Vampires in Portland?

Tom Cruise as Lestat de Lioncourt and Brad Pitt as Louis
de Pointe de Lac in Interview With a Vampire

Forget Transylvania, or even Forks, Washington (location of Twilight for all of you uniformed). If I were a vampire, Portland, Oregon would certainly be my city of choice. Like Forks, and probably Transylvania, it rains a lot, there's very little sunshine, lots of clouds and fog, and plenty of green forested areas in which to lurk. As a matter of fact, while I'm here on the 3rd stop of my family-visit sojourn, I'm staying at my brother's house in a suburb just outside of Portland; even here, in this neatly manicured corner of the world, you can find a bit of forest here, a stand of pines there. One minute you're at a mini-mall, the next you're driving under a canopy of ancient firs eerie enough even for Sookie and Bill (of True Blood - come on, people, get with it!)

Oh, but Portland isn't all burb-claves and big box stores - far from it. Get out of the suburbs and into Portland proper and there are hillsides of cottage-y homes and winding streets, so green, so lush with vegetation that I was pretty sure I saw a werewolf the other night as I was leaving my aunt's house. And old Portland, what I think is referred to as the Hawthorne District, is all vintage clothing stores, tattoo parlors, pubs, and old, old houses, shrouded in shrubbery. Such hip-looking people slouch about that area, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Lestat de Lioncourt sipping an espresso in some neighborhood boÎte. Portland is cool. Portland is creepy. Someone oughta write a series about it.