II received today! I'm beyond stoked, this is a dream school for me. I may stick around Portland for a couple days, what are some cool places too check out around the area?
Congratulations!
The Oregon Coast is beautiful but cold, Cannon beach is ~1.5 hours away. I would recommend the Columbia Gorge highly but it just went through a major fire and is probably mostly closed still. There are a lot of other really cool outdoorsy areas around such as Oxbow Park (Kinda out of the way), Forest Park (Huge, beautiful), Mt Hood (Year-round skiing/boarding, 1 hour away), Sauvies Island, and the many other parks within city limits. If you are a fisherman you may be interested in a guide service if you will be there around Salmon/Steelhead season. Pittock mansion is a decent place to visit and gives a spectacular view of the city from the hills; also has connections to the 4T's hiking trail.
OMSI is a cool museum that often has some killer attractions. I've seen exhibits ranging from the Human Body exhibit to Retro Gaming. There is a jet-boat tour of the Willamette river if that is your kind of thing that is based out of OMSI.
Avoid any of the downtown haunted history tours or the Shanghai tours, they are ridiculous.
I do recommend The Saturday Market if you stay over the weekend, it has a lot of cool things to buy and look at.
I would recommend McMenamins establishments, food is fine if not somewhat overpriced but they have some very cool properties (Old schools, barns, etc) such as the Kennedy School and Edgefield (which has concerts too). These two McMenamins have multiple bars and restaurants on property and usually some cool other features such as warm water salt pools and theaters. Some of them also have hotel rooms, not sure which.
There is a good bar/club scene but I am not very familiar with it.
SE Hawthorne, NE Mississippi, NE Alberta arts district are all hip areas but certainly not the only ones.
Voodoo donuts is a popular tourist spot, it has strange donuts and a cool atmosphere, funny enough I hear locals always talking about how Blue Star donuts is vastly superior but I have hated every donut I have eaten from there.
Anyways... lots of cool things to do and see and I certainly did not include all of them. Have fun in PDX! p.s. the airport is awesome and has cheap food.