Waterfront Blues Festival and a Fourth of July fireworks display! You do not have to pay to find a place on the grass next to the river and enjoy the fireworks. If you want to the fireworks burst above the Portland skyline, then watch from the east side of the river from the East Bank Esplanade!
Oaks Park - Fireworks begin at 9:55 p.m.
This is a park on the east side of the Willamette River, a few miles south of downtown Portland. Picnic spaces are available (first come, first served), and there will be live music on the Comcast Stage throughout the day. Admission is $4 for age 16 and older, $2.50 for 15 and younger.
PGE Park – Fireworks begin at 7:05 p.m.
The Portland Beavers baseball team plays against the Las Vegas 51s (Admission $8-$15). After the game, you can watch a fireworks display. You can watch from the bleachers, or from 18th Avenue for FREE!
If you love beer and love the Earth, then you must come this weekend to the North American Organic Brewers Festival, at Overlook Park in North Portland! At the festival you can taste organic beers and ciders from around the world, listen to live music, try organic food, and learn about what you can do to protect the Earth through recycling. This festival is one of the best kept secrets of Portland!
Admission into the Festival is free, but to taste beer you need to buy a glass and tokens. On Friday & Saturday, the Festival runs from Noon to 9 p.m. , and on Sunday from Noon to 5 p.m.
To get to the Festival, take the MAX/Yellow Line north to “Overlook Park” Station. Overlook Park is located at 1301 N. Fremont Street. If you take the MAX, you get a $1 discount off your tasting glass! Click here for a schedule of live music. See you there!
Looking for something fun to do later this month? Then you must head to the Festival of Balloons, held just south of Portland at Cook Park, during the weekend of June 25th – 27th. Get there early in the morning to watch the balloons launch into the sky, then spend the afternoon exploring the arts & crafts booth, listening to live music, enjoying carnival rides, and tasting local food and drink at the Rogue Brewery Beer Garden!
Be sure to stay until Friday & Saturday night, when the balloon are lit up from the inside and launched once again to glow in the night sky. It’s a wonderful opportunity experience a one-of-a-kind Oregon festival!
Admission cost is $5; parking, rides, food and drink cost extra. Click here for directions and maps on how to get to the Festival of Balloons. See you there!
For two weeks now, our students have beening enjoying fireworks, live music, parades, and carnival rides at the 101st Portland Rose Festival. A number of PELA students were also able to tour the U.S. Navy ships docked at Portland Waterfront Park, where they got to explore the innerworkings of modern battleships.
Tomorrow, Saturday June 12th, beginning at 10:00 a.m. is the climax of the Rose Festival, the Grand Floral Parade! Click here for a map of the parade route.
Next week, we will welcome students from many countries, including Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia!
This Saturday, June 12th, PELA students are invited to participate in the annual Kids Free Fishing Day at Hagg Lake. Every year, hundreds of foster children enjoy a day fishing at the lake, with volunteers providing breakfast and lunch, along with fishing poles, tackle and bait.
This PELA Volunteer Event is a great opportunity for our students to interact with local children and adults in a fun-filled setting, getting to use their English in the real world as well as learn a little bit about American culture.
Foster children are kids who have been placed (by the government) in the homes of someone other than their parents–usually because the parents are unable to care for the children or the children were mistreated by their parents.
In the United States, there are many volunteer organizations which help needy children and families, and every year PELA works with several of these groups to bring happiness and love into the lives of people of all ages.
A highlight of the 3-week long Portland Rose Festival is this Saturday, June 5th, is the Starlight Run, a fun-filled 5-km run through the streets of downtown Portland. More than 4,000 runners a year dress up in costumes and compete in a Costume Contest, then begin the race!
The Costume Contest is at 7:00 p.m. in front of Lincoln High School (SW 16th & Salmon). The Race begins at 7:45 p.m. Click here for a map of the route.
Also on Saturday, after the Starlight Run, you can enjoy the Starlight Parade! The parade begins at 8:30 p.m. at East Burnside and 8th Avenue, you can watch traditional marching bands and floats celebrate the Rose Festival with a parade that draws in some 250,000 Oregonians to downtown Portland.
Click here for a map of the route.
If you’re looking for a unique activity this week in Portland, you need to go to the Rose Festival and experience Fleet Week! Between June 2-6, huge ships from the United States Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian Maritime Forces arrive from around the world for a 4-day visit to Portland. Portlanders can take tours of the ships, seeing a little bit of how a huge naval ship operates.
Fleet week began in 1907, when the USS Charleston was the first ship to visit the Portland Rose Festival.
During Fleet Week, you can tour naval ships between 9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Admission is FREE!
This is a great time for new students coming to Portland. This week we are welcoming new students Columbia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Japan, Peru, Korea, Venezuela, Mexico, Taiwan, and Peru!
Portland is a great place for local artists of all kinds–painters, actors, musicians–and on the last Thursday of each month, Alberta Street in Northeast Portland closes to cars and opens its sidewalks to Last Thursday!
At Last Thursday, you can unusual street musicians, fire-dancers, acrobatic shows, and parades of colorfully decorated bicycles. Artists show their artwork on the sidewalk, and there are many art galleries along Alberta, too. You can also taste many different kinds of foods on Alberta at the many restaurants and sidewalk food carts, so Portlanders can spend the entire evening walking down Alberta. So come to Portland and see a unique part of American culture!
This weekend is Americans celebrate Memorial Day, a holiday honoring men and women who have died fighting for the U.S.
Because it is a 3-day weekend, many Portlanders head out of town on vacation or stay in town and enjoy the beginning of the Portland Rose Festival! The Portland Rose Festival is a 2-week long festival with parades, parties, races and performances throughout the city. Starting this week, several of PELA’s Volunteer students will be helping create floats for the Rose Festival Parade.
Also this weekend, more than 140 wineries are open to the public during Memorial Weekend in the Wine Country, west of Portland. Many of these wineries are not open at any other time during the year. Festivities include tasting of new releases and older vintages, barrel tastings, specialty foods and sales of limited quantity wines. Some wineries have live music and some charge a tasting fee.
